5.56 bashing that is........ IMO it ain't the arrow, it's the indian!  

BTW I got this in my email from a email group I'm a member of...... If I do anything, it will be to contact my congress critter on getting the M193 back into service!

Pass this on to your congress critters when you speak in support of the
soldiers' effort to use the 6.8mm.

wade

--------- Forwarded message ----------
From:
To:
Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2003 11:27:31 -0700
Subject: More truth re: 5.56:

This below from my son in SF:  (, send me the powerpoint
presentation, please)


Incidently, the article about the lack of lethality of the 5.56 round has
been backed up by guys from 3rd SFG and 5th SFG who tell of putting 5-7
rounds in a guys chest before he'll go down.  The rounds just push
through like a laser, doing little immediate damage.  The 5th SFG NCO who
was killed in Iraq a few weeks ago was shot by a guy who had already been
hit twice.  The other NCO who was wounded was shot by a second Iraqi who
had also been hit, and was hit 5 times before he died.  The one glaring
error in that article is that 5th SFG is in Ft. Cambell, not Benning.  I
imagine it meant to say that 5th SFG was working with the folks at
Benning to test the new round.  Rest assured, we all know the 5.56 lacks
stopping power. The question is, do true decision makers know, or care?
It's not like the issue just appeared almost 40 years after the little
carbine went into military service. As a kid I remember you talking about
how it was not an effective stopper out past 150-200M. I'm glad we still
have a few M14s hanging around here as well as AKs.

--------------------------------------

From:
To:
Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2003 16:54:33 -0400
Subject: Re: More truth re: 5.56:

I talked w/ my bro-in law this past weekend about the same. He's a col
in the marines and though he's a Harrier Squadron CO and focuses most of
his time on the planes, he's NOT happy with the either 5.56 or 9mm.

I talked w/ him a while about the 6.8mm. He hasn't spent any time
looking into it just yet (he's been too busy flying the past year)...

He didn't say much about replacement of the 5.56 other than it takes a
LONG time to get anyone to admit that something needs to be changed, and
a LONG time to decide what to change to. Tremendous R&D red tape. He'd
been working on replacement of the Harriers while in Norfolk and
experienced the same.

He did say that the marines were looking for alternatives for the M9.
They like the gun (except some magazine spring problems) just not the
cartridge. The 9mm has the same problems that the .38 did years ago when
it was picked up and the .45 dropped. No knockdown.

He said they are looking at a sub-gun replacement for the M9 and also
another pistol cartridge that I cannot remember. It's a bottleneck in
the 6mm range I think.

Also, the last Harrier has been produced - and all the replacement parts
delivered. It's being phased out and the F35? phased in.


Whhhhhhhhatever!  

Yes, the problem is really with the M855 round in particular.  Not the 5.56mm cartrige as a whole.  That said, no one should expect someone to just "go down" on the first shot every time.  7.62 NATO is not the answer either.  It creates an uncomplicated wound channel that without the shot placement will do hardly any more good than a 5.56mm.  I think it was Pat Rogers who told a story of a guy he shot multiple times with an M14, only to have the guy keep trying to fight.  He eventually threw a grenade on him.

There just isn't a magic bullet.

Roger that, how does it go, two to the chest one to the head, people watch too much tv expecting someone to by incapacitated with one shot every time.

Exactly!  This is a little different but I watched a show on the F.B.I. acadamy and they train their agints to fire until the target gose down.  The reason given for this was because the only way a person gose down from gunshots is from lack of blood/oxygen to the brain (I.E. Bleeding out)nurological disruption (I.E. spine shot.), or death (I.E. head shot)

A handgun and most rifles won't nock you over when their bullets hit you.

gun addict, i've also read that.  The ayoob files is a very good source for that real life stuff.  It's in some magazine every month.  Massad Ayoob is a cop and he's an avid shooter and one of those magazines he has a write up about real life shootings and I think you're right about the loss of blood and all that.  It seems to me a fmj .30-06 would go straight through somebody without doing much either (at close range) but nobody ever said anything about that being a poor man stopper. Even with hunting bullet it's very rare that a deer doesn't run after being hit with 30-06 through the boiler room.  Maybe these guys never hunted before?