Military round comparisons

[Tony Williams]

-- AFAIK, the US JAG rulings on hollowpoints like the SMK and SOST rounds authorize their use against not only criminals and terrorists, but also lawful combatants (i.e., members of national armed forces). Other countries JAG equivalents have ruled such projectiles are illegal. They can't both be right.

You surely don't expect lawyers to agree on such issues, do you? They make their living from disagreeing with other lawyers, after all....

By and large, the US takes a more robust approach to arguing with the ICRC over this issue than most European lawyers are willing to. The Europeans (including the UK) tend to be super-cautious. For instance, the standard British 5.56mm ball round has long been the L2A2. The L2A1 was dropped when it was realised that the thin jacket allowed ready fragmentation, so the L2A2 has a thicker jacket.