"Bullets used by British soldiers 'too small to defeat Taliban'"

[gruntinhusaybah]

hitting what youre trying to hit helps alot
it's like the scene in Band of Brothers where the guy from another unit is next to Garneare(sp?) in the trench and fires round after round and this nazi, missing every shot with an M1 Garand mind you, now thats a real knock down cartridge!
Garneare presents his Thompson and lets a burst go into the nazis back and down he goes
is anyone going to argue that 30-06 is less powerful than .45 ACP? No
did .45ACP work in that situation? Yes, because he hit the bastard!

spend all this money people are proposing for a newer better whiz bang round on freakin training and everything will be good

[bernieb90]

WOW! So let me get this straight 5.56 doesn't scare bad guys as well as 7.62 when you miss, and .50 really scares them bad. I think we need to put whistles on the bullets to really scare them. This guy then spends the whole article complaining about the poor terminal performance of the 5.56 NATO, and then mentions at the end really briefly that the poor terminal performance is intentional. Nice to know where the British Government's priorities are.

[Jaws]

When eight out of ten troops are out of range in 50% of the engagements than there's a problem with the universally addopted cartridge and no training in the world can fix that.

[bernieb90]

When eight out of ten troops are out of range in 50% of the engagements than there's a problem with the universally addopted cartridge and no training in the world can fix that.

I see it a bit differently. It appears the author is confusing things a bit. When British troops are being engages from 600+yds it is not 7.62X39 fired from an AK. It would be 7.62X54 fired from a belt fed machine gun or SVD variant both chambered in 7.62X54. These are specialized weapons not carried by every bad guy on the battfield. The British already have specialized weapons that can deal with long range engagements chambered in both 7.62 NATO (sniper rifles, and machineguns) and .338 Lapua neither of which will do any good if the enemy is in a "bunker". 6.8 SPC will not reach out 800yds anyway, and even if the 6.5 Grendel can there is no gaurantee that the average rifleman will be able to make good hits at that range in combat anyway.

The U.S. has DM rifles with specialy trained guys behind them set up for being able to deliver accurate fire at longer ranges, and with greater precision that the average rifleman is capable of. These rifles are not ony M14s, but also accurized 5.56 caliber rifles firing Mk262 which have proven effective out to 800yds. The British will not adopt MK262 because it fragments.