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5.56 NATO ROUNDTABLE JIM SCHATZ and through intermediate barriers common in modern shooting encounters. The effects of the projectile on the human target cannot be measured by exterior ballistics alone and any comparison or claims made without terminal performance data are both inconclusive and perplexing to the uninformed. TARGET SUPPRESSION There was a very thoughtful “Suppression Study” briefing conducted by the UK MoD at the 2009 European Small Arms and Cannons Symposium in Shrivenham, England, which clearly showed the vast differences in the effectiveness of personnel target suppression between 5.56x45mm, 7.62x51mm and .50 BMG. The U.S. experience has echoed this as well. Clearly larger is better in this case. The Taliban, it has been said, “Ignore 5.56mm, respect 7.62mm and fear .50 BMG.” Our enemies today practice the art of standoff shooting, staying just outside the effective range of our 5.56x45mm weapon systems and in turn engage the friendlies with 7.62x54mm Russian caliber weapons like the SVD and PKM. This is why there is a resurgence of many more 7.62x51mm weapons within the maneuvering frontline units with those NATO countries still fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Our troops on the receiving end have learned this lesson well, and often at a tremendous cost. TRAINING Training is an undeniable factor in weapon and ammunition effectiveness in battle. That goes without saying. However even the very best and most realistic marksmanship training cannot make up for the many factors outside the control of the riflemen. Even the very best trained marksman cannot achieve well placed hits on fleeting or partially exposed targets, those at long range or protected by intermediate barriers, especially when firing under poorly supported field conditions and while taking incoming fire. Thus we must demand that the effectiveness of the rifle cartridge, more specifically the projectile, deliver the greatest possible terminal effects even when the small, hard to hit vital areas on the tough human target like the central nervous system (brain and brain stem) are not struck. Kinetic energy projectiles (bullets, fragments) kill in only two ways – through hits on the central nervous system resulting in near instantaneous death or through tissue destruction and the resulting loss of blood which can take a significant amount of time, up to 50 seconds in fact, an absolute lifetime in the life and death millisecond world of armed combat. Hits to the head and brain stem are nearly impossible to obtain in anything but the very best circumstances and those conditions seldom exist on the battlefield. ANGLE SHOOTING Engaging targets at high or low angles A French military service member assigned to an explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) unit fires an HK416 rifle during a three-day joint operation with U.S. Sailors assigned to the EOD Mobile Unit 11 and U.S. Marines with the EOD Detachment, 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit in Djibouti June 13, 2010. The operation included equipment familiarization, scenario-driven events, small arm live fire and a demolition range. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Gunnery Sgt. James Frank/Released) as is the case in a mountainous environment like Afghanistan, as any good sniper or marksman can tell you, is a great determining factor on accurate target engagement based on the effects of gravity and drag on rifle projectiles. THE END USER EXPERIENCE Then, we should carefully consider the actions of the end user community and the effects of their requests on their chain of supply. Perhaps the best indication of whether the current weapons and calibers are doing the job in the eyes of the people out front doing the fighting is the feedback from those people. Sort of looking for columns of smoke, to find where there is fire. We should consider what those nations and units who are carrying the heavy load and doing most of the hard fighting in Afghanistan, Iraq and other hot spots in the world are carrying, developing and fielding. The U.S. has clearly carried the ball for more than a decade having as of June 2010 in excess of 78,000 troops deployed in Afghanistan alone with ISAF, 66% of the total troop numbers there. America has also lost nearly 1,100 brave souls there to war and the numbers are rising. Other countries like the UK have real hands on experience outside the wire and as such deserve our respect and examination of their lessons learned and resulting new material developments. We must watch what they do and not be distracted by the claims and actions of those who are not making the same contributions and sacrifices in the ongoing Global War on Terror (GWOT). One must look at what the major combatants are doing in terms of small arms and ammunition programs, especially within their special operations units as their experiences result in rather rapid changes in tactics and equipment. These choices are often emulated by larger, conventional military and other government organization (OGAs) but as in the case with SS109- style 5.56x45mm cartridge improvements or replacement, the larger the organization it seems the slower it embraces change, if things there ever change at all. EVIDENCE ALL AROUND US THROUGH LESSONS LEARNED The following are just a few recent and/or ongoing official examples of serious moves to improve or outright replace 5.56x45mm as both assault rifle and light machine gun cartridge that are happening today. These initiatives and trends in most cases are a direct result of the urgent user requests coming back from the various combat theaters the U.S. and NATO as well as our non-NATO allies are engaged in when the repeated and documented failures of 5.56x45mm SS109-style ammunition results in lives lost and missions jeopardized. The fact is that many countries in NATO have found the 5.56x45mm round seriously lacking in modern combat, both at short range and long range. Thus is the reason why: 1. The UK, the U.S., and now Germany and most recently the French military are urgently fielding thousands of 7.62x51mm NATO rifles for troop use Afghanistan. 2. By choice and based on extensive combat experience and independent comparative testing, U.S. Special Mission Units for the most part do not use standard 5.56x45mm M855/SS109-type 120 SPRING 2011 SPRING 2011 121
5.56 NATO ROUNDTABLE JIM SCHATZ ammo and instead use the 70 grain Optimal “Brown Tip,” 77 grain MK262 MOD 1, 62 grain MK255 MOD 1 R2LP, and 62 grain MK318 MOD 0 SOST ammunition because of their vastly improved terminal performance against both unprotected and protected human targets and continue to develop and field compact 7.62x51mm carbines (HK417, KAC SR- 25K Carbine, LMT MRP/L129A1, LaRue OBR or FN SCAR Heavies). 3. The U.S. Army has spent 15+ years and over $120M developing NLT three iterations of an improved 5.56x45mm M855A1 round to address numerous terminal effectiveness complaints and combat failure reports (at all engagement ranges from CQB to over 500 meters) from at least as far back as U.S. combat operations in Somalia in the early 1990s and certainly post 9/11. The U.S. Army fired more than 1M rounds during the development of the radically new M855A1 round as part of a concerted and focused major effort to replace the SS109-type M855 “penetrator” round deemed ineffective in modern combat. The projectile design of the M855A1 is radically different that that of all other SS109-type ammunition used throughout NATO, and for very good reason. 4. USSOCOM/NSWC Crane/ATK-Federal jointly developed the highly effective 5.56x45mm MK318 MOD 0 SOST round to specifically replace the M855 round based on documented combat failures and its larger SOST cousin the 7.62x51mm MK319 MOD 0 round. These rounds have been fielded within USSOCOM and the USMC (5.56x45mm) with excellent results to date, and are highly sought after by other NATO SOF units and federal law enforcement agencies. 5. BAE Systems is developing and the UK MoD is testing a new 5.56x45mm “High Performance” projectile/round to improve long range performance and lethality on unprotected and light skinned vehicle targets as a possible replacement to the current 5.56x45mm L2A2 Ball round sometime after planned 2011 trials are completed. There is also an independent ongoing effort in the UK in 2010 to revisit and evaluate the medium-caliber .280 British round (and other medium-caliber options) as a possible replacement to the 5.56x45mm and possibly 7.62x51mm cartridge(s) in a modern assault rifle platform. 6. At time of writing at least one NATO SOF unit is still developing a mediumcaliber cartridge/platform to increase the terminal performance of a compact M4- style platform based upon combat failures of 5.56x45mm SS109-style ammunition during combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. 7. The German Bundeswehr has written a classified report detailing the repeated combat failures of their SS109-style 5.56x45mm NATO DM11 round and have as a result (like the UK) issued an Urgent Requirement for 7.62x51mm semiautomatic rifles for use by German troops in Afghanistan. They have also initiated the design of a new modular, non-caliber specific assault rifle and will soon field a lightweight 7.62x51mm general-purpose machine gun (GPMG) to replace the MG3 GPMG and some 5.56x45mm MG4 light machine guns to deal with long range and protected targets that the 5.56x45mm round is not defeating. 8. The very latest new assault rifle platforms (Beretta ARX-160, Czech Republic CZ 805 A, Taiwan T97 and SCAR Common Receiver) exist after the costs of millions in R&D and are caliber- convertible by the operator beyond just 5.56x45mm NATO. 9. USSOCOM and FN are developing a single, “Common” or universal SCAR rifle receiver that can be converted into other calibers to include 7.62x51mm NATO, medium-calibers (6.8x43mm Rem. SPC and 7.62x39mm Russian) and 5.56x45mm NATO. 10. The U.S. Army and U.S. Navy continue to pull from Anniston Army Depot and the NSWC in Crane, Indiana and then modify and field additional mothballed 7.62x51mm NATO M14 rifles to be fielded to front line units as Squad Designated Marksman’s Rifles (SDMRs) to better deal with long range and protected targets not defeated by current 5.56x45mm platforms. 11. The Canadian military is open to and investigating the merits of a new caliber and/or projectile in their ongoing SARP (Small Arms Replacement Program) effort for the future Canadian DoD family of small arms to be fielded through 2022. 12. Many experienced law enforcement snipers/counter snipers no longer employ 5.56x45mm/.223 Remington caliber sniper rifles even though they can employ superior non-Hague compliant expanding hollow-point, polytip-style projectiles because this cartridge is simply not considered an effective “one-shot manstopper”. (The author personally knows of one such failure that resulted in the tragic death of an Arlington County Virginia SWAT officer killed when the assailant killed him with a shotgun after being drilled dead center mass in the torso with a 55 grain M193 FMJ 5.56x45mm round at less than 100 yards.) 13. A June 2009 report compiled for elements of the Canadian DoD concluded that to enhance their ammunition effectiveness it must “abandon the C77 FMJ (SS109- style) cartridge and replace it with a round loaded with a SOST/TOTM projectile,” or field a 6.8x43mm Rem. SPC round or a 7.62x51mm platform as a third option. 14. U.S. troops in Afghanistan are calling for additional 7.62x51mm MK48 light machine guns to augment and/or outright replace 5.56x45mm M249 SAW to effectively deal with longer range, protected targets and suppression deficiencies encountered with 5.56x45mm platforms. 15. The U.S. Army has left caliber or projectile style open in the requirements for the pending new “Individual Carbine” full and open competition and is investigating/ modeling other projectiles and calibers in support of this and other new Army small arms initiatives. 16. The 2006 U.S. Joint Service Wound Ballistics Integrated Product Team (JSWB-IPT) report recommended, and data developed from more than 10,000 test shots from 3–300 meters, to include those taken with M855, MK262 MOD 1, 6.8x43mm Rem. SPC, 7.62x39mm and 7.62x51mm NATO, supported the conclusion that in terms of terminal performance the optimum caliber for assault rifle use was not 5.56x45mm NATO nor the M855/SS109-style projectile. In fact, the 331 page draft (interim) report dated 12 April 2006 stated, “The best performing systems emphasizing tissue damage, on the average, in this study were of larger caliber than 5.56mm” and, “The 6.8mm performance observed in this test suggests that an intermediate caliber is the An M16 rifle sets in a V- notch stake with a target in the background, as a reminder of the annual weapons qualifications the Army Reserve units are required to go through, at Fort Pickett, Va., Nov. 21, 2009. (U.S. Army photo by Spc. Jeff Daniel/Released) 122 SPRING 2011 SPRING 2011 123
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