FMJ yaw and upset performance

[stanc]

Has anyone really thought how absurd this whole concept is. When you get hit it doesn't matter wtf the rules are. The politicians who make the unrealistic rules don't really care what the effect is on you.

Yeah, in one sense the restriction on small arms ammo is absurd, especially considering all of the far more destructive weapons on the battlefield.

However, I think the guys who wrote the 1899 Hague agreement actually did care. The standard bullet type used back then (by everybody except the French, who had secretly developed a solid bronze, spitzer boattail projectile) was a round nose, flat base FMJ that penetrated straight through the human body, without yawing, deforming, expanding or fragmenting. If such bullets did not kill, they typically produced an easy-to-recover-from wound. That was in line with the idea that war (between nation-states) is essentially a game, and there is no reason to use bullets that inflict amputating injury, greviously maiming combatants who were wounded but not killed.

Of course, back then all the infantryman had to contend with were rifles and machine guns (and art'y). Today there are RPGs, Hellfire missiles, aircraft bombs, cluster munitions, and a host of other items extremely hazardous to the health.