I agree. The people who were advocating the 5.56 always talked about the potential for wounding and how it would take two more men out of the battle to carry the wounded away from the front lines. In my experience in the desert, the guy that was wounded continued fighting.
In close quarters battle you might hit the guy several times with a burst and stop the fight, but at ranges out around 300-400 meters using iron sights you were lucky to hit him once. If he found out about it he would get really angry.
I understand that they're starting to see a lot more guys wearing body armor, too. I don't know that the 5.56 can penetrate body armor at 300 meters when fired out of the M-4.
A 22 will kill perfectly fine if placed right. A 50 cal won’t kill if it misses.
Against human targets, 556 is bad news. I’m talking from experience. The bullet is unstable and after it hits begins to rotate after 7cm of penetration. At close range the slug virtually explodes inside a person with only the penetrator exiting. It can’t deal with the forces acting on it. At over 50 meters you get two exist wounds usually because as the slug rotates it separates into the penetrator and lead tail. A 308 on the other hand punches nice clean holes and doesn’t rotate until after 18cm. 556 is a nice all purpose round which because of its high velocity and instability creates a lot more damage on a human that the layperson thinks.
If you doubt me. Try this. Take some coffee cans and set them up and shoot at them with 556; small entrance and exit holes. Now take some more large coffee cans and fill them with water, shoot again. You’ll see a small entrance hole and the entire rear of the can is blown open. That’s because MOST the damage from a bullet like 556 is from its shock wave and instability, not the physical hole it punches!
You address some other myths. A very fast and flat shooting round 556 really needs no adjustment for distance and in 99% of the time windage. People shoot bullseye (with fixed iron sights 40/40) on the M16 qual range all the time, and that’s knocking over a smaller that life sized Ivan at 300 meters. A smaller round like 556 allows for less recoil, makes it less intimidating for the person learning, and generally is lighter and smaller. 556 is a good round against a “human” and for general purpose use in the military.
We’re not killing Kodiak bear. We’re shooting at humans. We’re not setting world records for distance; we’re shooting at ranges of less than 100 meters in most cases. Weight, volume, and ease of use (recoil etc) are will weigh in as well…………. 556 isn’t for everything, but as an all purpose round it does very well, and in fact all others have gone over to the concept of small high velocity rounds, even the Russians who adopted their 5.45 and FN which is experimenting with a 4.7mm.
If you shoot a moose, bear, buck, I really don't care what; and place a bad shot, a 338 won't take him down. On the other hand, a 270 will drop a black bear perfectly fine if you hit him right. With “hand guns” and in the low velocity ranges you have an excellent point. The 45 has a lot more target effect than say a 9mm, but in the realm of high velocity, things change. -IMHO
This is only relevant in warfare against First World countries. Against our likely enemies, they are more likely to just leave their wounded for US to care for, producing stress on OUR logistics and medical facilities