According to the Daily Mail the SAS are looking at switching from the 5.56x45mm NATO round to a 7.62mm round. They seem unimpressed that their US counterparts have access to 7.62mm FN SCAR-H rifles and they are stuck with the M4-like 5.56mm Colt Canada/Diemaco C8 Carbine. An “insider” said …

Last night, a regiment insider said: ‘The shoot-to-wound policy was based on the assumption that once he was wounded an enemy combatant would stop fighting, and so would his comrades to give him first aid.

‘But this backfired against the Taliban. The 5.56 mm rounds did not take a big enough chunk out of them, allowing fanatical insurgents to keep on fighting despite their wounds. As a result, more SAS soldiers were shot and badly wounded.

Regardless of the merits of the 7.62mm over the 5.56mm, and I do believe 7.62mm is superior, I wonder how much of this is classic fighting-the-last-war thinking. I wonder, would the Taliban have equipped themselves with cheap Chinese Level III body armor if the troops had gone in with 7.62mm NATO Ball ammunition?

Many thanks to Stephen for the tip.