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Subject: SOCOM And Marines Adopt Hollow Point
SYSOP    4/16/2015 5:44:48 AM
 
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Yimmy       4/16/2015 6:08:55 AM
Dum-dum bullets are certainly illegal as per international law (Hague Convention, as the article states).  The US may not have signed this, but nonetheless it has become an international norm.  The Taliban didn't sign any of these conventions, yet Western militaries still follow them.  To introduce Dum-dum bullets risks constituting the 'thing end' of the wedge where it comes to what is acceptable.
 
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keffler25       4/16/2015 6:37:42 AM
I have to agree. Just because you never signed the treaty, there is a common accepted international legal principle that if you PRACTICE the treaty limits and terms, you concede the treaty is binding on you.  
 
It's what civilized peoples do to make international law work. 
 
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joe6pack       4/16/2015 9:58:03 AM
On the technical...
 
>There is a popular and long-standing myth...
 
is.. that there is a magic.. single shot solution.  Two rounds, center mass.. puts you much closer to three standard deviations.. in regards to "stopping" someone.  The article, I won't debate their statistics..(but I'd like to), doesn't really change that..
 
Giving them the assumption.. that 1 round 9mmFMJ has a "70% OSS" and a 9mm hp has a "90% OSS"... neither of those are "good enough" (for the cost of another round, are you going to bet your life on it?)   2 rounds of either type of ammunition.. center mass significantly increases the likely incapacitation (or death) of the target....
 
The Marines seem to be the driving force behind "bigger is better".. on the .45 over the 9mm and 7.62 over 5.56.. I find it interesting coming from an organization so proud of it's marksmanship.. that it's not necessarily the size of the round.. but what you do with it... 
 
I'd also say that introducing hp rounds.. isn't so smart going forward.. maybe it is more effective against the Taliban types.. but as body armor is becoming much more common place on the battlefield, a hollow point is significantly less effective in defeating any sort of protective equipment.
 
 
Non technical.. morality side of things..
 
First, my argument is that while it is sometimes necessary, there is very little that is civilized about warfare.  At it's very core you are attempting to impose your will on someone else by force of arms... what's moral about that?
 
Second, some of these "rules".. are simply ridiculous.  The tumbling effect of a 5.56 round is fine.. but the expanding effect of an hp round isn't?  Really?   Thermobaric rockets are well within the rules.. but HP.. oh man.. over the top (never mind in the U.S. it's perfectly legal for law enforcement to use HP rounds..)
 
Third.. from one R. Lee "It is well that war is so terrible, otherwise we should grow too fond of it. " by trying to "civilize" warfare.. we risk making it something that we are more willing to engage in..  Thus.. the "rules" (I think..) are more likely to promote warfare.. than prevent or even civilize it...
 
 
 
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keffler25       4/16/2015 10:46:27 AM
 
 
    F); color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
  • You people of the South don't know what you are doing. This country will be drenched in blood, and God only knows how it will end.It is all folly, madness, a crime against civilizationYou people speak so lightly of war; you don't know what you're talking about. War is a terrible thing! You mistake, too, the people of the North. They are a peaceable people but an earnest people, and they will fight, too. They are not going to let this country be destroyed without a mighty effort to save it … Besides, where are your men and appliances of war to contend against them? The North can make a steam engine, locomotive, or railway car; hardly a yard of cloth or pair of shoes can you make. You are rushing into war with one of the most powerful, ingeniously mechanical, and determined people on Earth — right at your doors. You are bound to fail. Only in your spirit and determination are you prepared for war. In all else you are totally unprepared, with a bad cause to start with. At first you will make headway, but as your limited resources begin to fail, shut out from the markets of Europe as you will be, your cause will begin to wane. If your people will but stop and think, they must see in the end that you will surely fail.
    • F);">
    • Comments to Prof. David F. Boyd at the Louisiana State Seminary (24 December 1860); quoted in The Civil War: A Narrative (1986) by Shelby Foote, p. 58; also in The Civil War : A Book of Quotations (2004) by Robert Blaisdell

I will add this. The father of modern total war made a decided point of hanging the murderers and rapists in his army who preyed upon the civilian population (six prosecuted incidents) his army despoiled as they foraged through Georgia. He would go after means to sustain war, (production and goods) but non useful for war goods and civilians were off limits by his orders. The usages of civilized warfare allowed him to forage liberally and common European practice was to let the troops 'have their way' but those same usages IN AMERICA HE DECIDED set 'rules' and he abided by them scrupulously as he brought war to the civilians of the Confederacy. The Confederates (even Lee's Confederates) were not so gentle in Maryland or Pennsylvania or Kansas, or West Virginia, Arizona, Kansas or Kentucky. The Confederates were utter savages and barbarians by comparison.       .                        
 
 
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joe6pack       4/16/2015 1:16:02 PM
Interesting, about the Lee quote.  I'm normally a little careful about quotes considering the tendency for popular "myth" to override historical fact.  I knew there was some variations on the quote, but I didn't realize there was much doubt as to the source.
 

 
 
 
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Tamerlane    Bullet Newspeak   4/16/2015 3:54:55 PM
Ja, we are supposed to say "open tip" and then quickly add that the "open" part is to balance the round or is part of the manufacturing process or some nonsense.  Besides, the Rus are very candid about the construction and capabilities of their bullets.
 
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trenchsol       4/16/2015 5:08:42 PM
Hollow point has very low chance to pass through any obstacle in its path, right ? Is it wise to use it for military purposes ?
 
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Yimmy       4/16/2015 5:33:19 PM
I believe the logic behind the Dum-dum bullet was that the early black powder(?) .303 round fired from the Lee Metford Rifle (which served between the .45/577 Martini Henry and .303 smokeless Lee Enfield) was a light bluuet compared with the .45 slug it replaced, and too slow to carry much energy.
 
The Dum Dum factory in India (now Pakistan?) came up with an answer to that.  The wounds the new round caused were savage.  However, a man shot was basically a man shot, and whereas the new round created for much suffering, it didn't really make much difference as with regard to combat and casualties.
 
Shooting "savages" on the North West Frontier was one thing (in the Western mind-set of the period), but the thought of causing such needless additional suffering in a war in Europe (amongst "civilised folk") was not considered acceptable.  And so the rounds came to be banned by mutual agreement.  
 
Perhaps not everyone signed the document, but I would wish that we adhere to it.
 
I do think this is the thin end of the wedge.  I don't Dum Dum you... you don't Dum Dum me.... I don't gas you with a nasty blood agent like hydrogen cyanide gas..... and you don't gas me....
 
There is no need to go breaking hard law or soft norms of international good conduct over an issue such as a perhaps 20% difference in round knock-down power.  As has been said before, you are going to shoot them five times anyway, and then stick a bayonet in them and twist it.... FMJ works just fine.
 
The only incentive to break such law/norms is if your back is against the wall (or perhaps the historical context makes the out-dated law mute, such as we all stat using plasma rifles in the 40 watt range).  I think it fair to guess that, the UK having the largest stock-pile of chemical weapons and a weakened conventional army, Churchill would have gassed the Germans on the beeches.
 
Plus, I bet Dum Dums have feeding issues.
 
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joe6pack       4/16/2015 7:33:42 PM
>>Plus, I bet Dum Dums have feeding issues.
 
For pistols, not as far as I know.  I've used them (to see what the fuss was about) as a civilian and went through several boxes with no problem.
 
They are in use by law enforcement in the US with the most commonly stated reason that when the rounds hit someone.. they stay in the body instead of over penetrating, risking other people.  That lack of penetration, is what I'd be hesitant from a military point of view (ignoring the ethics argument for the moment).
 
I'd not suspect any particular trouble in a rifle.. but no idea really on that front. 
 
>>The only incentive to break such law/norms is if your back is against the wall 
 
Well, I suppose that means just about everyone the U.S. has ended up facing in the last 70 years or so.. Can't think of anyone that really has played by the strict Marquess of Queensberry style of rules of warfare.. Germans, nope, Japanese, nope.. North Koreans, Chinese, not so much.. Vietnamese.. not really.. various Arab states and orginizations no.. Somalis, nadda..etc..
 
It appears the folks that are inclined to make a showing of the rules.. typically don't come into armed conflict with one another.. 
 
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Yimmy       4/17/2015 6:14:59 AM
And that's why we're the good guys :)
 
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