Poll - Favorite Assault Rifle

[Raellus]

Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic

I tend to believe that a lot of the problems with dropping Fedayeen in OIF1 came down to over-penetration/low damage of the 5.56mm M855 ammo and the fact that the Fedayeen were very well motivated by religious belief rather than the idea that they were 'hopped up' on drugs.

You're probably right. The sight of enemy fighters taking multiple hits and still kicking has got to have a pretty powerful psychological impact on the folks who witness it (and the shooters especially). As a result, those stories tend to get passed around and the idea that that sort of thing is the norm tends to spread quickly.

In the book Blackhawk Down, Somali fighters are described as being hopped up on a popular, locally grown stimulant called Khat [sic]. Some of the American Delta boys were using titatium-tipped 5.56mm ammo in their M4s and they apparently passed right through their unarmored targets, who continued to fight as if nothing had happened. Regular 5.56mm had roughly the same effect in many cases.

During the battle of Fallujah, Marines found stockpiles of perscription stimulants, atropine, and adrenaline among insurgent weapons caches (No True Glory- Bing West; House to House- David Bellavia). Apparently, the insurgents were pumping themselves up for the fight. Once again, it was probably a relatively small number of fighters doing it, but the sight of one or two guys taking multiple rounds center mass or having limbs blown off and continuing to fight would tend to leave a pretty strong and frightening impression. Troops can be forgiven for spreading/believing those kinds of stories.

[HorseSoldier]

In Bowden's book, he talks about the same problem with 7.62x51 AP ammo through M60s.

When it's all said and done, people can be both surprisingly hard and surprisingly easy to kill, just depending. (That said, I agree on the issues with M855 -- problem I see with it is consistency, with way too much variation in terms of accuracy and lethality across lots due to the overly complex nature of the projectile.)

[Legbreaker]

Which is why AP shouldn't be standard issue....

[bobcat]

armor piercing ammo should only be issued out in large scale if your expecting armor wearing bad guys. ball ammo or hollow points for unarmored bad guys.(considering the hague only got a handful of countries to even show up let alone agree to the damned thing i see nothing wrong with dum dum bullets for a fight)

[HorseSoldier]

The restriction on projectiles intended to cause unnecessary suffering only applies to opponents who adhere to the laws of land warfare -- which insurgents can do, though the current crop of ass hats certainly fail to do.

As such, technically zapping them with the finest maiming technology modern science can dream up (as well as summary executions and other bits of extremity much frowned on these days) is permissible, though the political costs of such are obviously show stoppers.

[HorseSoldier]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

Which is why AP shouldn't be standard issue....

It was, apparently very popular in WW2 for use by BAR men in US formations because it penetrated structures and cover better. I've always wondered if the use of it in Somalia was someone looking backwards and thinking if it was good enough for D Day itches good enough for Mogadishu.