Which one of those is the Raufoss (sp) round, I think it’s named afther the town that makes it?
That’s the Norwegian 50 cal round for the Barret and the like… IIRC, it’s called a SAPHEI (Semi Armor-Piercing High Explosive Incendiary)…
That’s a myth, Gary… Same as the myth about using a 50 caliber against personel vs equipment. What’s illegal are “Dum-Dum”-type rounds and rounds that are altered or modified by the user to cause “undue suffering”, or to poison ammunition… Other than that, all ammo is perfectly legal to use against enemy personel.
Umm, no… Producing casualties is the very reason for the airburst…
Yep, that’s why you aim for their canteen…destroying enemy equipment is not against the convention…
Again, it’s a myth that you can’t use 50 cal against people. Don’t care if the bad guy’s buck-nekkid and has no equipment, you can shoot him with it legally…
I figure that if the Browning M2 50-cal uses illegal ammo, then a large percentage of the world’s armed forces HMGs must have a disclaimer on them stating “not for use against enemy personel who are not in an armoured vehicle or building” - NOT.
next time your in a war surplus store look at they old ammo cans they have for sale. Right on the side of the can you will see phrases like “7.62 ball”. This comes out of the Geneva Convention that said that all ammo used against people has to be fully encased. If you remember it hasn’t been all that long ago that the U.S. and the Russians were called up on the carpet over a so called steel tiped “armor piercing” round that was actually meant to penetrate body armor. The Russians got around this by encaseing their round with a very thin jacket. I think we dropped the round. Ball is a term that refers to a round completely encased in a solid jacket.
The idea of shooting at someone with a cannon round is old news. When I was in the Army they flatly said it was against the rules to use an aerial burst against people, but we did almost everyday. That came right out of the mouth of the U.S. Army!
Back to the Barrett and an explosive round. First of all like I said you cannot shoot someone with an explosive device, but you can drop a 105 round near them and of course blow them up. The idea of using an explosive round for long range shooting is also rather contradictory to accuracey. The round looses stability in flight do to an ever shifting C/G (the rule of thumb is that a .0001" error will cause a .093" variation in 100 yards, and with this device your closer to .001". So trig that out to 2000 yards, and you just missed). A “dum-dum round” really is nothing but a term refering to flat nosed bullets made to shoot in revolvers. That never evolved into rifles after the turn of the 20th century (with expection to anything that uses a tube type magazine). Reason? Simply aerodynamics alone (seeking the perfect ballistic co-efficent). A 750 grain fifty caliber round is known to have a B/C of 1.0 (match grade ammunition as it leaves the muzzle). As a round flies thru the air it rotates at a high speed, but as the velocity slows the rpm also slows thus decreasing it’s stability (lower B/C). Then you add in the center of gravity error (nothing is perfect if it’s jacketed). This alone is one of the major reasons that an artillary round varies on impact (all HE rounds are machined from cast steel). With this in mind a sniper’s rifle would be a good scatter gun using an explosive round
gary
a 12.7mm round is not illeagle, but an explosive round is when you shoot somebody. This rule was handed down by our friends in Europe many years ago, and we signed onto the rules of the Geneva Convention. As for a disclaimer? They simply tell you, and it’s up to you to follow the rules. Booby traps are illeagle, but every Army on this planet uses them. Technically WP is too, but we use it. Suggest you find a copy of the Geneva Convention and read it.
gary
to further add to the dum dum quote: It was learned a long time ago that an unstable round at close range does far more damage than a very stable round at the same distance. But the heavier and longer round tends to have a greater sectional density; thus giving it the capability of deeper penitration. Example here: The very first .223 rounds shot in M16’s used a 1:13 twist barrel with a 53 grain bullet. The round became unstable on impact, and literally went all over the place in a torso. Now we use everything from 1:9 to 1:7 twist rates for much heavier bullets (69 grain and heavier bullets), but don’t really shoot any better even though they have a little more useless range. The move now is to a 27 caliber round, and back to the basic idea that 90% of all people shot are under 50 yards. The same thing was experimented with back in the late seventies using the .223 case necked up to 6mm (24 caliber). They used an 85 grain boat tailed bullet with a 1:14" twist rate. Had .308 ballistics in an M16.
gary
Gary, the last two years before I retired from the Army, one of my jobs was to give the Geneva Conventions briefings to Guard and Reserve troops mobilizing & deploying to combat zones during their SRPs at Ft McCoy… Now I’m not gonna get into a leg-lifting contest here, nor am I going to quote the contents of each article, paragraph, & line, but I will say that, as of 2006, I’m fairly certain that I was up to speed on the Law of Land Warfare and the Geneva & Hague Conferences, specifically, Hague Convention IV of 1907, which is actually what we’re talking about here, rather than the Geneva Convention of 1949, and is supplemented with several Judge Advocates General rulings from 1985 and 1990, the latest of which revolved around a request from the Commander-USSOCOM (United States Special Operations Command) for changes… In a nutshell, given the rulings from the JAG of the Army, Navy, and Air Force, the Hague Accords regarding ammunition are O-U-T, OUT…
What’s really happening here is an example of Herr Goebbel’s “Big Lie” theory, which basically boils down to this: “The same lie, repeated often enough, becomes the truth”…
The incendiary round is not explosive. It is incendiary… There is a difference.
Actually, the question of ‘how much more powerful’ is problematic. What do you mean by power? For example, due to its heavier weight, a 7.62 round will go through things the 5.56 won’t. At the same time, the 5.56 NATO round is designed to be unstable, meaning when it strikes something it tumbles, so the traumatic damage caused by the 5.56 round is often greater than that of the 7.62 (even the ‘newer round’ that Gary mentions is less stable on impact than the 7.62). The higher velocity of the 5.56 also contributes to it causing more trauma - especially if it strikes something hard, like a bone.
So, in a way, the idea of ‘powerful’ might not get to what you want to know. Range, penetration, ‘stopping power’, etc are more useful characteristics to consider.
Right-O!
Both of those myths have been around for decades…
Yup…
No one has touched on the subject of shotguns? A freind of mine who was a Vietnam vet and a LRP told me how most of his squad had their family members ship them 12 gauge shot guns from home because they were not suppose to have them and the Army could not suppy them. Is this true. I do not think he was lying about it but since there seems to be some experts here I thought I would ask. I also heard that there were some troops that used them in WWI because they were very effective in trench fighting.
Soulcrusher[oX)]
They may have shipped them from their families, I know when they were spooling up for sinping in the Army after years of neglecting the program, they bought off the shelf rifles and scopes through the base exchanges. But shotguns were issued during the Viet Nam conflict.
Shotguns were legitimatley supplied & used by US troops in Vietnam. I imagine that the many troops that had a shotguns from back home took these as an additional weapon to their issue one in the event they got tied up in “close quarter stuff”.
I would also imagine that the bad early reputation the M16 / 5.56 combo gained, helped this along, what with the perceived poor stopping power of the 5.56 round & issues with early propellants.
Shotguns were used in WW1 & refered to as “trench guns” - they have been used in warfare as long as they have existed - like in the American Civil War.
Shotguns, as such, aren’t illegal weapons and the US Army does indeed issue them to certain troops such as MPs, and some specialized units have shotguns in their MTOE, although they’d be in a limited number, no more than a dozen or so… What isn’t legal is having someone ship you personal weapons from home… Has nothing to do with the Geneva & Hague Conferences though. It’s against Army Regulations to carry personal weapons… There’re a number of reasons for this, not the least of which is physical security.
When I lived in the barracks, and later, in the BNCOQ, I wasn’t allowed to keep my guns in my quarters. They had to be stored in the unit Arms Room under the unit armorer’s control and I had to sign them in & out, same as my issue weapons… Couldn’t store ammo in my quarters either… When I lived in post housing, I was allowed to keep my weapons in my quarters, but had to get permission from the Provost Marshal and follow all post regualtions regarding storage, security, and transport…
We got 'em issued to us in Iraq…
Thanks for all of the great input guys. I knew they have them in Iraq because I have seen video of them using them with slugs to blast locks of off door to gain enrty. I also was pretty sure about WWI but you do not hear alot about of them being used in WWII Korea or Vietnam. I would have thought a place like Stalingrad having a shotgun would have given you a nice edge but I have never heard about them being used. Mabye its because grenades tossed in through an open door worked even better.
Soulcrusher[oX)]