Military round comparisons

[SHORT-N-SASSY]

Increasing Small Arms Lethality in Afghanistan: Taking Back the Infantry Half-Kilometer, By Major Thomas P. Ehrhart --- ". . . For examples of M855 ineffectiveness, you can look at some of the live fire accidents that have occured. One notable incident occurred in 1991, when then Lieutenant Colonel David H. Petraeus was shot in the chest by an M855 round from an M249 squad automatic weapon. He walked out of the hospital several days after the accident. Had the round performed optimally, he likely would have been killed. The author witnessed a soldier shot in the shoulder from a distance of 75 meters during a night live fire exercise, and the soldier was walking around smoking a cigarette twenty minutes after the accident. A soldier in the author's battalion had a negligent discharge with an M249 squad automatic weapon, during the initial invasion of Iraq in 2003, in a closed space of a building. Poorly instructed, he disassembled the weapon before unloading it and the weapon fired at the cyclic rate, firing approximately 100 rounds. From a distance of three meters, four soldiers were hit in the extremities and none sustained life threatening wounds. In general, the requirements for the infantry squad are that they have weapons capable of reliable incapacitations, from close range to a distance of 500 meters. This capability does not exist in the current family of 5.56-mm ammunition, . . ."

U.S. Army Places Huge Order for New M855A1 Ammo, October 26, 2010 (http://bulletin.accurateshooter.com/2010...55a1-ammo/). Reader's Response, "While this may be an improvement over the older M855 ammo, I don't see it as solving the whole issue with the 5.56 round. I have several friends in different branches of the military that have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, and they say the same thing, the 5.56 just doesn't have the power to stop insurgents, especially those drugged up on suicide missions. I have also been told stories of 'bad guys' who show off all the 5.56 hits they have survived, like they are bragging of something, as it seems to be a new fad to brag about taking more bullets than the others have. We need a superior round that they don't just walk away, after being hit with. We need to go to a 6mm, 6.5mm or 7.62mm round that has more stopping ability. Many of those deployed are aware of this, why are we not doing more about it? . . ."