A word about the "piss ant .223"

Yes, in the words of Kim Du Toit, it's a "poodleshooter" - a varmint round, but in its original 55 grain M193 loading hauling ass out of a 20" barrel, it was an effective stopper - BECAUSE IT FRAGMENTED. It was designed, essentially, to get around the prohibition against soft-point ammunition proscribed by the Hague Accords - a Full Metal Jacket round doesn't EXPAND (which was the wording used in the Accords.) What the bullet did was BREAK UP, and it produced a significant wound in so doing. But it required specific bullet construction and sufficient velocity to do it.

However, time and technology march on. The Army has gone to shorter (16") barrels which adversely impact velocity, and the bullet is now the 62 grain (read slower) steel-core (read "less-fragmenting") SS-109 projectile. And now the M4 carbine / M855 ammo combination produce a weapon system capable of good accuracy out to 400 meters, but not much knock-down power, even at close range. The bullet has a nasty tendency to just zip right through. Two or more hits appear to be essential, where one round from the 7.62x39 AK-47 is sufficient to get the bad guy to cease and desist.

With more opposing foces wearing ballistic armor, and with combat operations occurring where engagement ranges are getting out to 300 meters or beyond, we need to return to a heavier caliber. The SS109 projectile was a compromise that shouldn't have happened. When the need for longer range capability was recognized, we should have abandoned the 5.56 NATO cartridge and either returned to the 7.62 or gone to a real "intermediate."

JMHO

I thought the point of shooting someone in a battle wasn't to necessarily kill them, just wound them. They stop shooting at you, and 3-4 guys have to haul them out of there, and all kind of work has to be put into maintaining the logistics chain to deal with the wounded. Not to mention the morale hit on the enemy having to listen to their buddies screaming in pain. You kill someone, they just lie there and bloat up until someone comes by later and throws their carcasses in the back of a truck. It seems to me that it would be far better to wound an enemy, though seriously enough that they can't come back later, than it would be to kill them. A .223 may be a comparatively wimpy round, but it'm sure it still smarts plenty.

Aaron:

The purpose of shooting someone on the battlefield is to get them to stop shooting at YOU. In order to do that, you have to render them "combat ineffective" which is not a euphemism for "dead."

What we have achieved now is about where we were with the .38 S&W issue revolver cartridge in the pre WWI Phillipines - you can shoot someone with your M4 carbine loaded with M855 62 grain rounds, and they keep fighting. Whack 'em with a .30 caliber round, and they don't. Furthermore, the standard 9mm full metal jacket pistol round doesn't seem up to the job either.

In combat, it isn't enough that they stop eventually, you want them to stop NOW.

Just my 2 cents. The nine mm is the same as a 38. Which the army got rid of when they adopted the 45 cal. The weeny's in congress decided to save money by adopting the 9mm so as to conform with the euro weenies. As far as not using anything metric I'll Take my delta elite 10mm over a 45 any day. Big bullet high velocity... Yeehaw!

By the way the only way to stop someone from trying to kill you is to kill them first. Dead men don't shoot back. Screw wounding someone. Kill the little prick & his 4 buddies as well