thedrifter
08-25-04, 09:37 AM
The Last “Big Lie” of Vietnam Kills U. S. Soldiers in Iraq
August 24th, 2004
At a Vietnam Special Forces base during 1964, I watched a U. S. soldier fire 15 rounds of .223 caliber ammunition into a tethered goat from an AR-15 rifle; moments after the last round hit, the goat fell over. Looking at the dead goat, I saw many little bullet entry-holes on one side; and when we turned him over, I saw many little bullet exit-holes on the other side. Over time, those observations were confirmed and reconfirmed, revealing that the stories we were told on the lethality of the .223 caliber cartridge were fabrications. Those false reports drove the adoption of the .223 caliber cartridge as the 5.56mm NATO cartridge and, ever since, Americans have been sent to war with a cartridge deficient in combat lethality; a deficiency that has recently caused the deaths of U.S. soldiers in Iraq.
What is efficient combat lethality? The book Black Hawk Down quotes SFC Paul Howe’s description of SFC Randy Shughart, a soldier who elected to carry the 7.62mm M-14 into the urban battlefield of Somalia in 1993 rather than the 5.56mm CAR-15 (M-16-variant):
“His rifle may have been heavier and comparatively awkward and delivered a mean recoil, but it damn sure knocked a man down with one bullet, and in combat, one shot was all you got. You shoot a guy, you want to see him go down; you don't want to be guessing for the next five hours whether you hit him, or whether he's still waiting for you in the weeds.” [1]
With the wisdom of a combat veteran, Howe describes the lethality necessary for a cartridge in combat—one-round knockdown power.
How did we get from military cartridges with proven one-round knockdown power such as the 30-06 and 7.62mm to the 5.56mm? The journey starts with the term “tumbling.” This term has been associated with the .223 cal./5.56mm cartridge, since early in its marketing as a potential military cartridge to this day. The very word, tumbling, prompts images of a bullet traveling end over end through the human body in 360-degree loops: in reality, it does not move this way at all.
Dr. Martin L. Fackler, COL., USA (Ret.) served as a surgeon in Vietnam during 1968 and, subsequently, pursued the research of terminal ballistics by observing the effects of bullets fired into blocks of ballistic gelatin. In “Wounding patterns for military rifle bullets,” he reports the observation that “all” non-deforming pointed bullets—this included the 30-06 and 7.62mm military full-metal jacket bullets-- “yawed” 180 degrees while passing through the gelatin to exit base-forward; i.e., heaviest end forward. The 5.56mm projectile acted in the same manner with a very precise exception: These rounds “yawed” to 90-degrees, and then fragmented at their weakened serrated band (cannelure) into two or more pieces when fired into ballistic gelatin. However, the 5.56mm projectile does NOT always yaw or fragment. Under field conditions, the probability of these effects is reduced by the following factors:
--The round strikes the target at less than 2700 feet per second. That velocity is reduced by: the farther the range to the target, the greater reduction in velocity; shortened weapon barrel length as is the case with the shorter M-4 carbine; and/or, manufacturing variances in the cartridge.
--Variances in human body thickness and flesh density and consistency.
In those cases, the bullet neither yaws nor fragments and causes only a pencil size hole through the body; i.e., small hole in, small hole out. Neither Dr. Fackler nor anyone else has provided any empirical data or estimate on the incidence of the 5.56mm yaw/fragmentation effect on enemy soldiers. Conversely, since first used by Americans in combat, there has been a consistent observation from the field—enemy soldiers continue to fire their weapons after being hit by multiple 5.56mm bullets; evidently, no yaw/fragmentation effect. Nevertheless, the term “tumble” was apparently derived from idealized yaw action and, as suggested by the following, was chosen in lieu of the word yaw because it would “sell” better. [2]
The book, The Black Rifle, M16 Retrospective by Edward C. Ezell and R. Blake Stevens, “ . . . is, so far as [the authors] could make it so, the truth about the controversial 5.56mm caliber AR-15 (M16)—what it is, what it is not, where it came from, and why.”
Edward C. Ezell, Ph.D., now deceased, was the Curator/Supervisor of the Division of Armed Forces History, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC and the editor of perhaps the world’s most famous gun book, Small Arms of the World. The Black Rifle contains one of the earliest characterizations that the .223 cal. bullet tumbled in a brochure produced by Colt’s Patent Fire Arms Manufacturing Company, Inc. The caption written by the book’s authors reads, “From the first Colt AR-15 brochure, produced in a desperate attempt to interest somebody – anybody - in the merits of the AR-15’s ‘unmatched superiority.’” In one of the three internal brochure illustrations is text reading, in part, “On impact the tumbling action of the .223 caliber ammunition increases effectiveness.” [3]
In 1961, Colt’s did get somebody’s attention. The Advanced Research Project Agency (ARPA) of the Department of Defense (DoD) was enjoined by the Kennedy Administration to explore how the United States could support a foreign ally in a “limited” war. In the spring of 1961, ARPA’s Project AGILE was implemented to supply “research and engineering support for the military and paramilitary forces engaged in or threatened by conflict in remote areas of the world.” In October of 1961, ARPA provided ten Colt’s AR-15’s to Vietnamese Forces in Saigon to conduct a limited test. The Black Rifle remarks of this test, “The number of rifles might have been small, but the enthusiastic reaction of the Vietnamese and their American advisors alike who handled and fired the AR-15s was just as [Colt’s marketing agent] had predicted.” Armed with these positive results, ARPA succeeded in expanding the Project AGILE study by procuring 1,000 AR-15s for distribution among select Vietnamese units for field-testing. Ezell & Stevens write that this approval resulted in “ . . . saving Colt’s from almost sure financial disaster and also setting the stage for the most influential yet controversial document so far in the history of the already controversial AR-15.” [4]
The purpose of this test, as set forth in, ARPA, “Report of Task 13A, Test of ArmaLite Rifle, AR-15,” dated 31 July 1962, was “ . . . a comparison between the AR-15 and the M2 Carbine to determine which is a more suitable replacement for shoulder weapons in selected units of the Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces (RVNAF).” The Project AGILE results were summed up, in part, by ARPA as follows: “The suitability of the AR-15 as the basic shoulder weapon for the Vietnamese has been established. For the type of conflict now occurring in Vietnam, the weapon was also found by its users and by MAAG advisors to be superior in virtually all respects to the M1 Rifle, M1 and M2 Carbines, Thompson Sub-Machine Gun, and Browning Automatic Rifle.” NOTE: This study and its recommendations concerned the suitability of the AR-15 for Vietnamese soldiers, who were described by the testers to be of “small stature, body configuration and light weight,” NOT larger stature United States soldiers. [5]
In any case, the report was widely read and some of its components came under serious question, especially those purporting to describe the demonstrated lethality of the .223 caliber cartridge. The following are three such examples from the Project AGILE report:
Example 1. “On 160900 June, one platoon from the 340 Ranger company was on a ground operation . . . and contacted 3 armed VC in heavily forested jungle.. . . At a distance of approximately 15 meters, one Ranger fired an AR-15 full automatic hitting one VC with 3 rounds with the first burst. One round in the head took it completely off. Another in the right arm, took it completely off. One round hit him in the right side, causing a hole about 5 inches in diameter.. . . (Rangers)”
Example 2. “On 9 June a Ranger Platoon from the 40th Infantry Regt. Was given the mission of ambushing an estimated VC Company.. . .
Number of VC killed: 5 [Descriptions of the one-round killing wounds follow.]
continued.............
August 24th, 2004
At a Vietnam Special Forces base during 1964, I watched a U. S. soldier fire 15 rounds of .223 caliber ammunition into a tethered goat from an AR-15 rifle; moments after the last round hit, the goat fell over. Looking at the dead goat, I saw many little bullet entry-holes on one side; and when we turned him over, I saw many little bullet exit-holes on the other side. Over time, those observations were confirmed and reconfirmed, revealing that the stories we were told on the lethality of the .223 caliber cartridge were fabrications. Those false reports drove the adoption of the .223 caliber cartridge as the 5.56mm NATO cartridge and, ever since, Americans have been sent to war with a cartridge deficient in combat lethality; a deficiency that has recently caused the deaths of U.S. soldiers in Iraq.
What is efficient combat lethality? The book Black Hawk Down quotes SFC Paul Howe’s description of SFC Randy Shughart, a soldier who elected to carry the 7.62mm M-14 into the urban battlefield of Somalia in 1993 rather than the 5.56mm CAR-15 (M-16-variant):
“His rifle may have been heavier and comparatively awkward and delivered a mean recoil, but it damn sure knocked a man down with one bullet, and in combat, one shot was all you got. You shoot a guy, you want to see him go down; you don't want to be guessing for the next five hours whether you hit him, or whether he's still waiting for you in the weeds.” [1]
With the wisdom of a combat veteran, Howe describes the lethality necessary for a cartridge in combat—one-round knockdown power.
How did we get from military cartridges with proven one-round knockdown power such as the 30-06 and 7.62mm to the 5.56mm? The journey starts with the term “tumbling.” This term has been associated with the .223 cal./5.56mm cartridge, since early in its marketing as a potential military cartridge to this day. The very word, tumbling, prompts images of a bullet traveling end over end through the human body in 360-degree loops: in reality, it does not move this way at all.
Dr. Martin L. Fackler, COL., USA (Ret.) served as a surgeon in Vietnam during 1968 and, subsequently, pursued the research of terminal ballistics by observing the effects of bullets fired into blocks of ballistic gelatin. In “Wounding patterns for military rifle bullets,” he reports the observation that “all” non-deforming pointed bullets—this included the 30-06 and 7.62mm military full-metal jacket bullets-- “yawed” 180 degrees while passing through the gelatin to exit base-forward; i.e., heaviest end forward. The 5.56mm projectile acted in the same manner with a very precise exception: These rounds “yawed” to 90-degrees, and then fragmented at their weakened serrated band (cannelure) into two or more pieces when fired into ballistic gelatin. However, the 5.56mm projectile does NOT always yaw or fragment. Under field conditions, the probability of these effects is reduced by the following factors:
--The round strikes the target at less than 2700 feet per second. That velocity is reduced by: the farther the range to the target, the greater reduction in velocity; shortened weapon barrel length as is the case with the shorter M-4 carbine; and/or, manufacturing variances in the cartridge.
--Variances in human body thickness and flesh density and consistency.
In those cases, the bullet neither yaws nor fragments and causes only a pencil size hole through the body; i.e., small hole in, small hole out. Neither Dr. Fackler nor anyone else has provided any empirical data or estimate on the incidence of the 5.56mm yaw/fragmentation effect on enemy soldiers. Conversely, since first used by Americans in combat, there has been a consistent observation from the field—enemy soldiers continue to fire their weapons after being hit by multiple 5.56mm bullets; evidently, no yaw/fragmentation effect. Nevertheless, the term “tumble” was apparently derived from idealized yaw action and, as suggested by the following, was chosen in lieu of the word yaw because it would “sell” better. [2]
The book, The Black Rifle, M16 Retrospective by Edward C. Ezell and R. Blake Stevens, “ . . . is, so far as [the authors] could make it so, the truth about the controversial 5.56mm caliber AR-15 (M16)—what it is, what it is not, where it came from, and why.”
Edward C. Ezell, Ph.D., now deceased, was the Curator/Supervisor of the Division of Armed Forces History, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC and the editor of perhaps the world’s most famous gun book, Small Arms of the World. The Black Rifle contains one of the earliest characterizations that the .223 cal. bullet tumbled in a brochure produced by Colt’s Patent Fire Arms Manufacturing Company, Inc. The caption written by the book’s authors reads, “From the first Colt AR-15 brochure, produced in a desperate attempt to interest somebody – anybody - in the merits of the AR-15’s ‘unmatched superiority.’” In one of the three internal brochure illustrations is text reading, in part, “On impact the tumbling action of the .223 caliber ammunition increases effectiveness.” [3]
In 1961, Colt’s did get somebody’s attention. The Advanced Research Project Agency (ARPA) of the Department of Defense (DoD) was enjoined by the Kennedy Administration to explore how the United States could support a foreign ally in a “limited” war. In the spring of 1961, ARPA’s Project AGILE was implemented to supply “research and engineering support for the military and paramilitary forces engaged in or threatened by conflict in remote areas of the world.” In October of 1961, ARPA provided ten Colt’s AR-15’s to Vietnamese Forces in Saigon to conduct a limited test. The Black Rifle remarks of this test, “The number of rifles might have been small, but the enthusiastic reaction of the Vietnamese and their American advisors alike who handled and fired the AR-15s was just as [Colt’s marketing agent] had predicted.” Armed with these positive results, ARPA succeeded in expanding the Project AGILE study by procuring 1,000 AR-15s for distribution among select Vietnamese units for field-testing. Ezell & Stevens write that this approval resulted in “ . . . saving Colt’s from almost sure financial disaster and also setting the stage for the most influential yet controversial document so far in the history of the already controversial AR-15.” [4]
The purpose of this test, as set forth in, ARPA, “Report of Task 13A, Test of ArmaLite Rifle, AR-15,” dated 31 July 1962, was “ . . . a comparison between the AR-15 and the M2 Carbine to determine which is a more suitable replacement for shoulder weapons in selected units of the Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces (RVNAF).” The Project AGILE results were summed up, in part, by ARPA as follows: “The suitability of the AR-15 as the basic shoulder weapon for the Vietnamese has been established. For the type of conflict now occurring in Vietnam, the weapon was also found by its users and by MAAG advisors to be superior in virtually all respects to the M1 Rifle, M1 and M2 Carbines, Thompson Sub-Machine Gun, and Browning Automatic Rifle.” NOTE: This study and its recommendations concerned the suitability of the AR-15 for Vietnamese soldiers, who were described by the testers to be of “small stature, body configuration and light weight,” NOT larger stature United States soldiers. [5]
In any case, the report was widely read and some of its components came under serious question, especially those purporting to describe the demonstrated lethality of the .223 caliber cartridge. The following are three such examples from the Project AGILE report:
Example 1. “On 160900 June, one platoon from the 340 Ranger company was on a ground operation . . . and contacted 3 armed VC in heavily forested jungle.. . . At a distance of approximately 15 meters, one Ranger fired an AR-15 full automatic hitting one VC with 3 rounds with the first burst. One round in the head took it completely off. Another in the right arm, took it completely off. One round hit him in the right side, causing a hole about 5 inches in diameter.. . . (Rangers)”
Example 2. “On 9 June a Ranger Platoon from the 40th Infantry Regt. Was given the mission of ambushing an estimated VC Company.. . .
Number of VC killed: 5 [Descriptions of the one-round killing wounds follow.]
continued.............