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Message no. 1
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Robert Ennew)
Subject: NATO round query
Date: Thu Aug 8 03:00:01 2002
In a thread along time ago we were talking about the 5.56mm NATO round. IIRC
I think It was you Gurth (I apologise if It wasn't) who mentioned that It
wasn't intended to kill a soldier outright, but designed to cause massive
tissue trauma/wounding & body cavity.

IIRC It was something along the lines of kill 1 soldier you take out 1 man,
wound 1 soldier you take out 3 (I'm assuming this is because 2 men are being
of medical assistence/support). This must be extremely frustrating &
demoralising, because I thought NATO was against all that (e.g. banning
cruel wicked serrated edge bayonets, WWII).

I know that this wasn't the purpose NATO had in mind, I think It had
something to do with standardising the round so It was easier to track in
regardes to crimal & paramilitary/terrorist elements, as It was only
supposed to be issued to/by the military/special forces & security forces
(e.g. SWAT,). It makes me wonder though, as I plan to be a medic in the
Australian regular army so It's more than likely I'll be confronted with the
topic. (GZ)



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Message no. 2
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Gurth)
Subject: NATO round query
Date: Thu Aug 8 05:50:21 2002
According to Robert Ennew, on Thu, 08 Aug 2002 the word on the street was...

> In a thread along time ago we were talking about the 5.56mm NATO round.
> IIRC I think It was you Gurth (I apologise if It wasn't) who mentioned
> that It wasn't intended to kill a soldier outright, but designed to cause
> massive tissue trauma/wounding & body cavity.

Lots of people tend to make comments like that about this round, or about
hand grenades, but I'm pretty certain I haven't recently :)

> I know that this wasn't the purpose NATO had in mind, I think It had
> something to do with standardising the round so It was easier to track in
> regardes to crimal & paramilitary/terrorist elements, as It was only
> supposed to be issued to/by the military/special forces & security forces
> (e.g. SWAT,). It makes me wonder though, as I plan to be a medic in the
> Australian regular army so It's more than likely I'll be confronted with
> the topic. (GZ)

The reason the 5.56 mm NATO round often wounds rather than kills is -- and
this I have said before -- because it was designed as a light armor
penetrator. The idea was that the main place where it would be used, would
be central Europe, to counter a Warsaw Pact invasion: if every infantryman
had 150 or so rounds that all had a (small) chance of penetrating the
(thin) armor on Russian APCs and MICVs, it might just do some good.

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
Huh?
-> Probably NAGEE Editor * ShadowRN GridSec * Triangle Virtuoso <-
-> The Plastic Warriors Page: http://plastic.dumpshock.com <-

GC3.12: GAT/! d- s:- !a>? C++(---) UL+ P(+) L++ E W--(++) N o? K w(--)
O V? PS+ PE@ Y PGP- t- 5++ X(+) R+++$ tv+(++) b++@ DI- D+ G+ e h! !r y?
Incubated into the First Church of the Sqooshy Ball, 21-05-1998
Message no. 3
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Bill Gatchell)
Subject: NATO round query
Date: Thu Aug 8 10:50:01 2002
Another reason the 223 is a good round is that at long range it has a
tendancy to tumble. So instead of a nice clean entry wound and a blow
through, it will wobble and tumble and effectively double the size of the
entry wound.

>From civilian experience, firing a 223 at a close range target (i.e.
groundhog) will open a nice channel if the target is caught at an
advantageous angle. For instance firing down from the top of a hill at a
target effectively laying on its belly caused it to be opened from its jaw
to its tail and threw it a good 10 feet down the hill. BTW i caught it by
surprise and was able to move in to about 10 yds.

Also great for fishing! Aim about 2inches low from at about 50 yds.

Just my 2 cents worth


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Message no. 4
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Scott Dean Peterson)
Subject: NATO round query
Date: Thu Aug 8 17:35:01 2002
In a thread along time ago we were talking about the 5.56mm NATO round. IIRC
I think It was you Gurth (I apologise if It wasn't) who mentioned that It
wasn't intended to kill a soldier outright, but designed to cause massive
tissue trauma/wounding & body cavity.

Key point here, a bullet of any type (in most cases) injures buy causeing
hypovolemic shock due to the shockwave created by the bullet
as it passes through a body. IE the bullet hits you at high velocity
enters the body and the shockwave disrups tissue structures. Should it hit
a bone you have a chance of the bullet tumbling around inside doing more
damage. Death from a bullet or even shrapnel usualy happens buy loss of
blood volume and as the body looses its total amount it trigers a seires of
actions to compensate for it. as a last ditch it does some nasty things to
itself which causes the shock that cxontributes to the killing of the
target. So you get hypo(low)volemic(volume)shock. Thats what kills Not
just the tissue samage.

IIRC It was something along the lines of kill 1 soldier you take out 1 man,
wound 1 soldier you take out 3 (I'm assuming this is because 2 men are being
of medical assistence/support).

Well being in the infatry in the American Army it was a more common
convention to say if you wound him it has to occupy at least 2 others
besides the patient.

This must be extremely frustrating &
demoralising, because I thought NATO was against all that (e.g. banning
cruel wicked serrated edge bayonets, WWII).

Well a bullet isnt a serrated blade but were talking about bullets. The
M-4 Rilfe and Carbione fire a newer version of the old NATO standard, more
powerfull so it can hit out to 800 meters. But knowing what I said above
about wound causality you can see it really doesnt matter what calliber you
use since they kill in the same way. There are exceptions like Ma Deuce or
the M-2 .50 Cal machingun which in traditional conventions was not to be
used on troops, "just aim for thier equipment."

I know that this wasn't the purpose NATO had in mind, I think It had
something to do with standardising the round so It was easier to track in
regardes to crimal & paramilitary/terrorist elements, as It was only
supposed to be issued to/by the military/special forces & security forces
(e.g. SWAT,).

Not true. The reason it was standardized was so that all forces under NATO
would share the same ammo and you didnt have logistic nightmares trying to
keep 14 different armies supplied with basic rifle ammo. What you said
above may be true but was an after market thought.
Message no. 5
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Scott Dean Peterson)
Subject: NATO round query
Date: Thu Aug 8 17:35:05 2002
The reason the 5.56 mm NATO round often wounds rather than kills is -- and
this I have said before -- because it was designed as a light armor
penetrator. The idea was that the main place where it would be used, would
be central Europe, to counter a Warsaw Pact invasion: if every infantryman
had 150 or so rounds that all had a (small) chance of penetrating the
(thin) armor on Russian APCs and MICVs, it might just do some good.


Old Round or New round?

Scott
Message no. 6
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Robert Ennew)
Subject: NATO round query
Date: Fri Aug 9 05:35:01 2002
On Thu, 8 Aug 2002 11:52:36 +0200 Gurth wrote:
>
>The reason the 5.56 mm NATO round often wounds rather than kills is -- an=
>d this I have said before -- because it was designed as a light armor
>penetrator. The idea was that the main place where it would be used, woul=
>d be central Europe, to counter a Warsaw Pact invasion: if every
>infantryma= n had 150 or so rounds that all had a (small) chance of
>penetrating the (thin) armor on Russian APCs and MICVs, it might just do
>some good.
>
Thanks Gurth for clarifieing this for me, I always enjoy reading your posts
. You're a wealth of information & seem to have a vast knowledge on & off
the topic of shadowrun. I personaly (many others will agree) appreciate
you're contributions & assistence towards the better running of this mailing
list( I'm sure It's been stated before).Thanks again.

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Message no. 7
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Gurth)
Subject: NATO round query
Date: Fri Aug 9 05:50:25 2002
According to Scott Dean Peterson, on Thu, 08 Aug 2002 the word on the street was...

> > The reason the 5.56 mm NATO round often wounds rather than kills is --
> > and this I have said before -- because it was designed as a light armor
> > penetrator.
>
> Old Round or New round?

The NATO-standard 5.56 mm (that is, FN's SS-109 design, or M855 if you're an
American), not the older US M193.

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
Huh?
-> Probably NAGEE Editor * ShadowRN GridSec * Triangle Virtuoso <-
-> The Plastic Warriors Page: http://plastic.dumpshock.com <-

GC3.12: GAT/! d- s:- !a>? C++(---) UL+ P(+) L++ E W--(++) N o? K w(--)
O V? PS+ PE@ Y PGP- t- 5++ X(+) R+++$ tv+(++) b++@ DI- D+ G+ e h! !r y?
Incubated into the First Church of the Sqooshy Ball, 21-05-1998
Message no. 8
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Scott Dean Peterson)
Subject: NATO round query
Date: Fri Aug 9 11:15:01 2002
> Old Round or New round?

The NATO-standard 5.56 mm (that is, FN's SS-109 design, or M855 if you're an
American), not the older US M193.

Um have you ever fired the M-16a2 in three round burst mode at targets out
to 800 meters? the reason I asked was that when the A2 was made it changed
alot on how the weapon was seen to be employed buy soldiers. Fire
discipline (unlike the so called Mad Minutes of Nam-where everyone dumped
everything they had as fast as they could into a target)was one point,
accuracy at long distances (singel mode) was another and the third
consideration was not so much penetration (which is also a part of it) as it
was power to hit hard at 800 meters and the fouth was the gas system would
function beter to expel foreign particals from the receiver since the
chamber preasure was higher. That aslo contributed to lower rate of hang
fires and jamming.

Scott

ps Thanks for crunching numbers Gurth, I realized I forgot to thank you.
Message no. 9
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Paul)
Subject: NATO round query
Date: Sat Aug 10 02:30:01 2002
----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert Ennew" <robertennew@*******.com>
To: <shadowrn@*********.com>
Sent: Thursday, August 08, 2002 5:01 PM
Subject: Re: NATO round query


>
> In a thread along time ago we were talking about the 5.56mm NATO round.
IIRC
> I think It was you Gurth (I apologise if It wasn't) who mentioned that It
> wasn't intended to kill a soldier outright, but designed to cause massive
> tissue trauma/wounding & body cavity.
>
> IIRC It was something along the lines of kill 1 soldier you take out 1
man,
> wound 1 soldier you take out 3 (I'm assuming this is because 2 men are
being
> of medical assistence/support). This must be extremely frustrating &
> demoralising, because I thought NATO was against all that (e.g. banning
> cruel wicked serrated edge bayonets, WWII).
>


One of those who said it was me. I remember reading some Aust. army
publication that talked about the change. One reason was overpenetration by
7.62 rounds. (Not sure specifically what they ment by this. I always
thought it was going through someone and then continuing one to hit
something else, but maybe they meant thatthe bullet wasn't staying in the
enemy. see below)
Annother was that the 7.62 tended to leave a cleaner wound, leaving the
enemy in a beter condition to fight. Or at least able to walk himself out.
(Not sure about that one though).


There was more, but it was years ago.

Annachie
Message no. 10
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Gurth)
Subject: NATO round query
Date: Sat Aug 10 06:25:01 2002
According to Scott Dean Peterson, on Fri, 09 Aug 2002 the word on the street was...

> Um have you ever fired the M-16a2 in three round burst mode at targets
> out to 800 meters?

I've never fired anything more powerful than a 4.5 mm air rifle :) The closest
I've got to M16s is seeing them in display cases in museums...

> the reason I asked was that when the A2 was made it
> changed alot on how the weapon was seen to be employed buy soldiers.
[snip]

Sorry, I don't see how this is relevant to the NATO-standard round being semi-AP?
Maybe it's me, but I don't see the connection...

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
Huh?
-> Probably NAGEE Editor * ShadowRN GridSec * Triangle Virtuoso <-
-> The Plastic Warriors Page: http://plastic.dumpshock.com <-

GC3.12: GAT/! d- s:- !a>? C++(---) UL+ P(+) L++ E W--(++) N o? K w(--)
O V? PS+ PE@ Y PGP- t- 5++ X(+) R+++$ tv+(++) b++@ DI- D+ G+ e h! !r y?
Incubated into the First Church of the Sqooshy Ball, 21-05-1998
Message no. 11
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Scott Dean Peterson)
Subject: NATO round query
Date: Sat Aug 10 15:30:01 2002
Scott said,

> > the reason I asked was that when the A2 was made it
> > changed alot on how the weapon was seen to be employed buy
> soldiers.
> [snip]

Gurth replied

> Sorry, I don't see how this is relevant to the NATO-standard
> round being semi-AP?
> Maybe it's me, but I don't see the connection...

Well what I was saying is that when you develope a weapon for mass use in an
Army, it usualy has to fit in with the socalled 'war fighting doctrin' of
the times. There were some weakness's in the M-16 A1 which became very
apearant durring the Vietnam war. The rifle had been developed to be
lighter (M-14 'Thunder Lizard' was heavier), low matineance and have a high
cyclic rate for close in fighting and ambushes(we started as a country able
to hit things oputside 1000 meters and now were down to 300). The max
effective range for the weapon was about 300 meters. As the years went by
the doctrin was changed several times. I cant recall what the currant one
is but the M-16 A2 was developed for the 'air land battle' doctrin.

Durring the developement of this doctrin the key enemies were USSR, and
other concerns of US Interests were the gulf (oil fields) and China. One
thing that became very appearant was the fact that in most areas you could
actualy engage targets out beyond 300 meters, and full auto was a waste ot
time and resources. So they developed the special rear sight on the A2 to
be able to hit out to 800 meters and then changed it from full auto to 3
round burst.

Another thing that was beeing seen at this time was the advent of body
armour (not just nylon flak vests with steel 'chicken plates' for shrapnel).
It was now becomeing very easy to add additional protection through metal
plates in kevlar vests (now its composite boron based 'chicken plate'). So
the green tipped round was developed for the reasons I have mentioned before
and to help deal with this issue.

So in summery the reason for this round to be 'semi-AP' as you put it was
the fact that; it allowed accuracy at long distances, it could defeat
certain kinds of body armour, it solved logistical problems for NATO
countries and penetration power for light skinned vehicles(I still recall
the M-106 mortar carriers we brought back from Panama-it looked like someone
had taken a drill and punched wholes in it about the size of your pinky or
less).

Scott

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