British Special Forces small arms 2017

[IronDuke99]

While I am, sort of, on this subject it has been known, for many years, certainly since the mid 1990's, that the 'ideal' military round is somewhere between 7.62mm (too large and heavy) and 5.56mm (too small and weak).

The best Military forces these days have a mixture of 7.62mm and 5.56mm weapons, that mixture is not efficient, in terms of logistics, costs and effects.

Although remember, one of the major lessons from Iraq and Afghanistan was a lot of infantry fire power is about suppression (sending the enemy to ground) so he can be killed by mortars, artillery, attack helos, aircraft, etc... Although how far that would be true about a enemy that comes close to matching you in technology remains very much to be seen.

The experts have been saying, for a long time, that the 'ideal' military round is probably about 6.2-7mm. But this will not happen when every nation has thousands of 5.56mm and 7.62mm weapons and companies turning out those weapons and those rounds.

In NATO terms change will only come when the US changes and that depends, largely, on what happens with caseeless (ie non metal) rounds.

As a old -non bold- soldier I take a certain small comfort that we were right back in the day that 5.56mm really was too small and weak as a military round.

If I can find it there is a bloody good video on YouTube from a US Army officer about this...