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Better bullets also will help, experts say
By Mark Oliva, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Sunday, August 4, 2002
Soldiers who fought in Afghanistan have some hard-earned opinions about the rifles on which they relied to stay alive. Mostly, they want more firepower.
The standard-issue ammunition compounded the problem, they said: The 5.56 mm round shot — a bullet equivalent to that marketed in the States to shoot small vermin — wasn’t effective in stopping al-Qaida and Taliban fighters. “Should be a 7.62 mm, so it will drop a man with one shot,” wrote one soldier.
Not all soldiers’ reviews were negative. Pat, a Special Forces soldier who is serving in Afghanistan, wrote the military watchdog group Soldiers for the Truth that “the M-4 with optics and the newer hand guards tends to be a pretty good weapon. Guys can change the optics out depending on the mission, and misfeeds don’t happen too often with good weapon maintenance.
The adjustable shoulder stock and assault sling, front pistol grip works well with body armor and different sized guys also,” the soldier said.
Army Lt. Col. Robert Carpenter, project manager for the small arms section of the report, said: “Somewhere between the trigger pullers and the maintainers is the ground truth.”
Also a factor, he said, are the rounds soldiers use today.
Soldiers now use the M-855 ball round, a lighter bullet designed during the mid-1980s with a steel penetrator designed to pierce body armor. But soldiers now find themselves shooting at al-Qaida, an enemy that doesn’t use body armor.
Some soldiers who fought in Afghanistan said the small, current-issue 5.56 mm rounds just lack needed punch.
The commercially available equivalent to a 5.56 mm round is a .223-caliber — marketed as a vermin round, for killing small game such as rabbits or coyotes, said John Bloodgood, a 19-year Air Force master sergeant with 11 years in tactical units, who also is a private firearms instructor.
More effective are .308 bullets — commonly used for large-game hunting and similar in size to bullets used up through the Korean War, he said.
“A .308 bullet has almost twice the frontal area of a .223,” he said.
It’s not the size but the type of round the military’s using, and shot placement, that determines a bullet’s stopping capability, said Ken Cooper, director of Tactical Handgun Training, a New York state certified law-enforcement pistol-training facility.
“The military uses hardball rounds and the effect is less than if soldiers were shooting expansion rounds,” Cooper said. “You can penetrate the human body with little to no effect.”
Cooper teaches law-enforcement officials to shoot low, for the pelvis. He said the human torso is like a sponge; it easily can absorb the impact of small pieces of lead, especially non-expanding jacketed bullets that leave small, clean holes that close quickly.
Shots to the pelvis, Cooper said, increase the likelihood of breaking the pelvic bone or severing the femoral artery, resulting in an immobilized attacker at a minimum or one rapidly losing blood at a maximum.
“The military teaches people to shoot center mast, in the middle of the body,” he said. “But if you hit people low, they will go down quickly. That’s what we want, both in civilian law enforcement and in military combat.”
Better bullets also will help, experts say
By Mark Oliva, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Sunday, August 4, 2002
Soldiers who fought in Afghanistan have some hard-earned opinions about the rifles on which they relied to stay alive. Mostly, they want more firepower.
The standard-issue ammunition compounded the problem, they said: The 5.56 mm round shot — a bullet equivalent to that marketed in the States to shoot small vermin — wasn’t effective in stopping al-Qaida and Taliban fighters. “Should be a 7.62 mm, so it will drop a man with one shot,” wrote one soldier.
Not all soldiers’ reviews were negative. Pat, a Special Forces soldier who is serving in Afghanistan, wrote the military watchdog group Soldiers for the Truth that “the M-4 with optics and the newer hand guards tends to be a pretty good weapon. Guys can change the optics out depending on the mission, and misfeeds don’t happen too often with good weapon maintenance.
The adjustable shoulder stock and assault sling, front pistol grip works well with body armor and different sized guys also,” the soldier said.
Army Lt. Col. Robert Carpenter, project manager for the small arms section of the report, said: “Somewhere between the trigger pullers and the maintainers is the ground truth.”
Also a factor, he said, are the rounds soldiers use today.
Soldiers now use the M-855 ball round, a lighter bullet designed during the mid-1980s with a steel penetrator designed to pierce body armor. But soldiers now find themselves shooting at al-Qaida, an enemy that doesn’t use body armor.
Some soldiers who fought in Afghanistan said the small, current-issue 5.56 mm rounds just lack needed punch.
The commercially available equivalent to a 5.56 mm round is a .223-caliber — marketed as a vermin round, for killing small game such as rabbits or coyotes, said John Bloodgood, a 19-year Air Force master sergeant with 11 years in tactical units, who also is a private firearms instructor.
More effective are .308 bullets — commonly used for large-game hunting and similar in size to bullets used up through the Korean War, he said.
“A .308 bullet has almost twice the frontal area of a .223,” he said.
It’s not the size but the type of round the military’s using, and shot placement, that determines a bullet’s stopping capability, said Ken Cooper, director of Tactical Handgun Training, a New York state certified law-enforcement pistol-training facility.
“The military uses hardball rounds and the effect is less than if soldiers were shooting expansion rounds,” Cooper said. “You can penetrate the human body with little to no effect.”
Cooper teaches law-enforcement officials to shoot low, for the pelvis. He said the human torso is like a sponge; it easily can absorb the impact of small pieces of lead, especially non-expanding jacketed bullets that leave small, clean holes that close quickly.
Shots to the pelvis, Cooper said, increase the likelihood of breaking the pelvic bone or severing the femoral artery, resulting in an immobilized attacker at a minimum or one rapidly losing blood at a maximum.
“The military teaches people to shoot center mast, in the middle of the body,” he said. “But if you hit people low, they will go down quickly. That’s what we want, both in civilian law enforcement and in military combat.”