I heard the 5.56 wasn't up to snuff against Somalis. My theory is that everything on the African continent is harder to kill. Go look at old zebra stallions. Know what those scars are from? Lions that failed to make a meal out of them and got kicked in the face for trying. That's also why you never see people riding zebras.
Why was 223/5.56 annointed?
- Thread starter kcub
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Regular Joe
New member
As for pressure differences between .223 and 5.56...
Look at any modern reloading manual. You will find separate data for .223 and for 5.56, and the 5.56 data is always hotter at the max end.
While you're in the reloading section, look at reloading dies. You'll find .223 dies in several flavors. FL, Small Base, etc... You will NOT find anything in 5.56. Both cases resize to the same dimensions.
Look at any modern reloading manual. You will find separate data for .223 and for 5.56, and the 5.56 data is always hotter at the max end.
While you're in the reloading section, look at reloading dies. You'll find .223 dies in several flavors. FL, Small Base, etc... You will NOT find anything in 5.56. Both cases resize to the same dimensions.
the .223/5.56mm?? sure, why not? Every rifle round adopted by the US Army has been very popular with the police and civilians. People get familiar with the round in the service, and that carries over when they get out, and being the service round means plentiful, cheap ammo (surplus) which always helps the popularity of a round, and the rifles that shoot it.
Talk to the veterans, then, and now. Talk to combat vets. I think you'll find the "popularity" of the .223 round to be somewhat less than universal. After all, its not like soldiers have a choice of cartridge. The high Brass does that.
Double Naught Spy
New member
They don't have a choice on a lot of things and while they have opinions on every one of them, most are not experts.
In the historical readings I have done, soldiers have managed to complain about every rifle they have used. Apparently, no one rifle does everything desired in a manner desired. Even when the gun worked well, if it wasn't better than the enemy's gun, then it was insufficient.
Nothing is universally liked or disliked in the military.
It might be better to say that the round used was too much up to snuff. The apparently failure of the M855 to destabilize quickly enough in slight of build combatants meant that there were a lot of pass-through ice pick-like holes and not a lot of damage. http://inquirer.philly.com/packages/somalia/dec07/default07.asp The preceding M193 rounds likely would have performed much better. The bottom line is that if you pick the wrong ammo for the job, you get poor results.
Never mind the problems with Khat use by the combatants.
Brian Pfleuger
Moderator Emeritus
44AMP said:
I've been a gamer for nigh on 30 years and I could probably count on one hand the number of combat games that use "one shot kills".
The most common complaint is in fact the opposite... an in-game soldier continues to function perfectly normally after being hit 2, 3, 5 or more times until they're suddenly "dead" at which point they die instantly and completely. It wasn't until (relatively) recently that games started including things like dimming screens or blood spatter messing up your vision before you died.
I would think a first time combat soldier with nothing but gaming experience would figure on emptying entire magazines into every enemy, swap mags between every one and probably think that unused cartridges from mag swaps would just "magically" remain in their inventory.
Little remembered today, but mixed in with the glowing reports of how effective the "tumbling" 5.56mm bullets were (M193) in Vietnam, were reports of how the same ammo was nearly ineffective at ranges of 25m or less (point blank). Ice pick holes, straight through, little damage (no tumble).
(which is why the FA feature of the M16 was a good thing
)I think the "slight build" of the average Vietnamese compares reasonably well with the slight build of Somalis, in regards to bullet performance.
Absolutely true, with everything!!!
As to the games, I admit, I haven't played them, or watched any in the last decade or so. One thing I did see that I have remembered, is getting my son the new hot game for Christmas (I no longer remember the name, it was a WWII one) spending $50 for it, and seeing him beat everything in it in about 35hrs. (Yes, the lad has a bit of hid dad's OCD, there is no quit in him when he's gaming
) Any way what impressed me most was seeing him clear the Remagen Bridge with a "liberated" G43 sniper rifle (he liked it because it was the only one in the game that had a scope), and the number of times he had to shoot twice was very seldom. On the other hand, he does know how to shoot....Had he been there in real life, and if real life was like the game, it wouldn't have been "A bridge too far"..
Games are fun, but they aren't realistic training, although they are better now than they were.
In modern engagements, American military come out with lower number of casualties as compared to the opposing force. The casualty ratios are usually overwhelmingly one-sided. Not all of it can be contributed to the 5.56mm, we have other weapons in each unit as well. But, I'm sure the bean counters and the metrics makers, would have noticed within 50 years if it was performing inadequately.
Just to clarify the USAF role in the M16 adoption. The Air Force did not adopt the AR-15 early on. LeMay used his broad authority as commander of the Strategic Air Command (SAC) to procure a limited number of AR-15's for that organization. (I don't recall how many, but if anyone wants to look it up, be my guest.) Those had the blue stocks and if they have not all been destroyed and could be sold they would bring nice prices. But they were not M16's.
Under current law, the Army is the DoD Lead Military Department for small arms and ground weapons procurement for all the services, but exceptions are made for special purpose units, like the SEALs. In the AR-15 case, SAC exercised its option to buy a limited number of non-standard rifles.
But there were not enough for all SAC small arms use and many guards carried carbines for years after that. In fact, they could have carried pepper spray, since AFAIK, there has never been an attack on a SAC base in the U.S. except by stray coyotes.
Jim
Under current law, the Army is the DoD Lead Military Department for small arms and ground weapons procurement for all the services, but exceptions are made for special purpose units, like the SEALs. In the AR-15 case, SAC exercised its option to buy a limited number of non-standard rifles.
But there were not enough for all SAC small arms use and many guards carried carbines for years after that. In fact, they could have carried pepper spray, since AFAIK, there has never been an attack on a SAC base in the U.S. except by stray coyotes.
Jim
Double Naught Spy
New member
Well, we do tend to fight less well trained, less well armed, and technologically inferior adversaries and we don't just fight them with rifles. Often is the case when we get into trouble, we just call in air strikes.
The 5.56 performs adequately within the operational window as part of an overall package, no doubt, but that the ammo for the 5.56 keeps getting modified indicates that adequacy is in question and changes made to compensate.
"...it really ****** off some of those Afghan hillbillies when you plink them with the 5.56."
My personal experience in Iraq and Aghanistan is nil (for which I am just as glad, though I don't think they need many 82-year-olds) but I have seen deer and groundhogs hit by the .223 or equivalent and I had the distinct impression they were usually too dead to be ****** off. To say that the 5.56 is less powerful than the 7.62 NATO is true; but to claim that hits with the smaller bullet are routinely ignored by the recipient sounds more like a club story than actual experience.
Jim
My personal experience in Iraq and Aghanistan is nil (for which I am just as glad, though I don't think they need many 82-year-olds) but I have seen deer and groundhogs hit by the .223 or equivalent and I had the distinct impression they were usually too dead to be ****** off. To say that the 5.56 is less powerful than the 7.62 NATO is true; but to claim that hits with the smaller bullet are routinely ignored by the recipient sounds more like a club story than actual experience.
Jim
The paradox of the .223/5.56 is that it's basically a questionable military tool as issued in the plain jane M16 and M4, but has turned into an excellent civilian platform. The m193 and m855 loads have been plagued by terminal problems, twist rate problems, low BCs, and accuracy problems. The original M16 thought so little about optics they put a carry handle where the scope goes 
Accuracy has been pretty much 4MOA junk from day 1, partly due to the horrible triggers.
But the civilian world, I can go out and buy a a 1MOA gun no problem, slap in a nice trigger, and put on whatever optics I like (with the option of a monolithic rail). Then I can shoot any number of barrier blind bonded hunting bullet loads that do in fact have suitable terminal ballistics for man/deer sized targets. Or I can switch to heavy match bullets and shoot supersonic out to 800-1000y depending on altitude.
All of this with so little recoil that women and kids shoot 'em no problem.
That's a LOT of gun. It still looks like it was designed by an out of work pipe fitter, but who cares?
Accuracy has been pretty much 4MOA junk from day 1, partly due to the horrible triggers.But the civilian world, I can go out and buy a a 1MOA gun no problem, slap in a nice trigger, and put on whatever optics I like (with the option of a monolithic rail). Then I can shoot any number of barrier blind bonded hunting bullet loads that do in fact have suitable terminal ballistics for man/deer sized targets. Or I can switch to heavy match bullets and shoot supersonic out to 800-1000y depending on altitude.
All of this with so little recoil that women and kids shoot 'em no problem.
That's a LOT of gun. It still looks like it was designed by an out of work pipe fitter, but who cares?