What *is* the point of the .223/5.6 in combat?

C

Cosmoline

New member
The .308 thread just brought this question to mind, and I don't think I've ever gotten a good answer. Sure, the .223 is excellent for varmit shooting, but isn't there a BIG difference between a woodchuck and a man? Turning to my ballistics table, I see that the .223 uses a tiny bullet which delivers about 1,200 ft. pounds at the muzzle and 950 at 100 yards. In contrast, the "outdated" .308 can deliver about 2,600 ft. pounds at the muzzle and 2,300 at 100 yards. It's extremely accurate, and it's perfectly fine for human-sized game.

I must be missing something. Why did the military dump a powerful, accurate cartridge in favor of a varmit round?
 
A wounded soldier is generally out of the fight as much as a dead soldier, plus he remains a strain on resources. The average soldier can't hit a target on the battlefield beyond the effective range of the 5.56mm, so why carry the extra weight in rifle, ammo, and magazines?

If I were on my own, I'd opt for the 7.62x51mm, the heavier bullets would perform better on barricaded bad guys. If I'm backed up by M2s, M60s, and M240s, I wouldn't feel undergunned with the 5.56mm.
 
Training and logistics are also a part of the answer to this one. More and more recruits have absolutely NO experience with firearms, and it's easier to train them to shoot accurately when they don't develop an immediate flinch the first time they fire a major-calibre rifle. Since they also have a 3-round burst capability in the M16A2, quartermasters have to be able to supply troops in the field with a greater volume of ammunition, and the 223/5.56 round takes up less space/transport requirement than a 308/7.62 round. As stated above, when an enemy soldier is hit with either the 223 or 308, he's pretty much out of the fight, so giving your soldiers more rounds per battle load does make some sense. However, from a psychological standpoint, I'd like to be able to KNOW that if I've hit someone, they're not going to be able to pose a further problem; I get that feeling with a 308 rifle, but not nearly so much as with a 223.
 
The .223 is an excellent antipersonnell round. It does lack some of the penetration of the 308, which can be an issue, but it is not lacking at all in wounding effect.
I have seen pictures from field hospitals in Vietnam showing gunshot wounds from different calibers and at close range (100 yards or less) the 223 is just devestating to flesh and bone.
 
Remember that when talking about 223 in an M16 you're usually talking about several different rounds. . . .

Vietnam keyholing wounds - low twist rate/keyholing/horrendous wounds/low accuracy/bounces off leaves.

Great accuracy: High twist rate (as found in civilian models).

Great penetration: Steel core w/ marginal wounding effecti.

Incredible long range: Heavy bullets that are so long they won't fit int the magazine - yet still have questionable strike on arrival.


You're right, though that in a war anyone you shoot is probably thinking "hey, war's over for me, I'm going home".

Then again, as in Blackhawk Down, those (incredible and fearless) rangers, even when wounded, seemed to think: If I don't KEEP fighting I don't get to go home. (Yes, they were getting shot at with 7.62x39; but wounds did not take many of them out of the fight, and in one part of the story they were being hit through their armored car - perhaps the difference in punch of the ammo used against them made a difference?

Also, as for a wounded soldier being a drain on resources - whose resources is that if you win the battlefield and take prisoners?


Battler.
 
Looking at ballistics tables and arguing points about range, twist rates, energy, etc is rediculous.

Here's an example. A knife pushed into the heart has, maybe, 50 foot pounds of energy exerted to get it there. How'd you like to be stabbed 24 times in the heart? The same applies to the .223 in terminal ballistics. It's not the energy that does the damage, it's how that energy is transferred to the target.

A .308 FMJ round will transfer about the same energy to a human torso that a .223 will. A .223 is dumping all of its energy while a .308 is going out the other side with lots of energy.

You'll also remember that the Soviet Bloc switched to the 5.45x39 round in response to being on the receiving end of our .223. Makes one wonder why they did that. The 7.62x39 will punch great holes in people reliably. The blood-shot tissue, fragmentation, and large exit wounds created by the .223 were more effective at creating "Casualties." Note that military organizations don't count a KIA and Wounded in separate categories in terms of combat effectiveness.

If you doubt the effectiveness of the .223, would you volunteer to be shot by one? NO! The .308 does have the advantage at about 300 yards and beyond. Statistics show that this is well beyond the typical engagement range. At ranges inside 100 yards where stopping a target is imperative, the Nato SS109 round will get the job done better than the 7.62x51. Beyond that, a casualty is a casualty. Give me a .223 any day.
 
About 4 weeks ago, I posed the question "Why did the Russians switch to the 5.45 round from the 7.62?" to a family member that is a Col. in the USMC. Instead of rattling the answers off the top of his head, he took time to ask a foriegn arms expert he works with. Here are the answers:

- The new round is more controllable in burst/full auto fire
- The new round has a higher cyclic rate in full auto fire
- The new round allows almost twice as much ammunition to be carried as the older 7.62x39mm round.

Period. No mention about a greater perceived wounding ability. Now, aside from going and asking the actual Russian guys that were in charge of the switch, I consider this answer just about as close to "from the horses mouth" as I can get.
 
A wounded soldier ties up three and creates much distraction. The main reason, however, was the weight of the ammo and the number of rounds that could be carried. The decline of marksmanship and the advent of of "spray and pray" shooting has created a need for more ammo.
 
To summarize so far, it looks like the .223 was adopted because:

--The ammo is lighter and smaller, so more can be loaded and carried
--The recoil is manageable by even young, novice shooters
--The RPM is impressive, making up for poor marksmanship
--Less recoil makes full auto and burst easier
--The "energy dump" is superior (I suspect a lot of deer, black bear, and other real-life victims of the .308 would dispute this theory)
--The .223 has a greater tendency to wound than kill outright, thereby putting a greater strain on the enemy's resources and demoralizing him.
--Probably a psychological factor as well, making a grunt feel like he's got a portable machine gun.

Other than the "energy dump" idea, these sound viable, but aren't there other solutions? If marksmanship is poor, shouldn't more time and money be spent training? More training might also resolve the recruit's fear of recoil--I know lots of quality time with the .45/70 and .454 Casull have solved mine. Capacity and weight are obvious factors in favor of the .223, but it seems to me a soldier who can hit what he's aiming at with the first shot is a more economical and effective solution to this problem in the long run. I also have some moral problems with the "shoot to wound" concept. If we're going to do that, why not reintroduce exploding bullets? We could even turn every wounded enemy into a UXB.

The real question is, would you rather be faced with some 19-year-old with a few weeks of training (if that) on an M-16 or a marksman with extensive experience shooting an M-14? I might be able to best the kid, but the marksman could nail my ass before I even saw him, and I have doubts I'd be getting up again. THAT'S scary, and at least as likely to make troops run like rabbits as seeing a mere wounding (however nasty) by a .223. So why don't we spend a little more time and money on the front end and make a whole army of marksmen rather than trying to make up for their poor training with technology?
 
Good idea GRH, but...

The rank and file in today's US Army tend not to be career soldiers. Plenty of 18 yr. olds sign up for an enlistment, qualify for the GI Bill, and go to college. To train every "city boy" who's never handled a rifle before enlisting up to marksman stature would be enormously expensive, and futile. They're gone too fast.

Career soldiers: senior enlisted men and officers, typically aren't so involved in the trenches -- they're busy motivating the privates and commanding their units.

The reality may not be pretty, but the M-16 with its "puny" 5.56mm NATO round is adequate for most needs, and that's what matters when you're provisioning and supplying an entire army. For the civilian shooter, who is serious about training with a weapon and mastering it completely -- the 7.62mm NATO or other full power cartridge makes a lot of sense.
 
"The "energy dump" is superior (I suspect a lot of deer, black bear, and other real-life victims of the .308 would dispute this theory) "

Not this one:

Deer.jpg


It was shot at about a hundred yards in low light with a 55 grain military ball round from an AR carbine as it was jumping from one line of orange trees to the next. Single round, it went down and did not get up. ALL the damage you see in the picture was from the round...my friend in the picture has not yet started gutting it.
We had depredation permits to take deer in his orange groves that weekend and I took three with my AR. One shot, one kill on each deer.
 
What is the point of the 223/5.6 in combat

The point is , It works. My experience is based on using the 16 in 68-69 in a line infantry company with the 4th Infantry Division in Nam.
 
RikWriter:

I suspect most people don't get this because they haven't fired FMJ ammo at real targets. The .308 cuts a nice, clean hole through the game and the exit wound is generally small. The .223 destabilizes and yaws quickly dumping its energy about three or four inches into the target... right in the vitals of deer or people. Hitting bone causes fragmentation of bone and round creating a messy, if not always fatal wound.

GRH:

While you are correct that the .308 is superior in terminal ballistics and lethality, this only applies to EXPANDING bullets such as hollow-point or soft-points. When you are forced to use an FMJ bullet, you end up with an expensive, heavy drill. The modern SS-109 ammunition uses a steel penetrator in front that gives superior penetration to standard 7.62 Nato and the fast twist creates an unstable projectile that often breaks in half in human tissue after penetrating a few inches. The front steel core and rear lead core separate. This is as close to optimum as you can get.

Couple terminal ballistics with controllable automatic fire and higher combat load in a lighter weapon. The AR-15 is also more accurate than either the FAL or M-14 although I might get flamed on this one. The imputus for the change, however, was more of a 'combat effectiveness' push than anything else. The GI's simply liked the guns more than the M-14 they were using.

BTW, I use the term AR-15 as that is what was adopted as the M-16, the Armalite AR-15. The Air Force bought them to replace the M-1 Carbine. Unfortunately, shortly thereafter a better weapon came along and was not adopted. The AR-18 should have been the go-to gun. Alas, at least we got the 5.56x45 round out of Gene Stoner even if we did settle for the inferior platform for it.
 
GRH if you had ever carried a combat load you wouldn't even ask the question. A rifleman can carry something like twice the number of 5.56 rounds for the same weight of 7.62. 5.56 brings some other benefits that outweigh it's other shortcomings, but the numero uno advantage is more bang to the pound. And don't bother with the "but 7.62 is more efficient and we ought to train better" argument. Most battle fire is NOT aimed with any degree of precision - and never will be.
 
I must bow to Byron Adams on this one, who has used the round in combat. Kudos to you sir.
My own personal theory is that if I am getting shot at, I really do not care if it is 22lr or .223 or 7.62X39 or .308 or .45/70 or .50 caliber. I am still getting shot at. If I am hit, again, I only care how big and where the hole is, not what caliber created the hole. I have heard of lots of people getting shot stone cold dead with a "mere" 22lr. The .223 strikes a good balance between punch and wieght, accuracy and low recoil.
 
It looks like there's another factor--the .223 replicates the effect of JHP ammo, thereby avoiding the Geneva Convention (or whatever it is that bans these). This, I think, may be the "energy dump" or "energy transfer" concept which has been mentioned. When I hear "energy transfer", it brings to mind another endless debate, but I don't think that's what we're talking about here. A JHP or similar expanding bullet, or a bullet which imitates it, doesn't do extra damage by simply stopping and supposedly "dumping" its energy into the target, it does extra damage by breaking open, breaking apart, or tumbling and making a bigger hole This I can accept. Is there any reliable evidence regarding how often the 5.6 tumbles or keyholes? Will civilian ammo behave differently?

If we can agree .303 hunting loads which are NOT resitricted to absurd FMJ bullets would outperform any 5.6, then why don't we change the rule that bans HP's? If what I'm reading is correct, the 5.6 and similar rounds have made it dead letter, anyway, and may be doing more harm than good.
 
We'd still be a hell of a lot better off with something like 6mm PPC or 6.5x55 Swede(with not so long a bullet in the case). The trick is a low drag tip, high velocity, fragmenting round that can also bust armor. The last two normally don't jive with each other, but they can be made to, and in 5.56 they do indeed do both, but are not necessarily reliable enough. Honestly if stuck into a fight at 500+ yards with an enemy I'd take a scoped 8mm Mauser, cheap ammo, proven action, badass takedown power, and most importantly, it can bust cover and the wind doesn't blow it all over the place.

I know the 5.56 killed the enemy in Vietnam, but just look at how long the ROK guys carried Garands and BARs. Hell I even saw footage of US troops during the Tet Offensive carrying BARs, M-1 Carbines, Thompsons, and M-3s. Likely these guys were using whatever they could get their hands on (this footage was from some city battle, saw it on History Channel), but it worked just fine. I simply see no evidence that our lethality increased from the switch to 5.56, or that our suppressive fire increase made that much of an improvement.

A good handload .30-06 AP round can go through as much as 36 inches of solid oak. Try busting cover like that with SS-109. The enemy does not spend their time standing out in the open waiting for you to shoot them, they hide behind trees, rocks, dirt, animals, cars, aircraft, block walls, sandbags, kevlar, etc. 5.56 just doesn't cut it. We've simply not seen this yet because our only major conflict involving it was one we purposely lost and our enemy was decades behind us in logistical technology.

Gulf War? Hardly proof, the enemy surrendered like crazy and we did most of our killing with bombs, artillery, and tanks. 5.56 is a powerful round IF you hit the enemy in the right spot, and IF you hit them at all. Chechen Rebels have not had a very hard time making the Russians work for their victories and most of them are using 7.62, while most of the Russians are using 5.45. Logistics is what wins wars when you get down to it, not tactics, not bullets, those matter but logistics is the soul of a war machine.

Wounded are not enough of a factor to count on. If Russian war efforts during WW2 show anything, they show that getting your guys killed or wounded doesn't always matter that much to the war effort. If soldiers were wounded they were ignored until the battle was won or lost, and the thinking of the time was that instead of resupplying your own guys you give them all the supplies they can carry, send them to the front, get them killed and take some enemies with them, a nd then you don't have to resupply them, logistics problem solved. If they got wounded and survived the wait until the battle was over, then you'd stick them in a rudimentary field hospital and make a half-assed attempt to fix them up. In the rare chance they still managed to live, you stuck them back in the unit and got them killed in the next battle. Ruthless enemies don't sweat over wounded too badly, or dead for that matter.
 
you need to look at it like this, in 99% of times if you shoot some one they are goin to Stop! thats if you shoot them with a .223 a .308 or a 22lr they will Stop! and if you shoot them in the head! or if you shoot them in the leg! they will Stop! the only way they would not stop is if they were out of there Heads! and the only guys out there that i can see that are out of there heads like that are terrorist.
 
The 223 round is effective for comat use. If you get hit by one it will ruin your day! Depending on where you get hit, you might be no more.



Besides under combat conditions, who well do you think the "average" solider can shoot?? Think they could hit a man sized target at 400 yards??? How about a moving man sized target at 200 yards???


I think a good way to simulate the stress of combat would be to drink coffee to the point where you would start to shake ALOT, then goto the range and see what you can do. ;) Well that might give a basic idea of what some of the stress woulld induce.
 
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