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Cannabis news? I guess we REALLY know who the dopeheads are now--at least one of them. ETA: Maybe I'm blind--didn't see anything about a bullet. I'm sure I'm blind. |
Go to where it says " More about the so called contractors" And actually I googled 6.8 german bullet and this popped up. |
Nope.... The military is not interested in new calibers because: The ones we have right now work perfectly.... -and- The amount of shit that has to be done in the supply system to change calibers is WAY TOO MUCH to do in the middle of a shooting war.... We have far more important things to spend our money on than the latest flavor-of-the-day wunderbullet that some company is trying to sell us... |
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By John G. Roos Special to the Times 12/01/03: (The Army Times) Ben Thomas and three colleagues were driving north out of Baghdad in an SUV on a clear mid-September morning, headed down a dirt road into a rural village, when gunmen in several surrounding buildings opened fire on them. In a brief but intense firefight, Thomas hit one of the attackers with a single shot from his M4 carbine at a distance he estimates was 100 to 110 yards. He hit the man in the buttocks, a wound that typically is not fatal. But this round appeared to kill the assailant instantly. “It entered his butt and completely destroyed everything in the lower left section of his stomach ... everything was torn apart,” Thomas said. Thomas, a security consultant with a private company contracted by the government, recorded the first known enemy kill using a new — and controversial — bullet. The bullet is so controversial that if Thomas, a former SEAL, had been on active duty, he would have been court-martialed for using it. The ammunition is “nonstandard” and hasn’t passed the military’s approval process. “The way I explain what happened to people who weren’t there is … this stuff was like hitting somebody with a miniature explosive round,” he said, even though the ammo does not have an explosive tip. “Nobody believed that this guy died from a butt shot.” The bullet Thomas fired was an armor-piercing, limited-penetration round manufactured by RBCD of San Antonio. A new process APLP ammo is manufactured using a so-called “blended-metal” process, said Stan Bulmer, president of sales and manufacturing for Le Mas Ltd. of Little Rock, Ark. Le Mas is the distributor of RBCD ammo. Various bullet types made by RBCD are designed for different effects, Bulmer said. The frangible APLP ammo will bore through steel and other hard targets but will not pass through a human torso, an eight-inch-thick block of artist’s clay or even several layers of drywall. Instead of passing through a body, it shatters, creating “untreatable wounds.” Le Mas gave Thomas a small number of APLP rounds after he contacted the company. After driving off their attackers, Thomas and his colleagues quickly searched the downed enemy fighter for items of intelligence value. They also took time to examine the wound. “There’s absolutely no comparison, whatever, none,” to other wounds he has seen from 5.56mm ammo, Thomas said in a telephone interview while on home leave in Florida. He said he feels qualified to assess a bullet’s effects, having trained as a special-operations medic and having shot people with various types of ammo, including the standard-issue green tip and the Black Hills Mk 262, favored by spec-ops troops. Thomas was the only member of the four-man group who had RBCD ammo. He said that after the group returned to base, they and other members of his group snatched up the remaining rounds. “They were fighting over it,” he said. “At the end of the day, each of us took five rounds. That’s all we had left.” Congress wants tests Last year’s defense budget included $1.05 million for testing blended-metal bullets, Bulmer said. Fourteen months into the 24-month period during which those research and development-testing funds must be spent, the military has not purchased a single bullet from Le Mas. Publicly, at least, military officials say RBCD ammo is no more effective than other types now in use and, under certain conditions, doesn’t even perform as well. Those conclusions are derived from a series of tests conducted a few years ago in which RBCD ammo’s effects were observed in ballistic gelatin, the standard means for testing bullets. Naval Reserve Lt. Cmdr. Gary Roberts, a recognized ballistics expert and member of the International Wound Ballistics Association, conducted the gelatin tests in March 2002. According to his findings, “Claims that RBCD bullet terminal performance can vary depending on target thickness, size or mass were not shown to have merit, as bullet performance remained consistent irrespective of gelatin block size.” Roberts found that in gelatin, a 9mm, 60-grain slug exhibited “tissue damage comparable to that of other nonexpanding 9mm bullets and is less than that of standard 9mm [jacketed hollow point] designs, since the RBCD bullet does not create as much tissue damage due to its smaller recovered diameter.” A .45-caliber bullet “offered average terminal performance in bare and denim-clad gelatin, similar to that noted with the 9mm bullet. ... The RBCD bullets do not appear to be a true frangible design, as significant mass is retained after striking a target.” Not surprisingly, Roberts’ assessment remains a major impediment to getting RBCD ammo into military hands. Considering his standing in the ballistics community, his findings are accepted as gospel by many influential members of the special-operations community. But Bulmer insists that tests in ballistic gelatin fail to demonstrate RBCD ammo’s actual performance because the gelatin is chilled to 36 degrees. Their bullets seem to shatter most effectively only when they strike warmer targets, such as live tissue. Bulmer said tests using live animals clearly would show its effects. Despite his appeals for such testing, and the funds set aside by Congress to conduct new tests, the military refuses. Bulmer said authority to spend the testing funds initially went to U.S. Special Operations Command in Tampa, Fla., which delegated testing responsibility to the Army Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg, N.C. Queries to the command confirmed that it was aware of the testing requirement but had not decided when, or if, the tests will be conducted. Bill Skipper, president and CEO of the American Business Development Group, is a lobbyist representing Le Mas on Capitol Hill. “When I heard of the ballistic characteristics of this ammo, as a retired military officer, I realized it has to stay in the good guys’ hands,” he said, adding that SOCom’s reluctance to test it is “irresponsible.” “This is an issue of national security,” he said. Some supporters of RBCD ammunition suggest SOCom officials may be reluctant to test the ammo because it threatens “in-house” weapons and ammunition programs underway at the command. Special-operations forces long have sought a more potent standard round than the 5.56mm, which lacks the punch needed during the long-distance engagements that frequently occur in Afghanistan and Iraq. In response, SOCom is working with weapons and ammunition manufacturers to develop a new round and new upper receivers for M4 and M16 rifles. The command apparently has narrowed its search to a 6.8-by-43mm round. Indication of industries’ involvement in this effort was seen in October during the annual Association of the U.S. Army exhibition in Washington. If Le Mas’ 5.56mm APLP round delivers the performance SOCom is seeking in the new 6.8mm ammo — and Bulmer insists it does — the rationale and the potentially lucrative contracts for producing a new ammo type and modifying thousands of weapons used by special-operations forces would disappear. Thomas said he isn’t familiar with the reasons that might keep RBCD ammo from getting a realistic test within the military. “The politics, that’s above my pay grade,” he said. “All I really care about is that I have the best- performing weapon, optics, communications, medical equipment, etc. I’m taking Le Mas ammo with me when I return to Iraq, and I’ve already promised lots of this ammo to my buddies who were there that day and to their friends.” When military officials in the United States got wind that Thomas had used the round, he quickly found himself in the midst of an online debate in which an unnamed officer, who mistakenly assumed Thomas was in the service, threatened him with a court martial for using the nonstandard ammo. Although Thomas was impressed by RBCD ammo’s performance, he feels it should not be the standard ammunition issued to all U.S. forces. “The first thing I say when I talk to people about Le Mas’ ammo is, make sure that 22-year-old infantrymen don’t get a hold of this, because if they have an accident ... if they have a negligent discharge, that person is dead. It doesn’t matter how much body armor you have on. “This is purely for putting into bad guys. For general inventory, absolutely not. For special operations, I wouldn’t carry anything else.” A video clip on RBCD ammo that was shot at the annual Armed Forces Journal Shootout at Blackwater is online at www.armedforcesjournal.com/bullets. John G. Roos is editor of Armed Forces Journal. |
See--I said I was blind  Are you sure you weren't googling 6.8 german bullet weed when this came up?
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You mean military times newspapers--AKA USA Today. per the link off the AFJ story by the same author.
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1. RBCD and it's bullet technology have been discussed, debated and "debunked" at nauseum all over the interweb. Go to Defense Review and do some searching. Check with DocGKR and ask his opinion. Be prepared to do a lot of reading. I am withholding my judgment, I do not have enough information to make an assessment. Some claims ring true, others I view with skepticism. Then again, anything new is often viewed with skepticism. Time shall tell, I guess. 2. Do a Google on Ben Thomas (Mookie Spicoli) and get some popcorn for the reading ... ask for opinions within NSW community .... 3. The US military has put out official requests for research into blended metal technology. Anything that might be worth pursuing is being vetted. 4. Other options are being looked into, such as expanding the envelope of existing munitions in far more creative ways. 5. Logistics, lobbying, personal agendas, the "good ole boy" network and other factors play a large role as well and may affect any adoption and non-adoption of technologies. While one would hope this would not be the case, it is human nature. Very few of us can be truly objective and then you do have to look at the economics (and logistics). Besides, if other technologies are being worked on that are "revolutionary" v. "evolutionary", would it make sense to make a small improvement (at huge cost) for a small time, or to "make do" (perhaps change doctrine or rules of engagement) until the new technology can be fielded? Just my $0.02 |
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THe Lemas round(s) have all been shown to be relabled items. DocGKR's plate post on 10-8 stating what the Lemas round was |
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Not this again... Everything that you need to know about LeMas is available here: www.tacticalforums.com/cgi-bin/tacticalubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=78;t=001189 Please note that this information directly correlates with that found by both U.S. and other coalition partner military SOF units. Also, the data has been verified by senior members of AFTE with extensive forensic and analytic experience. -------------------------------- John Roos no longer is an editor at AFJI... Dave_A: Your comments are not entirely correct. |
I think you are talking about the Black Talons. Buzz saw of death. Winchester was a victim of their own effective marketing campaign. it was certainly ironic to hear the antigunners screaming almost verbatim Winchester's ads and how humanity would end if they were allowed to keep producing them. |
No I remember that too. It was a nytrilum (?) bullet that would cut through a vest IIRC they were banned black talons were pulled off the market, coating removed and resold as Ranger SXT |
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