11-13-2011, 04:44 AM
montana Wrote:Like I said any caliber can kill. Just read about the Falklands war , Black hawk down etc.They told of many cases where the 5.56 failed miserably. The 5.56 is illegal to use for hunting in most states because it sucks on big game. Try to shoot threw a windshield and see how effective it is. It isn't. The 6.5 Grendel is just a better cartridge.The 5.56 has its place but not as our first line military cartridge. You can use what ever you think but I would rather have a cartridge that has better one round kill, better penetration little recoil and long range performance than a middle range varmint round.I have also seen first hand the 5.56 rounds failure to perform as should be expected.The SAS in the Falklands switched back to their FAL'S because of its poor performance.
That's the first I've heard of SAS ditching 5.56 and going to FALs. They used L1A1's and Armalites in combination from the beginning, in the Malay War of 1963-1966, and have been using Armalites, Daemeco's, and M4A1's for as long as they've been in existence. The reports everyone refers to about 5.56 "failures" in Mogadishu are exaggerations and inferences from Mark Bowden's book. If 5.56 was such a bad performer, Delta would have dropped it like a bad habit, or gone to rifle-length barrels to increase the wound ballistics threshold of 2600 fps lead showers.
The opposite happened. Ranger Regiment ditched the M16A2 like a cheap suit, and adopted M4A1's immediately afterward by demand from the user level. The only way 5.56 sucks is through sucking chest wounds. How many SAS guys do you see with L1A1's now? Yes, you will see DM's and snipers use SR25's, L129A1's, and other 7.62 NATO platforms in a support role, but the go-to caliber for an individual service weapon in Tier 1 units is 5.56 NATO. The 7.62 NATO was one of the worst individual service rifle calibers ever dumped on soldiers, especially in light of the developments from WWII that were totally ignored by Army Ordnance Corps. The Brits had a much better caliber line-up with the .280 Enfield, while Garand wanted to use a much better cartridge in his rifle back in the 1930's: the .276 Pedersen, which allowed 10 rounds in the Garand clips, flat trajectory, and low recoil.
Take two equally-sized and organized units. Load one up with 7.62 Battle Rifles and machineguns, and another with 5.56 carbines and 7.62 machineguns. The one with 5.56 will outlast the one with 7.62, and out-maneuver them. Maneuver + firepower = win. Limited firepower + limited maneuver = lose. This is why the Soviets ditched 7.62x39 and went to a Small Caliber High Velocity cartridge, the 5.45x39, and didn't look back. They came to this conclusion after detailed studies of the logistics war we won against their surrogates in Indochina, as well as the tactical victories we achieved in almost every battle of that war.