Better than M4, but you can’t have it

[gute]

I'm glad someone mentioned the 77 grain 5.56. I work with a guy who fought in Fallujah with the Marine Corps and I asked how the issuse 5.56 performed -he did not like it, said it went through the bad guys instead of smashing bone, etc. He said the 7.62x51 was devestating, but that's no suprise. I later mentioned the 77 grain and he smiled. Seems many of them brought there own and it was much more effective. Why it is not being mass produced and issued is beyond me. The 77 grain may be the reason the 6.8 did not go further with the SF community (besides politics). Any word on the performance of the HK416 and SCAR in combat? How about the new AAI LSAT rifle (not LMG) that is being developed?

Oh, Mr. Owen great book. Please do another.

[Schmedlap]

That's part of the conflict about which round(s) to buy, how many and for who -- plus the bureaucracy chugs along on slow and keeps buying plain M855. Shouldn't be that hard but it always is.

Understood, but the answer to "which round" and "for who" have already been answered. As for "how many"... MORE. It's been 4 years. That's slow even by Army standards. It seems like they're reinventing a very high performance wheel and planning to mount it after the race is over.

Check the slide: LINK. Just go for Cartridge, Caliber 5.56mm Ball, Carbine, Barrier, MK 318 MOD 0 -- DODIC: AB49 NSN: 1305-01-573-2229 (If you can get past the SOCOM lock on it...)

Case in point: that is not the round that we used. That is something new. Why are they bothering with this? The stuff they issued us (in small quantities) in 2005 worked great. It was accurate, so far as we could tell (almost all engagements were 25 meters or less) and it knocked people down with one shot. Why do they need to fix what isn't broken? Just give us more... oh, wait, I forgot. It's the Army. Just like the Marine camouflage. Rather than just taking that idea and running with it, we waste time and R&D producing a similar, yet inferior Army version. This ammo snafu is bad even for the Army - we already have the fricken round. Buy more and issue it! WTF???

[Ken White]

The round you used and commented on was the Mk262 -- it's being used by SOCOM and the Marines. The Army has too much old stuff in the pipeline. That and as you pointed out, the 'not invented here' syndrome. Yes, it is stupid. Parochialism is just dumb.

That new one, the Mk318 was developed specifically for SOCOM and the SCAR in CQB model (the 10" Barrel), they'll use the Mk 262 Mod 1 for everything else. In the mean time, SOCOM and the Marines will get ripped off and trade with the Army so a few Soldiers will have green tip rounds.

And everyone including SOCOM and the Marines plus friends, allies, romans and countrymen will have to help fire off the gazillions of M855 we bought and are buying LINK. No quantities but you can pretty well bet the 5.56 will be 855 or relatives 'cause Black Hills has the Mk 262 contract...

Until we get the new lead - free really GREEN rounds...

[William F. Owen]

Oh, Mr. Owen great book. Please do another.

Many thanks for that. I think I might try.

[Schmedlap]

And everyone including SOCOM and the Marines plus friends, allies, romans and countrymen will have to help fire off the gazillions of M855 we bought and are buying LINK. No quantities but you can pretty well bet the 5.56 will be 855 or relatives 'cause Black Hills has the Mk 262 contract...

Well, I did my part. Just before I PCS'd from that battalion in 2006, one of my last official acts as acting S-3 was to successfully push through an ammo request for (literally) over 1 million rounds of 5.56mm for small arms gunnery. There were lots of flabbergasted folks who demanded lots of paperwork and justifications, but I produced it and my retiring BN Cdr was happy to back me up. They made it sound like there was an Army-wide shortage of 5.56. I hope they were right, so that we can finally get rid of this crap and replace with something that has some stopping power.

[Surferbeetle]

And everyone including SOCOM and the Marines plus friends, allies, romans and countrymen will have to help fire off the gazillions of M855 we bought and are buying LINK. No quantities but you can pretty well bet the 5.56 will be 855 or relatives 'cause Black Hills has the Mk 262 contract...

Until we get the new lead - free really GREEN rounds...

I was involved in an indoor range clean up (lead levels through the roof...surprise, surprise) and an outdoor range cleanup (mining the backstop berms so that the high water table at the site would no longer be impacted) perhaps ten years ago. Anyway, the new GREEN rounds at that time, if I remember correctly, were also bad news...I wanna say cadmium, but I am not 100% on that. Maybe we need to go to those much talked about ice rounds...alright back to listening mode. Happy 4th everybody.

[William F. Owen]

They made it sound like there was an Army-wide shortage of 5.56. I hope they were right, so that we can finally get rid of this crap and replace with something that has some stopping power.

I have heard, though not seen the data, the US Army used more 5.56mm in one year in Irag, than all the all the 30-06, they fired in the Pacific Campaign from 1943-45.

Considering there are well recorded cases of troops carrying as little as 50-rounds on Oki and Iwo, that may not be that far fetched.

[Uboat509]

I was involved in an indoor range clean up (lead levels through the roof...surprise, surprise) and an outdoor range cleanup (mining the backstop berms so that the high water table at the site would no longer be impacted) perhaps ten years ago. Anyway, the new GREEN rounds at that time, if I remember correctly, were also bad news...I wanna say cadmium, but I am not 100% on that. Maybe we need to go to those much talked about ice rounds...alright back to listening mode. Happy 4th everybody.

I could be wrong but I think that we had the green rounds for a while and they were for training only. That's fine with me. We can save the good stuff (my lungs and the 5.56LR rounds) for war. The difference in ballistics won't make much difference at CQC range (3-10 Meters). Of course, when training at longer ranges where differences in ballistic characteristics matters you have to use the good stuff.

There was another 5.56 round that we used in Germany for a while. It was all the rage with the guys who had used it down range in OIF but it was eventually discovered that in cold weather the brass had a nasty habit of rupturing in the chamber. I may have that backwards, I never actually got to use them, but the point is that these rounds were great in one environment and prone to catastrophic failure in the other.

SFC W

[Schmedlap]

I could be wrong but I think that we had the green rounds for a while and they were for training only.

That is my understanding, too. When I did EIB testing as a 2LT in 1999 (remember that quaint old badge?), we qualified with tungsten, Earth-friendly ammunition. So, even if you didn't get your EIB, you could still feel good about having not harmed Mother Earth. It was quite a contrast to earning our CIB's a few years later, using very Earth-unfriendly depleted uranium 25mm. But it could have been worse - we didn't kill any desert tortoises or disturb any red-cocaded woodpecker nests.

[Surferbeetle]

That is my understanding, too. When I did EIB testing as a 2LT in 1999 (remember that quaint old badge?), we qualified with tungsten, Earth-friendly ammunition. So, even if you didn't get your EIB, you could still feel good about having not harmed Mother Earth. It was quite a contrast to earning our CIB's a few years later, using very Earth-unfriendly depleted uranium 25mm. But it could have been worse - we didn't kill any desert tortoises or disturb any red-cocaded woodpecker nests.

1989 was the magic year. After three years I switched gears, became a tech, and spent ten years sampling, conducting chemical analysis, planning abatement's, doing spill response, cost estimating, and scheduling for toxic and hazardous substance projects (half-face, full-face, papr, scba, tyvek, saranex, and butyl rubber) which left some muscle memory for this non-EIB, five jump chump, who picked up a CAB the hard way (didn't get hurt though). I have been dabbling as an engineer in Hydraulics & Hydrology and Geotech (design, cost estimating, scheduling, project management) for the last 7, it's a lot easier on the old system than the industrial environmental stuff.

Lead has been around for a long, long time and I see no reason for changing things for this particular application...apply 'appropriate engineering controls transparent to the user' for the ranges and life goes on.

I could be wrong but I think that we had the green rounds for a while and they were for training only. That's fine with me. We can save the good stuff (my lungs and the 5.56LR rounds) for war. The difference in ballistics won't make much difference at CQC range (3-10 Meters). Of course, when training at longer ranges where differences in ballistic characteristics matters you have to use the good stuff.

There was another 5.56 round that we used in Germany for a while. It was all the rage with the guys who had used it down range in OIF but it was eventually discovered that in cold weather the brass had a nasty habit of rupturing in the chamber. I may have that backwards, I never actually got to use them, but the point is that these rounds were great in one environment and prone to catastrophic failure in the other.

SFC W

It looks so deceptively simple, it's just metal and its tougher than duct tape. But then, as you correctly note, temperature, time, pressure, pH and gas compositions in the chamber/barrel and other items that I am not aware of all have their say. We goofed around with steel and aluminum in some of my classes in order to pick up on some of the common topics in materials: stress, strain, modulus of elasticity, poisson's ratio, hooke's law, etc., etc. It helps me look at carbon fiber arrows, motorcycle frames, engines, helicopters, and of course weapons in a new light... ...so many interesting things so little time.

[kaur]

I found this video from Youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=519FX...eature=related

Rest of the parts are on the right hand.

[Brandon Friedman]

Wish I'd gotten in on this conversation a few days ago. Anyway, I never got to use the 77 gr. ammo for the M4 since I was out before they started issuing it. But as an XO, I had to turn down requests from SLs who wanted permission to patrol with a couple of AKs. Personally, I would've preferred to carry one myself.

If you'll pardon the gratuitous "look-what-we-did" photo, here's an example of why:



This fleeing car containing four gunmen probably took 60-70 5.56 hits to the back windshield from a SAW and a couple of M4s. (Rounds were fired from rear to front.) The result? A single enemy KIA (headshot) and three wounded gunmen who were healthy enough to answer questions during their surgery back at the TOC.

If someone who didn't know anything about the standard 5.56 rounds had surveyed the carnage after the shooting, there's no way the person would believe that three out of four occupants in the car had survived just fine. The moral of this story (and I guess I'm preaching to the choir here) is that you can basically pack a small car full of people, light it up with machine gun fire for 10 or 20 seconds at close range, and still not kill 75 percent of the people in the car.

Your tax dollars at work. Hopefully things have improved significantly since fall 2003.

[Umar Al-Mokhtār]

Perhaps their survival was the result of the superior efficacy of German engineering...

[Rex Brynen]

Perhaps their survival was the result of the superior efficacy of German engineering...

Yes indeed.

(And no, its not a real VW ad.)

[Brandon Friedman]

Yes indeed.

(And no, its not a real VW ad.)

Umar, Rex, well played. And to think, for nearly six years I've been wrongly cursing those poor 5.56 rounds.

[Schmedlap]

This fleeing car containing four gunmen probably took 60-70 5.56 hits to the back windshield from a SAW and a couple of M4s. (Rounds were fired from rear to front.) The result? A single enemy KIA (headshot) and three wounded gunmen who were healthy enough to answer questions during their surgery back at the TOC.

If someone who didn't know anything about the standard 5.56 rounds had surveyed the carnage after the shooting, there's no way the person would believe that three out of four occupants in the car had survived just fine. The moral of this story (and I guess I'm preaching to the choir here) is that you can basically pack a small car full of people, light it up with machine gun fire for 10 or 20 seconds at close range, and still not kill 75 percent of the people in the car.

To be fair, I could say the same about a vehicle that we pumped full of 25mm HE in 2005. I'll be damned if I can figure out how the three occupants not only survived, but were healthy enough to try to run away. The car looked like it was drug from the ashes of a bonfire. I think the real moral is that, in war, weird things that defy explanation often occur.

Side note - we found that 5.56 AP rounds were more effective at stopping cars because they tended to maintain their trajectory after piercing the windshield, rather than being deflected, like 5.56 ball. Some of our Ranger Alumni insisted that we put a ceramic round through the glass first. Yeah, I'm sure those will be coming down the supply chain anytime now. We also made sure that each SAW gunner had a pouch of 5.56 AP (4x1 mix, with tracer). That was good for firing into the engine blocks. Unfortunately, just as with most of the good stuff, it was only authorized for SF at the time, so our BN Ammo NCO had to work some dope deals to obtain it for us.

[Uboat509]

That's one of the reasons that after we managed to get our hands on 5.56LR that we mixed green tip and LR in our mags. I personally usually loaded two green-tip for every one LR. I would have preferred one to one but we had a lot more green tip than LR.

SFC W

[Brandon Friedman]

I think the real moral is that, in war, weird things that defy explanation often occur.

I have no idea why that is, but it's so true. So I'll expound on the story above a bit: We pulled one guy out of the front passenger seat after the shooting. A 5.56 round had grazed the left side of his head, but otherwise, he was fine. I mean he was talking, wearing his new zip-ties, etc. So I walked over to the car and looked inside. The seat from which I'd just watched my guys pull him was absolutely peppered with bullet holes. Like maybe a dozen. The stuffing was coming out. Like it had been used for target practice. I looked back at him, then back at the seat, then back at him again, and then back at the seat. How is it possible that he come out of it with no holes and relatively unscathed? No idea. It's one of those things that you're talking about. You just acknowledge, accept, and move on.

Oh, and another time in Afghanistan an F-16 dropped a 2,000-lb. JDAM on my platoon and it didn't detonate. That was weird.

I could tell stories all night, but I need to get some sleep.

[William F. Owen]

If someone who didn't know anything about the standard 5.56 rounds had surveyed the carnage after the shooting, there's no way the person would believe that three out of four occupants in the car had survived just fine. The moral of this story (and I guess I'm preaching to the choir here) is that you can basically pack a small car full of people, light it up with machine gun fire for 10 or 20 seconds at close range, and still not kill 75 percent of the people in the car.

Actually I see nothing that surprising here. All bar the driver, probably dropped down behind the bodywork, and were relatively safe.

5.56mm always has had real problems with cover. When SA-80 was issued, some UK Patrols in South Armagh retained GPMGs just to stop cars. If you look at the Loughall Ambush, 90% of the killing was done by GPMG, because the SAS's HK-53s simply were not going to stop any vehicles.

[Schmedlap]

Actually I see nothing that surprising here. All bar the driver, probably dropped down behind the bodywork, and were relatively safe.

Looking at the photo, that was my hunch, too. I was always taught that the first thing you do in an egress from an unarmored vehicle is to duck beneath the windows because most people shoot at the windows, not the metal. That alone increases your odds of survival dramatically. The driver seems the least likely to duck down, since he needs to see where he's driving (though Iraqis aren't exactly well known for safe driving).