POTD: M240L Machine Gun Team Provides Suppressive Fire

@jonathanpulliam Willing to bet, based on what I know about expenditure reporting, that 99.8% of that was used up for training and quals.

*shrugs*

@Anton Solomyr Sorry, Vladimir, but the the .223 Win micro projectile loses scoot & residual energy too quickly to be effective in the particular regions where deployed.

The 55 gr pill was a joke from day one. The 62-grain green tips corroded in poor storage conditions to where some projectiles literally flew apart in flight. It was a major blunder to give our troops such an under-powered joke of a cartridge. This is a cartridge for the DC Sniper, not a U.S. soldier period end of story, so thank you to go back to Russia. 'kay??

@jonathanpulliam 75% of the people who got shot in the sniper attacks were killed, all of whom with a single shot.

@jonathanpulliam Former Soviet Specnaz operator who was deployed in Afghanistan once told me that dead mujahideens didn't care being shot by 7,62 or 5,45 round. So I guess, even 5.56 round would be enough to do the job.

@Ninoslav Trifunovic Dead men tell no tales. Did it cost the Soviets US$ 200 to ship a gallon of milk to their "heroes" in the graveyard of empires?? I frankly do not find myself wishing to be informed by the calamitous pig-headed obtuseness of Russians or Soviets. F them hard & let God sort them out.

@guest 1.) Sniper victims, who often do not know they are being fired on, do not have the high-adrenalin of your gyrene under fire, Sgt. Fury, which would account for some of that.

2.) But the advantageous range they were shot from, chosen by the sniper, of course, was, from a lethality standpoint, also likely a factor, as one may deduce from some of the D.C. sniper crime scene photos' evidence of "key-holing" of the .223 projectile as it passed through the window of gas station/convenience store presumably AFTER having passed through one particular sniper victim, who had been pumping gas at the NEARBY proximate gas pump.

Soldiers in combat, unlike homicidal crime intent snipers, don't always get the luxury of picking and choosing the ranges at which they must engage the target . The 5.56mm NATO's tiny .223 cal projectile is wholly UN-SUITED to the last two major wars, Iraq & Afghanistan, in which the U.S. un-wisely elected to utilize it owing to the typically far longer ranges involved in engagements / combat firefights there. There is simply NOT ENOUGH residual foot pounds of energy in it beyond 600 yards, period.

@Ninoslav Trifunovic Isn't there some journalist you s/b poisoning, Boris??