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Old 04-10-2018, 12:34 AM   #21
Tomsdad
 
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Default Re: .280 British Stats?

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Originally Posted by Ji ji View Post
“Without any effect” means that the subject keeps on fighting without noticeable loss of performance for several minutes.

Right OK that makes more sense.

So really we are just talking about a dissatisfaction regarding a lack of instant kill or instant incapacitation. So we're talking about "stopping power", and well a lot of ink, digital and otherwise has been spilt on that.

A lot of bullet wounds don't immediately incapacitate or kill, and while obviously the specifics of the weight, dimension and speed of the bullet are relevant to the chances of it happening.

A). It not always in the way you might suppose

B). There's many other factors that influence it, and even at times out weigh it

C). there's still no round out of a hand held weapon* that guarantees it

D). There are other factors in ongoing rifleman combat effectiveness in an engagement than a single bullet's "stopping power" especially when you take A, B & C into account.

But everything is a compromise here, and that includes organisational compromises that might well detract from end user ability i.e "in a perfect world...". All bullets and in fact all the weapons firing them are effected by this but it's not definite that the 5.56 actually looses out here in total, or more relevantly by enough to warrant concern.

Another point that I touched on is different contexts of use. The point about the post WW2 decision that all that full rifle calibre range not being needed has been made. Generally speaking it's true. It is however more true if you are fighting in Vietnam or Basra, than say the valleys of Afghanistan were engagement ranges may be longer.



*by the way I keep saying "handheld" here because firstly it what we're talking about and secondly if I don't some one will get all 'internet' on me ;-)


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Originally Posted by Ji ji View Post
I expect that this same subject will be less than happy to be punched through and bleeding and so on, in a longer timeframe - even just fifteen minutes. A lot of effect for sure, but not relevant to the expected performance. It’s like an affliction with plenty of effect any 5 minutes onset limitation: very useful in many situation, potentially useless in a combat one.
Of course, I am debating assuming that these multiple reports are dependable, but I don’t know if they truly are.

Well that is also an issue, not just in with the description of what actually happened and why it happened (two different things) but because a lot of the anecdotes come with a spoken or unspoken "....but if I hit them with an X they'd have fallen down instantly" assertion.

But when we were shooting 7.62 or .303 or 7.92 or what ever at each other, it's not like anyone any of these bullets came into contact with dropped dead instantly. As I said earlier there are just too many variables here, and to be frank in the middle of combat is a really hard time to assess there combined effect.




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How probable is that a 1500-2000 joule (at muzzle) is so ineffective? Well, bullet energy is a function of mass and velocity; energy transfer from the bullet to the target depends on many other factors and the cross-section is very important. I think that the alleged problem of 5.56 is in low efficiency of energy transfer due to the small cross section and the lack of deformation. If so, the resulting shock could be minimal.
Well Like I said it gets complicated, yes the 5.56x45 has a smaller cross-section and a smaller wound track than a 7.62x51mm assuming both act in exactly the same way. But as Rupert points out that's not necessarily an assumption you can make. Moreover I understand the 5.56 being a lighter, smaller bullet is more likely to deform or fragment than the larger heavier 7.62 (although like everything it's still not guaranteed). Partly due to the differences in dimensions and partly due to the fact that the 5.56 tends to be faster than the 7.62. That velocity of impact also being a factor of effect.

Then you get into questions like can both bullets dump all their energy into the target body? If they can't or they can't do so proportionally that extra 7.62 energy may not be the proportional advantage we might think it is.

Then there's the question that yes more energy is more energy and an energetic bullet going through us is of course a bad thing. But there are all sorts of complicating factors here because the human body is pretty varied subject for this energy to work on. Especially when the bar to clear here is "they instantly fell over".

So it's easy to say the 7.62 has greater energy than the 5.56 in abstract, but it's harder to say because the 7.62 has approx 1.5x as much energy it does 1.5x as much damage or incapacitates your target 1.5x as quickly, or even that it's enough to ensure they fall over instantly in comparison to the unsatisfactory delay from the 5.56..




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Originally Posted by Ji ji View Post
By the way, I know of a single report about a man shot by a .454 Casull, and it was a devastating wound. This is hardly surprising: such cartridge has some more energy than a 5.56 but way less penetration, so it is much more efficient at transferring energy.

....

Well go and look at what Rupert said about the 7.62 ;-)!

But you are definitely right different combinations of bullet mass, dimension and velocity will all give more varied effects on your target than just the 1/2Mass x Velocity^2 value.


However as above energy transfer is complicated and there are lots of factors here.

There are reasons why riflemen generally speaking firing fast small rifle bullets at each other (even if some are smaller and faster than others). Rather than firing slow and proportionally massive rounds like .454 casul. That's a trend that has been ongoing in military infantry weapons for a long time!

However the question to ask isn't do .454 casul leave devastating wounds (because of course they can, but well so can 5.56) but all else being equal** do people shot by .454 casul drop that much more immediately than those shot by 5.56. I.e take all those anecdotes you've been reading do you think you can assume that if the people in question had managed to hit their target with a .454 casul instead of 5.56 they'd be saying 'oh and they dropped as fast as I both expected and wanted'.



**and they may not be due to other reasons related to the different rounds, the .454 casul might do lots of damage to flesh when it hits, but might well have other downsides that negtively effect getting to that point

Last edited by Tomsdad; 04-10-2018 at 07:32 AM.
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Old 04-10-2018, 04:43 PM   #22
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Default Re: .280 British Stats?

Both the M855A1 & the M80A1 fragment reliably and are even semi-armor piercing to boot, even if not necessarily designed for AP in the first place.

They're a lot more modern and better than the original M80 & M855 ball rounds.

Also, soldiers were complaining about the stopping power of .30-06 back in WW2. It has generally been more an issue of reliable fragmentation and shot placement than knockdown power.

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Old 04-10-2018, 05:50 PM   #23
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Both the M855A1 & the M80A1 fragment reliably and are even semi-armor piercing to boot, even if not necessarily designed for AP in the first place.

They're a lot more modern and better than the original M80 & M855 ball rounds.
So, does anyone think that the conventions banning deforming bullets have any real meaning today? (Not that the US ratified it anyway.)
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Old 04-11-2018, 12:15 AM   #24
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Default Re: .280 British Stats?

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So, does anyone think that the conventions banning deforming bullets have any real meaning today? (Not that the US ratified it anyway.)
Wasn't the intent really regarding bullets that were specifically designed to expand, deform and fragment, rather than bullets that just happened to be be more likely to do as result of their size & weight etc and forces they undergo, i.e just do so by dint of being bullets and not all bullets being the same.

Also its extending form the original Hague convention wording on expanding bullets, where at the time all sorts of positive concious efforts to elicit bullet expansion was a thing.

i.e just being a small high velocity FMJ that happens to break up isn't seen to clear the threshold. so it's basically don't go out of you way to make a bullet that deforms etc, but not all bullet deformation and fragmentation etc is banned (because its to an extent impossible to prevent in reality).

A bit of a fine distinction maybe, but well lots of things in international treaties get decided on fine distinction I guess.


Anyway nice little extract talking about this general subject, and how technological changes over the subsequent hundred years may lead to questions of re-interpretation.


I also think there's bit of an unofficial "really in modern war and the long list of terrible things it can to do to people, high velocity 5.56's that bend is what you want to worry about" attitude in play as well.

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Old 04-11-2018, 03:44 AM   #25
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So, does anyone think that the conventions banning deforming bullets have any real meaning today? (Not that the US ratified it anyway.)
It has never had any meaning, in my opinion.

No sensible hunter would use a varmint cartridge to hunt a hog. If the international community want to avoid “unnecessary” suffering on human-size targets, maybe it should ban inadequate calibers like 5.56 and/or the NON-yawing, NON-fragmenting, NON-deforming bullets.

If I correctly recall, two different UN commissions debated on the legality od Raufoss Mk 211 for two decennia. You wonder what was the point - did they think that an APHEX .50 BMG would have caused long unnecessary suffering on a direct hit?
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Old 04-11-2018, 05:06 AM   #26
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It has never had any meaning, in my opinion.

No sensible hunter would use a varmint cartridge to hunt a hog. If the international community want to avoid “unnecessary” suffering on human-size targets, maybe it should ban inadequate calibers like 5.56 and/or the NON-yawing, NON-fragmenting, NON-deforming bullets.

If I correctly recall, two different UN commissions debated on the legality od Raufoss Mk 211 for two decennia. You wonder what was the point - did they think that an APHEX .50 BMG would have caused long unnecessary suffering on a direct hit?
I don't think the intent was ever to reduce wounding by ensuring instant or near instant kills which your reference to hunting infers (Hollow points and expanding bullets tending to be encouraged there for that purpose).

But more to avoid rounds that leave hard to treat* and disabling wounds beyond that needed to incapacite your target. So actually in some regards the opposite rationale. Because the end result that's to be avoided in hunting, namely shooting an animal and leaving it mobile enough to flee and not be recovered leading to it dying a slow, painful and drawn out death. Is not as relevant in the context of soldiers in war, who might well have the option of seeking and accessing medical treatment.

(also leaving aside the inherently different contexts between soldiers in war and hunted animals)

The Hague declaration itself came out of the earlier St Petersburg 1868 where the wording was:

‘uselessly aggravate the sufferings of disabled men, or render their death inevitably’

(although it was talking about explosive rounds)


The kind of language used during the Hague convention was similar:

‘The use of bullets which inflict wounds of useless cruelty, such as explosive bullets and in general every kind of bullet which exceeds the limit necessary for placing a man immediately hors de combat’

(Although that specific wording was from a US suggestion that was rejected

So your point about "inadequate** calibres" is kind of not relevant to the Hague convention.

Anyway a good link on the matter

Similarly the point about BMG APHEX is kind of moot, because the issue was the end result of being hit not what you were being hit with. Which is why you get this urban myths about laws about not being able to target people with big anti material rounds, but instead had to aim for their belt buckles or be arrested by teh UN Hague flying squad . Of course you can shoot them at people, after all artillery regularly targets infantry with way bigger and way more explosive, fragmentary rounds after all!


Now individual militaries may have their own polices and protocols in place for what should be used when and where, but that is a different thing. They also have wider range of rationales than just not being too nastr to the enemy

Re your point about the Raufoss Mk 211, I looked and I'm not sure I found a hot UN commission debate on this. The most relevant declaration that would explicitly have an issue with the round was the St Petersburg one by dint of specific weight of explosive. But that was superseded by the Hague one that doesn't explicitly cover it, and to date it it seems to be a matter of national military preferences in terms of how its used. (and even then it seems more like "yeah try not to, but don't worry to much")



As an aside one thing I notice is in the 1899 Hague convention if you were a signatory and were in a war with a non signatory than you weren't bound to abide by what you had signed too! And well since the US wasn't a signatory that covers a fair few combatants in the C20th!

(was that changed in the 1907 update?)


Ultimately there a lot of myth about the Hague conventions in this area




*IIRC a recent example being flechette rounds fired from rifles, because they could be hard to find in a patient leading to them being left in the body. However I don't know if there was ever an official ruling either way, as I'm not sure such rounds have become a thing in actual use enough to warrant one, rather a hypothetical issue.

**and of course as per this thread "inadequate" is shall we say subjective

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Old 04-11-2018, 05:33 AM   #27
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It has never had any meaning, in my opinion.
Well, it forced the British to withdraw quite a lot of different types of round and design new ones to issue.
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Old 04-11-2018, 05:36 AM   #28
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I also think there's bit of an unofficial "really in modern war and the long list of terrible things post it can to do to people, high velocity 5.56's that bend is what you want to worry about" attitude in play as well.
That view has been around since no later than WWI. Poison gas aside, in WWI you had these rules about not using expansive bullets, on made-up grounds of them being too nasty, while soldiers were being killed and maimed by the hundreds of thousands by jagged shell fragments.
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Old 04-11-2018, 05:39 AM   #29
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*IIRC a recent example being flechette rounds fired from rifles, because they could be hard to find in a patient leading to them being left in the body. However I don't know if there was ever an official ruling either way, as I;m not sure suche rounds have become a thing in actual use enough to warrant one, rather the a hypothetical issue.
As long as they're metallic they'll be locatable anyway. Now, the plastic needles the Soviets used in some of their 30mm grenades, those are really hard to find in flesh, and caused an outcry as a result.
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Old 04-11-2018, 05:42 AM   #30
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It was not UN but ICRC.

If the convention is about avoiding unnecessary suffering and death, then it is even more meaningless in today’s culture and war scenarios. Thank you for pointing me the issue. Re-answering to Rupert’s question, I guess that refraining from the use of deforming bullets - even as a volountary act - is just cosmetics when adopting M80A1, M855A1 and the likes.
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