Proper Shot Placement Ensures the Lethality Of The 5.56mm

SHOT PLACEMENT

I have received several questions lately about the “killing effectiveness” or “killing power” of standard issue 5.56mm M855 Penetrator ammo. I have several thoughts and facts on this but first lets take a step back and look at the history of the 5.56mm from its inception.

            The M16A1 ,which is the first U.S. service rifle in any serious quantity to fire the 5.56mm round, was adopted back in 1963 and became an across the board standard issue weapon by 1969, which then of course made the 5.56mm the standard issue round at that time.

There were several requirements for this new round which included the ability for the round to penetrate both sides of a standard U.S. issued steel helmet, body armor, or a 0.135 inch (3.4 mm) steel plate and also be able to retain a velocity in excess of the speed of sound at 500 yards (460 m), while equaling or exceeding the "wounding" ability of the .30 cal carbine but with less recoil and a higher magazine capacity. What “Wounding Ability” simply means is the ability of the round to cause a serious wound at any given range. The 5.56mm was not designed ,as many believe, as a killing round per say but as an incapacitation round that was light, fast, and controllable on full auto. When the round was designed the prevalant thought was “ if you shoot someone then it will take several people to carry them away” that is 3-4 MORE enemy thereby occupied with something other than killing you, and the smaller the bullet is that accomplishes this then the lighter it will be and the more we can carry, making each individual U.S. military member theoretically capable of stopping and destroying the combat effectiveness of an ENTIRE INFANTRY BATTALION. Sounds good right?  Unfortunately with most countries that we have recently found ourselves fighting with, the combatants do not typically stop and care for the wounded like the U.S. military does, and the round may cause a wound, but not total incapacitation, which as recent studies of combat have shown, can allow the enemy to keep fighting for some time afterwards possibly even returning the favor to the person who shot them.

The 5.56 mm cartridge can kill very easily and very well, but it requires shot placement and it is said that in some places that  “there is not time to aim when your getting shot at”.. well I personally can discredit that theory, because every time that I had to pull the trigger on my weapon in combat I had time to aim.. or I took time to aim.. What it comes down to is not the power of the round but of shot placement, and the training and intestinal fortitude that it take to properly aim under stress, instead of panicking and spraying rounds everywhere in hopes of getting a hit.  A wise man once said “ a .22 to the heart is a quicker death than a .50 to the hand”. In many cases insurgents were said to have been shot in Iraq “like 10 times man and he didn’t go down” until some one came up with a M240B and put ‘em down. When the body was checked, do you know how many 5.56mm holes were in them? In most cases NONE!! Just because you fire 10 times at someone DOES NOT mean that you hit them that many times even at close ranges.

    At longer ranges the 5.56mm is very lethal due to the fact that it retains its velocity out to 500-600 yds and when it hits, it fragments, DOES NOT TUMBLE, inside the body of the person hit, the round was designed to yaw in soft tissue which means that the round starts to tumble but, due to its speed, it breaks up starting at the cannalure of the round before it ever gets a chance to actually tumble. This is not always what happens though, as perfect no angle shots are rarely taken, and with angle of impact comes deflection of trajectory. Again proper shot placement will win the fight 10 times out of 10.
    The 5.56 mm round is actually known to be more lethal at ranges past 100m  due to the inherent velocity of the round at very close distances and the fact that the round is not completely stabilized in its trajectory until about 100m, which can cause the round to prematurely fragment upon striking an object, be it the intended target or something else. You will not typically get the penetration that you desire in the target at close distances, however the benefit to this is overpenetration and complete misses can usually be mitigated by something as thin as a sheetrock interior wall and almost always by an exterior wall.
     The 5.56mm  is a very accurate round, and I personally have made consecutive hits on a man sized steel target at 720+ meters in the sitting position with an M4A4 w/ RCO. Will the round be highly lethal at that range?? Probably not, but as my Platoon Sergeant said, "No one likes to bleed and the fact that you are making hits at that range is going to highly discourage them from coming closer and will help insure tatical redirection"(i.e. retreat). The 5.56mm  has a very high velocity as well, the trade off to this is the fact that the relatively lightweight projectile rapidly bleeds off energy upon striking an object. Picture attempting to drive a railroad spike with drywall hammer as opposed to a sledgehemmer. You can do it, but it will take more hits to typically drive the spike with the light hammer, unless you are trying to drive the spike through a sheet of plywood or something softer with less density. Which not only exemplifies the fact that shot placement is key with this round, in the fact that you dont want to try to penetrate body armor or dense bone with this round, but that it may take a few rounds to actually put a bad guy down for the count. You want to place your rounds in soft areas like the "T-Box", which is the area of the face formed by the nose and the eyes, or the thoracic cavity which is located in the chest.

    All in all the 5.56mm as performed as required and designed, while many would like to see the military switch to a heavier round, many of those advocating a switch aren't even experts with this round in this weapon, so why would we spend the money to switch to a heavier, more expensive round, that has more recoil, and that may or may not even work better when they cant hit what they are shooting at now with a light round with little recoil.