Are semi-auto 5.56's stupid In a real fight?

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DeusComedis

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Ok, I realize this will get a lot of heat here, but hear me out.

Both of them major wars of the 20th century were fought mainly with full power cartridges. I with bolt actions and II with semis. The logical next step seemed to be a full auto version (AKA the Battle Rifle). This took the form of the FN FAL, which probably would have become the universal rifle of the West, if the US had adopted it (and didn't dislike foreign designs so much). Eventually though, it became apparent that a shoulder fired, full power, full-auto rifle was essentially uncontrollable.
Enter the 5.56 (or any other intermediate cartridge). It was a compromise that had more power and range than an SMG, but still allowed for full auto fire. Put that in a semi, and the compromise is lost, because you have given up range and power, and gained nothing. Yes it is a little lighter, but any fit, trained, military age male could carry a sufficient amount of 7.62 NATO (and did for decades). Aside from from that, the 7.62 is superior in range, power, and penetration. (I realize that soliers/marines engage a lot of target in semi, but the ability to go full auto, especially in 3-4 round bursts is really the whole point of a select fire weapons.
So, unless you are a really small person, if you are limited to semi-auto, is it really a good idea to choose 5.56 if you are going up against determined and well armed opponents, who may or may not be armored (purely from a combat effectiveness POV, excluding ammo availability/cost). Have we kind of deluded ourselves that the AR-15 is a good combat platform because that is what we are limited to by law, or is it really the better choice over a true battle rifle.

(Edit: I do realize that the issue of recoil/follow up shots exists, but that is really only an issue in QCB, as 7.62 follow ups are quick enough at range. In that sense, the 5.56 really is the best replacement for the SMG (same package, bigger punch), but I'm referring more to the middle ranges.

Edit: To clarify, by a "real fight" I mean against a disciplined, well armed and equipped for (essentially soldiers) , not just a quick SD scenario, or robbers, or riots. Enemies that will use cover and movement.
 
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The full power "battle rifle" cartridges were designed to stop horse cavalry charges.

So, no, 5.56 as a military cartridge is not stupid any more than a subgun in WWII was stupid.

Jimro
 
speaking only of the past wars, as you mentioned, what benefit would you have received using a semi auto rife in 5.56 against massed attackers on a battle front? Consider a trench or bunkers, I'm not sure if anything would have helped. considering a mass attack, I'm not sure that a full auto with 30 round magazines would have helped, they would have blown through 30 rounds in a minute and wound up empty before the wave had even fully gotten onto the field. Artillery, in the mean time, would have been pounding the area and the full scale machine guns could have been sweeping. fighting in the forests? would an AR in full auto have done a better job running through the heavy forests of some of the areas? They would again have been nothing but saturated fire. The trees would have stopped the rounds. Saturated fire would have burned through ammo faster than it could have been supplied. It would not have been effective against wave after wave of men, it wouldn't have been able to do that.

In trench war, I can only say that slowing down the rate of fire at long range suppression fire with massed combatants. When the waves reach a very short range, it's different, and a faster rate of fire into the actual fronts would be beneficial, but still, a garand firing at the lower speed than a full auto AR would have been better than just wiping the ground with full auto fire.

One reason we used the AR in vietnam was that the enemy couldn't be seen. Clouds of bullets could slip through the brush.

On the other hand, I've read of firefights during which thousands of rounds of AR ammo were used to sweep areas in afghanistan and failed to nail the handful of insurgents that were hunkered down behind rocks.

Every armed encounter is going to be an individual and each of them will have a particular tactical situation and some will be better served with different weapons. In the trenches of WWII, you still had sidearms, thompsons, ingrams, shotguns, etc, because when you got face to face with the enemy, a bolt action thirty caliber rifle would get an individual killed as he stormed down on a dozen or more men armed in the same manner.

No, it's not stupid, and offhand, I'm not sure that there is any such thing as a "real fight". it's all real and there's a lot of fluidity. Have you ever noted that when you see infantry or rangers in the afghan fields all have highly tricked out weapons? they know what they need for where they are, what works best for them and the problems that they are facing.
 
I'm not real sure what you are saying or asking, but IMO the 5.56 is here to stay because of large capacity mags and the ability to empty mags without getting off target. Light recoil and large capacity mags are the biggest advantage as far as I'm concerned.

At medium ranges 50-300 yards any intermediate powered cartridge is very capable as a battle rifle. If I had my way the 5.56 wouldn't be it. I'd pick a 6x45 same mag capacity a negligible increase in recoil but gain the down range efficiency because of the B.C. advantage. The powers to be even said themselves the 6x45 was the best alternative to the 5.56 but they said it was "too accurate" WHAT???

I've also seen tests done that suggested the 6mm and 6.5 bore size is the most accurate in the AR-15 platform but the 7mm bore size was the most lethal.

All of this is just my input and opinion take it with a grain of salt.
 
another consideration is weight, because when you have a soldier humping a 90 pound pack there are limits to everything. You can't leave food or your sleeping bag or first aid behind when you go out on a three day patrol, and even though these things are cut back to the very bone as far as weight and bulk go, every ounce of ammo takes away from survival goods, and that backpack can only hold so much. Every pint of water weighs a pound, and just having enough water for a day eats into the ammo that you can afford to carry, carring 30 round magazines takes less weight than thirty in magazines.
 
No, they are not stupid.

Let's look at the realities of the use of firearms in the last 120 years or so.
In the late 1880 and the few years following, smokeless powder was invented and started to replace black powder. The 'machine guns" of the black powder age were the Gatling, and a few of it's competitors. They were very large and heavy and so was the ammo for them. As smokeless powder replaced black powder the focus was on rifles. Machine gun development can just a bit later. In the late 1800s and through much of the early 1900s the standard military mode of movement was muscle. Being that of men and horses.
So military cartridges were made to have the power to kill horses as well as men. Suppressing fire at long range was done by platoons of men armed with rifles, and rapid fire weapons were rare and not used very much.

At the outbreak of WW1 much of this changed. By the middle of that war (about 1916) gas powdered engines were being used instead of horses to a large extent. However buy 1916 every nation involved was using what we now call "full power cartridges. In other words, horse killers.

I just killed a large bull elk (about 800 pounds) 4 days ago with my 8MM Mauser. Worked great.

Tens of thousands of elk and moose have been killed with 30-06s and 303 British rifles (a long time favorite in Canada) So when we look at reality we see these old military cartridges are powerful enough to be used and thought of as "standard" for the killing of things that are somewhere in the 600 to 1700 pound range.

Men are not that big!

There is some concern expressed now and then about the 5.56 NATO and even the Russian 5.45 having go to far to the other direction. But in most cases they work fine against men. I prefer a bit more power, but I would not hesitate to use an AR or M-16 again if I found myself in a fight again.

As a former US Marine, I can tell you that 5.56 round do the job well enough if you don't have to shoot through much cover/or concealing objects to get the bullet to the enemy.

If you do have to shoot through things the 308, 8mm, 30-06 (and so on) will do a far better job, but that is largely the job of machine guns today. Bullets do not go through concealment accurately. In most cases they veer off, so unless the enemy is very close to the concealment, about 18 to 24 inches, the round from a 30-06 will go through, but will not hit him anyway. If however you fire 10-20 at him with an M-60 machine gun 1 or 2 will probably get him.

So unless you are in a combat unit with support, full auto belt fed weapons and fellow fighters, the likelihood you being able to use a rifle to destroy enemies behind concealment with good effect is mostly fantasy. It is possible but stylistically not very probable.

In a fight you are better off to aim at the actual enemy (or part of the enemy) when he shows you something to shoot at.

If he sticks a hand out, or a foot, or a bit of a shoulder, and you shoot it, the fact that you hit that small part with a 223 or a 7MM Mag is likely not going to make much difference.

Fire discipline and accuracy are what you have going for you, not volume.

To Quote the painting at MTU, Marine Corps Base, Quantico Virginia:

"We have been told that more misses per minute is fire power. 50 misses is not fire power. One hit is fire power.
We will hit!"
 
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I've wondered the same thing DeusComedis. (by the way I own both types 5.56 & .308 semi-autos).

The answer is yes and no. I think the advantage of one or the other really depends on the enemy, type of fighting, and most importantly the battlefield setting. Urban against guerrillas, jungle fighting, thick close woods, or policing, 5.56 has a lot of advantages. Mountains, mountains deserts, or warfare were designed fortifications and armor are in play, run in advantage to fullsize cartridges.
The US military has been quite successful with the 5.56 if you really think about it, our ratios of enemy casualties to our own are much better than WWII and WWI. BUT, then again it has been a long time since we fought a war against a trained developed army that was as modern as our own. In Vietnam we were primarily fighting physically small guerrillas at short range, no body amour, and little armored vehicles. Less fortification structures compared to much of western Europe in WWII.
Even in the Middle East, we are still fighting against unarmored guerrillas, most of which don't understand rifle trajectories very well, and most of which are not known for being accurate or trained marksmen. (I am not saying they are not dangerous by the way, as I am sure US servicemen can attest to). However, I really wonder what would happen if we went against a country like Russia, perhaps then full-size cartridges would really begin to prove their usefulness.
Then there is desert, mountains, and mountain deserts. I live in Southeast Idaho which is mainly dry rocky mountains with sagebrush valleys in between. One can easily see most of the countryside for miles in any direction. Scoped high-power bolt actions are really the best type of arms for hunting in the area, and quite honestly I think they might be just the thing for a fight in such a terrain. 5.56 has a decent trajectory, but I hate how Idaho winds effect it beyond 200yds. Get a group of capable, physically fit Idahoans, who understand the trajectories of their .300winmag, .30-06's, 270's, 7mms, .257's, .243's out to 700yds. Such a force running around in rocky, windy, mountain canyons would be quite effective and dangerous.

I think much can be learned for certain mountainous desert battlefields from the Boer Wars in South Africa. They showed the effectiveness of full-power cartridges and I think many of their tactics would prove effective if ever their was a fight in Idaho.
 
I have no way of knowing except to ask those who have been in multiple gun battles in a variety of settings. Fortunately, there are not a lot of those people, and fortunately I know a few of them.

What got me off the fence to build my first AR15 was in fact one of those people telling me I was an idiot (for my perceptions about the AR15 in 5.56) and every able bodied American should own one and have 3 30 rounders ready to go all the time. That was right at the sunset of the Clinton AWB.
 
Lets look at the 5.56 62 gr M855:

According to the Army 60 ft lbs of energy is required to provide a disabling wound. (Hatchers Notebook, MG J.Hatcher)

That would be about 1600 yards. The M855 is limited to 750 yards at which point it becomes sub-sonic.

Ain't many soldiers can shoot 750 yards regardless of what rifle they are using.

Unless you are talking about sniper duels as opposed to firefights the 5.56 is a long way from stupid.
 
I own a very nice 5.56 SPR, and it's quite accurate and I like shooting it a lot. But there's no denying that it just doesn't hit very hard. I've seen it fail to fully penetrate plastic target backers at 400 and 500 yards with some regularity. And this is NOT due to the projectile being slow - the trajectory is exactly what you'd expect. The shot didn't hit low. It just couldn't reliably make it through a single layer of yard sign plastic.

I'll stick with .308 or .30-06 in the unfortunate event that a "real fight" breaks out somewhere around me. 5.56 is a nice women and children's caliber though.
 
Sure glad they didn't have the internet back when I was punching holes in targets at 600 & 1000 yards with a 5.56. Hate to think about those little bullets bouncing off the target backers and hitting the guys in the pits.

You better drop a note off to the CMP and NRA telling them to stop using ARs at Across The Course and 1000 yard service rifle matches.
 
Yeah, I'm "trolling" you :rolleyes:

I will happily wager that if we shoot 100 rounds of 77gr FGMM out of a 16" AR at a yard sign plastic target backer with a standard paper target on the front at 500y that at least 2 will penetrate the paper but fail to penetrate the plastic behind it leaving a "dimple" or hole substantially less than .22 cal. I'm willing to wager up to $50,000 at even odds, but not less than $10,000 to make it worth my time.

Here's an opportunity to put your money where your mouth is.
 
"...II with semis..." Nobody but the U.S. issued a semi-auto rifle for general service in W.W. II. Others had 'em but not on general issue.
The 5.56 isn't so much about killing as it is about making the 'Other Guy' lose interest in the proceedings.
"...instead of horses to a large extent..." Nope. At least not in 1916. Haig, a cavalry guy, was still thinking PBI breaks a hole in the Other Guy's line to be exploited with cavalry in 1918. Vimy Ridge was in April of 1917. The Canadian Corps made that hole. No cavalry was ready to exploit. The Canadian Corps did it again at Passchendaele in October/November and still no cavalry to exploit. No motorised anybody either. Except for some Recce types in armoured cars. The Canadian Automobile Machine Gun Brigade, the first fully mechanized unit in the history of the British Army. Primary power source for transport and moving big guns around was still the horse.
"...glad they didn't have the internet back when..." Makes you wonder how we ever survived, doesn't it.
 
Full auto in a rifle is stupid in a most fights. It wastes ammo without being particularly effective. Put a weapon on a bipod, tripod or some other mount and the story changes a bit.

What is smart? Aimed fire.

I do realize that the issue of recoil/follow up shots exists, but that is really only an issue in QCB, as 7.62 follow ups are quick enough at range. In that sense, the 5.56 really is the best replacement for the SMG (same package, bigger punch), but I'm referring more to the middle ranges.
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This is all mixed up including CQB. Follow up shots at CQB ranges are going to be fast, much faster than hunting and searching for a small target at longer ranges.

By 7.62 I assume you mean 7.62X39? :confused: If so the difference in recoil is negligible. For 7.62X51 hardly anyone uses it anymore but again the at CQB ranges the difference won't be that great.

Both of them major wars of the 20th century were fought mainly with full power cartridges. I with bolt actions and II with semis.
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Not really. At least not the part about being fought with bolt actions and semis for sure. The actual fighting... also not so much.

This took the form of the FN FAL, which probably would have become the universal rifle of the West, if the US had adopted it (and didn't dislike foreign designs so much).
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Not so much disliked, but politics I imagine.

Yes it is a little lighter, but any fit, trained, military age male could carry a sufficient amount of 7.62 NATO (and did for decades).
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You are only looking at the end user. This would roughly double requirements in the supply chain for small arms ammo. On an Army wide scale this gets costly.
Aside from from that, the 7.62 is superior in range, power, and penetration. (I realize that soliers/marines engage a lot of target in semi, but the ability to go full auto, especially in 3-4 round bursts is really the whole point of a select fire weapons.
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I guess that would be the point of having three round burst then. That and the fact that the US Army has cleared very few trenches since WWII.

Have we kind of deluded ourselves that the AR-15 is a good combat platform because that is what we are limited to by law, or is it really the better choice over a true battle rifle.
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When you say "we" and "law" what are you talking about? When you say "deluded ourselves" you don't really explain why the AR-15 is junk.

So, unless you are a really small person, if you are limited to semi-auto, is it really a good idea to choose 5.56 if you are going up against determined and well armed opponents, who may or may not be armored (purely from a combat effectiveness POV, excluding ammo availability/cost).
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Ideally I imagine I'd pick a 500lb bomb dropped from an A-10. Second choice might be an Apache with a 30mm chain gun and a few pods of rockets. Way, way down on the list would be me and me rifle. 5.56 will do the job most days.
 
Both of them major wars of the 20th century were fought mainly with full power cartridges. I with bolt actions and II with semis. The logical next step seemed to be a full auto version...
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You are missing a few important facts in your historical description For one, WWII, was also fought with bolt actions, primarily. The US was the only nation to equip the majority of our forces with semi autos, and that was never fully completed. Some US units fought the entire war using variants of the 1903 Springfield bolt action.

The US M1 Garand, the Soviet SVT 40, and the German G43 were the main semi auto full power cartridge rifles. The Soviet rifles were not made in enough numbers to become their standard infantry rifle, and the Germans were even later in the game, and never made enough G43s for them to be a significant factor. Germany, Italy, Japan, Great Britain and the Commonwealth, and Russia all used bolt action rifles as their primary infantry arm in WWII.

There are a lot more details I could cover, but will save them, for now...;)

As to the 5.56mm being "stupid" in a real fight? All depends on your point of view. And remember one important thing, the point of view of the guy carrying the rifle matters LEAST to the military.

The main lessons militaries took from WWII were that the majority of infantry combat is done at 300yards or less, and that the more ammo fired, the better the odds of hitting the enemy.

So, what was most important was having something with 300yds of easily usable range, that could fire as much ammo as possible/practical. The effectiveness of individual hits was not as important to the military as the firepower needed to obtain those hits.

This is the exact opposite of what is important in a civilian rifle. The Military considers soldiers to be an expendable asset. A very valuable one, to be sure, and not to be expended wastefully, but one that will be expended if necessary, for the success of the mission.

Civilians on the other hand (and myself included) consider ourselves to be the most important thing, and the "mission" is to keep us alive, and preferably unharmed. So, a rifle (and all other weapons) that do the most damage to the enemy, each shot are more valuable to the civilian overall.

Also, civilians, including those of us over age, overweight, and over tired are NOT going to be going into battle against any kind of armed, organized enemy units. We have soldiers for that, and that is the whole point of having soldiers.

Much is made of the 5.56mm being a lighter round, allowing soldiers to carry more ammo for the same amount of weight. This is true, but what few think of is also the fact that the same 2x amount of ammo for the same weight also applies ALL THROUGH the supply chain. It isn't just that the soldier on patrol can carry 100 vs 200rnds it also matters that the supply system can deliver twice as much ammo with the same amount of resource expenditure.

Works well enough and has twice the firepower is an important thing to the military. Civilians tend to focus more on what works best and has enough firepower for the task at hand. Very different viewpoints.

Nothing that shoots and has even a tiny chance of stopping an enemy is stupid, including the 5.56mm. Personally, I think there are better choices, and for me, there are. For the military, they make up their own minds. Rarely do they get it right (meaning choosing the best possible thing), but they almost always get it right enough to get the job done, though often lives are needlessly lost during the trial and error period.

Militaries can accept that cost as the price of doing business. We, as individuals, cannot.
 
I don't believe that military would have even considered replacing the garand with the AR. They believed that an higher rate of fire would do nothing but waste ammo, and that thought was held in the past as well. They would never have considered the microscopic .223 to be the equal of 30-06. They built sights to function out to nearly a mile, even though they knew that accuracy was impossible at those ranges, because they felt that getting rounds downrange was what counted, and getting rounds on target that could actually cause damage to equipment and people was important.

Right or wrong doesn't matter regarding the past, they decided that the large rounds were more effective.

What we can say with absolute certainty, is that the the garand, the sharps, the krag, springfield, henry, whatever we used as combat rifles in the past are simply and absolutely obsolete for current warfare as we see in the middle east, afghanistan, urban warfare, whatever, we have to have compact, heavy firepower that is absolutely unquestionably capable of taking people out of action at any time with only a single round.
 
Another issue related to small arms in the hands of the infantry is the use rate. Several battle historians have proffered statistics saying that from 5-20% of infantry that were in battle actually fired their long guns. This from black powder through the introduction of the M16. Rates are opined to be much higher today due to "soldier conditioning" and the ease of use of the M16/M4 platform, some say now over 90% in actual combat.
 
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You kind of hit the nail on the head for me. While he military application is interesting, I'm more thencerned here about civilian use. I didn't want to sound crazy (because I know this forum is more serious than most), but this is really about the best rifle type for a violent "civil unrest" type situation. Essentially if you had to go with only one system, does the 5.56 really check the most boxes. This is very different from mil applications where there are diverse weapons, support teams, etc, and where bulk supply, transport weights, fuel economy, etc are important. Obviously if we are talking full scale war, with grand strategy and disposal participants, then of course things change, logistics and overall functioning of the military trump nearly everything, and even a "sub-par" weapon might be optimal for other reasons.
I'm more about a situation where individual lives matter, you're not connected to a logistics chain beyond what you've carried or stored, and optimal effectiveness in each engagement is key.
And of course I wasn't talking about private citizens going up against another national military (yes, that's why we have soldiers), but more if you and a small group had to fight some other well armed citizens or rogue authority elements. People with a little better equipment and practice than your average street thug or armed robber.
 
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