What's new
British Ordnance Collectors Network

This is a sample guest message. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

Wound rather than kill?

Mark Finneran

Well-Known Member
So many experts here but the ballistics capability if I am not mistaken of most modern small arms ammo is to wound. The idea being to tie up others to assist the wounded, add pressure to medical and logistics chains etc. Could anyone provide any thoughts/evidence on when perhaps the British and Imperial Germans considered this a design factor. Pre-WWI or after WWII etc. Tests on .303 ball etc? Hugely appreciated.
Mark
 
I have never encountered or seen evidence of any police or military force that has taught its members to shoot to wound. Shoot to kill is the only goal of which I am aware.
 
Mark is right - the development of 5.55mm high velocity bullet (M16 an such assault rifles) was intended to create a wound by cavitation rather than killing at once - the rationale is that a wounded soldier incapacitate an average of 4 to 5 other personnel who need to attend/treat him.
There was a lengthy debate on this matter at the Geneva convention pushed by the Soviets in the early 70s to try and frobid the 5.56mm caliber....that went to a halt as soon as they too succeeded to mass produce assault rifle using the same high velocity caliber bullets.
See the 1973 Geneva Convention report here https://www.loc.gov/rr/frd/Military_Law/pdf/RC-Weapons.pdf as an exemple of this debate.
BTW, from this point of view the M16 was a "failure" - it's a killing weapon, as in fact quite often the bullet begins to wobble and tumble almost as soon as it leaves the muzzle and therefore shatters in pieces (dum-dum effect) when reaching its target. This enhanced killing power made the M16 a much looked for weapon, mass produced.
 
I have fired enough 5.56 mm rounds of all types and from multiple weapons to know that the bullet in no way, form or fashion starts to wobble and tumble in flight. It would be a very inaccurate weapon if this was the case, and it can be a very accurate cartridge as it is currently used in long range rifle competitions (I realize this is a long conversation as there are old and new cartridge designs and various barrel rifling twists). I have not studied its terminal ballistics but tumbling on impact is a distinct possibility per my understanding.
 
I have fired enough 5.56 mm rounds of all types and from multiple weapons to know that the bullet in no way, form or fashion starts to wobble and tumble in flight. It would be a very inaccurate weapon if this was the case, and it can be a very accurate cartridge as it is currently used in long range rifle competitions (I realize this is a long conversation as there are old and new cartridge designs and various barrel rifling twists). I have not studied its terminal ballistics but tumbling on impact is a distinct possibility per my understanding.


Yes M8owner is perfectly right, however even if they are meant to look alike and they can be shot in the same weapons, some .223 cartridges are different, that's the case with the French or Swiss version (I don't remember which one) which are intended to be used with their national weapons. When regular US .223 SS109 bullets are shot in these national weapons, the accuracy is not there, simply because the Nato ammo isn't meant to be used in these particular barrel rifling twists, which are different to the M4's.

The reason leading to the development and adoption of the .223 was the possibility for the soldier to take more ammo with him and also have a lighter and shorter weapon, the weight being the main problem the army always (even nowadays) has been wanting to solve.

The one and only purpose of a military weapon is to kill the enemy as fast as possible.
What people usually compare are hunting ammo and military ammo, and obviously that leads to the wrong conclusion that military rifles are using bullets which are not intended to kill. One cannot be more wrong.
 
On this target three guns were shot by the same shooter.

The cluster in the chest was from a 9mm Glock 17 using S&B 1977 dated rounds.
The cluster in the throat area was a 7.62x39 AK using Chinese Factory 947 rounds dated 1972.
The widely spread spattering of mostly key-holed holes near the car was from a 5.56 M4 using Chinese (China North) C J 95 ammo. I think this demonstrates in the case of this M4, the need to match ammunition type to the weapon.
 

Attachments

  • 1B55C862-7829-4240-BB1F-D95E017CB018.jpg
    1B55C862-7829-4240-BB1F-D95E017CB018.jpg
    276.3 KB · Views: 46
What I wrote is valid only for service's M16 and not from rifle range competitions - My own experience and of my colleagues was that, even at very short distance, we often saw shattering of the bullet - it may be indeed due to the fact that service bullets are, by nature, kept "in field conditions" and we focused on the wounds and didn't interest ourselves with the state of the barrels that fired the bullets or the state/age of the powder, though it makes indeed sense that this influences the bullet behavior.

This extract from a very nice Australian work "The Assessment of Bullet Wound Trauma Dynamics and the Potential Role of Anatomical Models" describes most perfectly what happens:

"5.56x45mmNATO:

At high impact velocities, all of these bullets tend to fragment and the penetrator (located in the nose) may become separated. Another feature of these bullets is that they consistently exhibit curved trajectories during gelatine impact testing because their centre of gravity is located to the rear of the bullet’s centre of drag (centre of pressure). The centre of drag is defined as the theoretical point (usually in the forebody) at which all drag forces can be said to be acting, which causes the bullet to turn as it starts to yaw during tissue or gelatine penetration (1, 80, 81). These types of bullets typically have full metal jackets comprised of copper nickel gilding metal, as well as a lead-antimony alloy core. Antimony is added to the lead to increase its stiffness for superior penetration (82).

The 5.56x45mmNATO bullet typically exits the muzzle of a rifle with up to 6° of yaw at launch. As the bullet moves farther from the muzzle the gyroscopic stabilisation dampens the yaw, which gradually decreases to approximately 2° throughout the region of stable flight (pre-transonic — greater than Mach 1.2). This explains why close range wounds from this calibre are generally more destructive than long range wounds, because the bullet has become more stable over a greater range and has less remaining kinetic energy. Bullet fragmentation also decreases with increased shooting distance, and this explains why these bullets penetrate deeper at 100m range than they do at 3m (75, 83).


Another important feature of certain high velocity bullets like the 5.56x45mmNATO is their tendency to fragment. Fragmentation is the result of rapid yaw growth and is caused by a combination of forces that bend the projectile sufficiently to fracture the jacket (1, 54, 81). All types of STANAG 4172, 5.56x45mmNATO bullets tend to flatten and break at the cannelure. This occurs because the cannelure is the weakest portion of the bullet jacket and stress forces focus on this area during maximum yaw. The bullet point tends to flatten but remains in one piece because of the structural integrity associated with the design (cone shape), but the rear section breaks into many fragments. This feature can cause major tissue disruption (84).

Reducing the barrel length of assault rifles such as the M16 in calibre 5.56x45mm, will also reduce the velocity generated. This can potentially reduce the effectiveness of this calibre depending on the target distance by decreasing the likelihood the bullet will fragment (47)."

the whole work can b found at https://digital.library.adelaide.edu.au/dspace/bitstream/2440/99527/2/02whole.pdf - (5.56mm NATO is on page 38-39)

Doppz92, sorry to disagree but the aim of warfare is to win, not to kill - killing is just one of the ways to win - and disorganizing the enemy lines by encumbering them with flows of heavily injured patients was indeed one of the main rationales behind the development of the 5.56mm high velocity bullets - as it is much more "efficient" than simply killing individual soldiers - you neutralize in practice 4 to 5 soldiers in the chain of treatment/evacuation of such an injured patient with all what this means in terms of logistics. When the supply lines of an attacking force are "embottled" this means that the attack has to be terminated. Neither forget that NATO doctrine is a defensive doctrine, not a doctrine of aggression.
 
Last edited:
On this target three guns were shot by the same shooter.
The widely spread spattering of mostly key-holed holes near the car was from a 5.56 M4 using Chinese (China North) C J 95 ammo. I think this demonstrates in the case of this M4, the need to match ammunition type to the weapon.

I have never seen bullet "key holes" on a target before....................I'm not going to even ask what distance they were fired from as most projectiles require a min. range to stabilize for any distance accuracy even with match HPBTs

All I can say is those projectiles must have been rattling down the barrel.......forget about the rifle twist - they wouldn't been even touching the sides!!!!
 
Last edited:
Those bullets must have been designed for use against forces of countries who were non signatories of the Geneva Convention, terrorists, criminals or game.
You have to use full metal jacket, however designed to tumble and weakened to breakup on impact, against Geneva Convention forces. Hollow point is not permitted.
 
One thing I may have omitted is the possibility that if the copper jacket is complete and the Geneva Convention was not specific on shape of bullet, this may have been an attempt to get round the full metal jacket constraint.
Perhaps someone realised what was happening and put a stop to it.
I must say that I have not read the SAA part of the Geneva Convention.
 
Top