.50bmg and international law.

[Mike Irwin]

"I heard that statement going around the Army since the 80s. "It's illegal to use the .50 against personnel. It can only be used against equipment. You know, like trucks. Or belt buckles, LCE, stuff like that." Sometimes said as a joke, sometimes in seriousness."


I've always considered statements such as this to be akin to the Army firearms instructor telling a class that the 5.56 round is so effective because it comes out of the barrel of the M4 and immediately begins tumbling.

Or that the .45 ACP is SO effective and deadly that a hit to anywhere on the body, including the tip of the pinky finger, GUARANTEES immediate incapacitation, if not instant death.

Or that the 9mm is so poor a round that it's impossible to kill someone with it, the best you can hope for is to wound them.


I would think (but I'm not 100% sure) that if this oft-repeated legend (yes, I'm calling it a legend) WERE actually true, that there would be a lot of very nice, very readable paper on the subject originating from either the Judge Advocate General's Corps, directives from the Department of Defense, or both.

Yet, I can't find anything at all.

The old "well I didn't aim at the person, I aimed at equipment" is fun, but it's an absolutely ludicrous statement, a quibble, that I doubt would ever be an affirmative defense.

That's akin to saying "I wasn't targeting civilians with my napalm cannisters, I was targeting their huts."


Or my personal favorite, "I didn't break the lamp, the floor broke the lamp."

 

[Mike Irwin]

" HOWEVER, I do know for a fact of two Marines who used a Mk19 automatic grenade launcher on two IED emplacers who had NJPs (non judicial punishment/article 15) brought against them, requested Courts Martial, and lost."

I personally would like to see verification of that, for no other reason that it's been pretty common to use drone missile strikes against individuals emplacing IEDs, and a Hellfire launched from 30,000 feet by someone 5,000 miles away is about as indirect as you can get.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

I remember a discussion on the .50 supposedly only to be used in an anti-material role shortly while in a class related to the laws of land warfare while I was in the army. The sergeant teaching class made a comment about "shirt buttons are material, uniforms are material, anything a soldier carries is material".

Not sure how that would go over today but that was 1974 and the Southeast Asian war games were still ongoing.

It wasn't illegal then either. That buttons and shirts were being shot and not people is silly. Somebody back in '74 didn't know the law then either.

 

[Art Eatman]

Backing way up in time: I served in occupation duty in Korea in '54/'55. No combat--but I served with guys on second and even a very few on a third tour.

Ack-ack outfit. 50th AAA Bn. 32 M-16 halftracks with Quad-.50s and 32 M-19s with Twin 40mm.

One of the Batteries was at Chosin. The M-16s' Quad .50s were used against human-wave assaults. Worked well, but only for short-term engagement. Back up to the line, shoot for a brief period, then exit before one of those two-inch mortar shells dropped in "the box". Rinse and repeat.

A problem: Re-supply. Logistics. I can see why .50s were used somewhat sparingly in Vietnam. Fast rate of fire, 105 rounds per canister, heavy. A fire-base has it easier than do the folks out in the boonies. Call this an Olde Phart's opinion.

The only thing I've ever read, anywhere, about legalities of infantry weaponry, dealt with "dum-dum" or expanding bullets. Not the weapon itself. I'm not a military historian, but I've read a good bit about wars and gear, these last several decades.

 

[carguychris]

Historical footnote...

BTW, M2s were mounted in the wings of several fighters (some still are) that were routinely used in various conflicts for striating combatants on the ground.

.50-caliber M2 use in aircraft goes a little further than that. It was THE standard aerial machine gun used in virtually every aircraft used by the US Army Air Force and US Navy for most of WWII, in all combat applications- fighter wing guns, defensive bomber guns, you name it.

Many aircraft in service at the beginning of the war used .30-caliber M1919's, but these were largely phased out due to concerns about ineffectiveness against the larger bombers that were coming into service; by the end of the war, most of the US aircraft wielding .30's were trainers used for gunnery practice, or patrol and reconnaissance aircraft that weren't expected to need guns on a regular basis. Early in the war, when German aerial bombing of the American mainland was considered a legitimate threat, the USAAF experimented with 37mm M4 autocannon, but these were found to have too slow of a rate of fire, inadequate ammo capacity, and too much long-range bullet drop for practical combat use in fighters, and relatively few aircraft were equipped with them.

Some later versions of the B-25 Mitchell bomber were equipped with 18(!!) forward-firing .50-cal M2's- primarily for use against Japanese merchant ships, but you can be assured these were also used against Japanese ground positions!

Furthermore, the .50 continued to be the primary machine gun of the USAF through the Korean War era, although the Navy had largely transitioned to 20mm autocannon by then.

If WWII Lend-Lease aircraft are considered, the .50-cal M2 has probably been installed in more combat aircraft than any other machine gun, ever.

I'm thinking that the leaders of the USAAF and USN during WWII hadn't heard that it's unlawful to use this gun against ground forces.

 

[Theohazard]

I have been told by a former Ranger and sniper that it is against international law.

The military is full of rumors and bad information. I heard that same rumor throughout most of my Marine service. And I even believed it until a JAG officer told us it wasn't true.

 

[thallub]

During my military service there was never a policy stating the .50 BMG could not be used against troops. This persistent myth started some time after my retirement from the US Army in 1979.

By the late 1980s the myth was so widespread that USMC and US Army intructors were teaching it as fact. The Marine Corps Gazette published an article debunking the myth that a .50 BMG could not be used against troops.

More recently, instructors at Marine Corps Recruiting Depot Parris Island and at The Basic School were teaching that the .50 caliber machinegun could not be used against ground forces.

Instructors at the U.S. Army Infantry School, apparently laboring under the same impression, resolved it by teaching that:

The .50 caliber machinegun can be used against enemy military equipment, but not personnel. So be sure to aim your .50 caliber machinegun at the enemy soldier's belt buckle.

http://www.mca-marines.org/gazette/killing-myth

 

[Mike Irwin]

Good article, Thallub.

The only problem with it...

"The first U.S. musket, made in 1795, was .70 caliber. The first U.S. percussion musket, the Model 1842, was caliber .69..."

The US Model 1795 musket was .69 caliber, not .70. After receiving tens of thousands of muskets from our French allies during the Revolutionary war, the US adopted as standard the French .69 caliber, as opposed to Britain's Long Land Musket (Brown Bess) standard of .75 caliber.


I don't think that this is true, either...

"In 1885, the U.S. Army standardized the caliber .58..."

By 1885 the US was well into the .45-70 era. The .58 was first adopted with the Model 1841 "Mississippi" rifled musket in 1855 (along with the adoption of the Model 1855 rifle). The Mississippis were rebored from .54 to .58 to take the new Minie ball.

 

[Buzzcook]

They transposed a number. It was the 1855 Springfield that started the .58caliber musket, not 1885.

That changed to .50 in 1866 with a hodge podge of calibers during the war.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

Originally Posted by Buzzcook
I have been told by a former Ranger and sniper that it is against international law.

I took a Barrett long range ballistics class from Jon Wiler who was an Army sniper who specifically used his Barrett in Iraq against human targets. His creds here now...
http://www.professionalmarksmen.com/category/instructors/

With that said, being a former ranger or former sniper does not indicate one is up on international law. The appeal to authority here is a classic logic flaw. They may be authorities, but not authorities in the topic under consideration here. I do know that despite his endeavors often being a matter of public record, discussed on various programs on the military channel and in a couple of books on snipers, Jon has never been prosecuted for the supposed breech of international law.

 

[TheGunGuy]

If I'm not mistaken the .50 BMG is technically larger than .50 prior to firing through a rifle. That is the bone of contention. Some authorities are against anything larger than .50 caliber being used on enemy combatants. However, after being fired the projectile IS actually .50 caliber. So that argument went right out the window.

But I could be completely wrong.

 

[raimius]

I doubt it.

The issue of calibers larger than .50 is a serious one in US domestic law (NFA AOW). It is not a serious one in international law, at least not that I've ever heard of.

 

[carguychris]

The issue of calibers larger than .50 is a serious one in US domestic law (NFA AOW). It is not a serious one in international law, at least not that I've ever heard of.

Furthermore, there are all kinds of military weapons greater than .50-caliber that are routinely used in anti-personnel applications.

Case in point: Aircraft. Almost all modern gun-equipped combat aircraft have 20 to 30mm cannons; .30 to .50-caliber machine guns are now the exception, not the rule. Do you think the pilots and gunners aboard such aircraft are expected not to fire on enemy ground troops? Hardly.

 

[Glenn E. Meyer]

There are videos of Apaches firing their 30 mm at humans in Iraq.

If someone can come up with a document proclaiming such that would be an argument ender.

It's like the folks who proclaim gun X or Y was designed just to wound and some told them that the military was taught to wound.

NO such documentary evidence has ever surfaced. What we do have are reports about how services deal with wounded and how many it takes. Never a document then saying because of that use gun Z to wound and shoot it to wound.

 

[Buzzcook]

Unfortunately there are videos of Apache helicopters firing at civilians.

With some exceptions war crimes have more to do with how a weapon is used rather than what that weapon is.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

No prohibition exists in the Geneva Conventions, any other law of war treaty, nor in any other part of the law of war on the use of weapons such as the 23mm ZU-23 or the .50 caliber machinegun as antipersonnel weapons.

- See more at: http://www.mca-marines.org/gazette/killing-myth#sthash.AJJSvuZz.dpuf

This gun may be mounted on ground mounts and most vehicles as an anti-personnel and anti-aircraft weapon.

http://usmilitary.about.com/od/marineweapons/l/blm2.htm

 

[ClydeFrog]

Hogan's Heroes & Gomer Pyle....

I think many people rely on mixed messages & impressions of the US armed forces from TV shows like Gomer Pyle USMC or Hogans Heroes.
It's been nearly 2 decades since I was in the US armed forces & Im sure that rules/SOPs/ROEs/etc have changed a lot.
Today's forces must be very aware of the laws/memoranda/orders. Lawyers & legal advisors are a part of every op or mission.
There's no "aw shucks" or "hey so what" mindsets anymore. If you shoot anyone, even in combat, it better be explained or justified.

I even heard pilots & air crews used caution with bombs/ordinance in OEF/OIF because they didn't want to cause "collateral damage" or "accidents".

 

[carguychris]

http://www.mca-marines.org/gazette/k....AJJSvuZz.dpuf

I found this little tidbit from the article rather interesting, and potentially illuminating regarding the source of this myth.

During the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, the U.S. Army and Marine Corps had in their inventories the M40 106mm recoilless rifle. Designed primarily for antiarmor use, the M40 was equipped with the M8C .50 caliber spotting gun. The M8C was used to assist the gunner in determining range and leads to the target...

Although the M40 could be used against enemy personnel... the M40 essentially was a single shot antitank weapon that relied on concealment and surprise in order to attack enemy armor and survive on the battlefield. Utilization of the M8C .50 caliber spotting gun against an individual soldier would have compromised the position of the M40, making it and its crew vulnerable to attack. Hence tactical, not legal, limitations were placed on the employment of the M8C .50 caliber spotting gun against enemy personnel. It appears that this practical limitation... somehow was transferred to all .50 caliber weapons, and that in time it was assumed that the restriction was based on some aspect of the law of war.

(emphasis mine)

Info on the M40 system here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M40_recoilless_rifle

 

[thallub]

The .50 caliber spotting round for the 106mm recoilless rifle uses a shorter cartridge case than the .50 BMG round. The projectile of that spotting round is dangerous: It contains a small detonator and a phosphorus spotting charge.

http://www.gunauction.com/buy/11437...-military/us-.50-caliber-spotting-rifle-round

http://cartridgecollectors.org/cmo/cmo08dec.htm

 

[jrwhitt]

And that adds more to the likley source of the "ban" - WP (Phosphrous) is not supposed to be used against personnel