IrishEyes<\/a> I’ve had a previous life with the U.S. Government, both in the Military, and as a civilian. <\/p>\nRecently I have read about the soldiers in the field complaining about the weapons that they carry, in particular the venerable M-16. This is the mainstay of the U.S. Army (and troops elsewhere in the world) and is a unique Weapon of philosophy<\/b>. And this is the nature of war, it often prescribes a weapons requirements. <\/p>\n
The M-16, and bullet and cartridge that they use is designed for a type of war that is not the current norm. Let me explain, the M-16 utilizes a 5.56x45mm (.223 Remington) caliber bullet. This is a very small bullet, but it’s the reasoning behind this choice.<\/p>\n
This bullet is intended to wound rather than kill.<\/b><\/p>\n
The motivation behind this was the nature of warfare at the time. The thinking at the time, and the nature of the enemy lead military designers to the conclusion that a wounded enemy soldier consumed more enemy resources than a dead one. This follows that the enemy retrieves and cares for it’s wounded. It also is based on the idea that a wounded soldier would stop fighting and\/or surrender if wounded. <\/p>\n
This is not the current enemy, and the soldier in the field is finding this out, they are screaming out for the older and larger bullet of the M-14 a 30-06 (7.62x63mm). And while this is heavy and restricts the amount of ammunition that a soldier can carry, it has stopping power. A real killing bullet that is required for an enemy that chooses to die, and who will seek it out and will not be stopped by wounding and will not be deterred by the wounded. In the same issue, the M-16 has no penetration in a stone and mortar world or a metal car and light armored world, the M-14 will!<\/p>\n
Hence the philosophy issue, warfare has changed, the weapons will have to change to prevent the soldier from loosing the battle before it begins. There are still plenty of battles before we withdraw from the mistake of Iraq. I only hope that the new congress will armor and arm, pay and support the soldier who defends the renewed democracy called America.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Now that the Democrats are in control of congress, maybe we can do something that the Republicans were unwilling to do. Support the troops overseas. And this is where I diverge from my usual subjects. Like Bernie Goldbach at IrishEyes…<\/span><\/p>\nRead more Weapon of philosophy<\/span> ›<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38,11,8,31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-democracy","category-patriot-act","category-politics","category-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.branedy.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.branedy.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.branedy.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.branedy.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.branedy.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=409"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.branedy.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.branedy.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.branedy.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.branedy.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}