I think many forget something or don't know about casualties during a war?

[NNN0LHI]

Remember that the exact numer of US casualties is classified. There is a reason for that. The reason that the US military went from a large calibre weapon like a 30.06 to a .222 calibre weapon was because we didn't want to kill the enemy in Vietnam. We wanted to just fuck them up. Why is that you wonder? Because a dead soldier is just dead. End of story. But a seriously wounded soldier is a problem. A big problem. First you have to get the guy to a hospital. It takes other soldiers away from the battle that you need there to accomplish that. Then there is the cost to rehabilitate the wounded soldier who will not be returning to battle. All of us know what medical care costs. Guess who pays for that. You and I pay for that.

Now a little bit about the AK-47. It uses a small bullet too. But its a little different than our bullets. When it comes out of the barrel it does not stay in a nice straight position. It wobbles end over end, and chances are it will hit your body sideways. And as it passes through your body it keeps wobbling while tearing the shit out of a lot tissue and organs. It is known by some that a round from and AK may enter your leg and exit through your shoulder tearing the hell out of everything in its path.

So bottom line is some people will wish they had just died rather than living through what comes from getting shot with an AK-47. And don't forget that the homemade bombs that our soldiers are encountering in Iraq either, because these bombs are just packed full of tissue destoying shrapnel. They are not just big explosions that make a big boom.

Don

[gWbush is Mabus]

1. thanks

i never thought about that before

[wtmusic]

2. M-16 round does the same thing, no?

[Spider Jerusalem]

3. Actually...

the AK-47 uses a 7.62mm round, as opposed to the 5.56mm round used in the M-16/M-4. The effect you mention is referred to as the bullet "tumbling", and this happens with pretty much all metal-jacketed military rounds...when the bullet strikes flesh, the lead inside the steel jacket deforms and leads to tumbling (the bullet going end-over-end, rather than travelling in a straight path), resulting in a much more severe wound than if it had just passed straight through.

The 5.56 round of the M16 creates rather messy wounds, too, but since it's a smaller-calibre round it doesn't have the same terminal ballistic characteristics of the 7.62x39mm.

EDIT: FIxed errors.

[wtmusic]

4. Thanks for info

of course, if you're wearing Kevlar all bets are off

[pippin]

5. status of the wounded

re:" But a seriously wounded soldier is a problem. A big problem."

Early in the war a Colorado paper ran a story where there was an interview with an army surgeon in Germany where the wounded were flown in from Iraq. The interview essentially was about the apalling state of things as injured soldiers were brought in.

Since then I have seen very little about either wounded soldiers or the conditions of hospitals. Why has no investigative journalist done a story about what goes on inside these hospitals? One news item briefly mentions lots of amputations going on but other than the adminsitration seems determined to keep the rest of America seems blind and deaf to this aspect of war.

Military famiiies and the general public also don't seem to get much information about suicides and the deaths associated with so called viral infections.

[Bandit]

6. Not just with bullets

The fragmentation grenade was also remade for this exact same purpose. Remember during WW II and Korea the old Pineapple hand grenade. It looked like a pineapple because it was cut into half inch chunks which blew apart and caused mayhem. The new fragmentation grenade is different. It has an inner core of coiled wire abouit 14 guage which is notched every 3/16th inch into 750 minute pieces. A wounded soldier takes six men out of the battle while a dead man takes out only one.

[NNN0LHI]

7. And one casualty puts the lives of many other soldiers in extreme...

...danger trying to save just one wounded soldier too.

Don

[Ernesto]

10. Yes the hand grenade has "improved"

Durring my infantry training, the wire type grenade was referred to as the "grass cutter" because of it's much increased distribution of fragments. Isn't progress wonderfull?

[ninkasi]

8. This needs to be brought to light.

The terrible casualties need to be talked about, and spotlighted. These are mostly young people, many of them poor, and they are being condemned to face a life of pain and disability. It will be horrible for them, for their families, and for anybody in this country who gives a damn about others.

The Iraquis are suffering untold numbers of deaths and injuries, too. We knew this invasion was immoral, and many of us tried to stop it. One arrogant, spoiled, sociopath had to have his way, goaded by a group of some of most of the most truly evil men this country has ever seen.

The injuries our troops are being doomed to live with will ensure that their lives will never be the same. What a crime!

[Generic Other]

9. Barbaric

I fear we will face these same guns turned against us someday.

[zbdent]

11. M.Y.T.H. Inc. Link - Robert L. Asprin

(don't have it in front of me, but I think that's the one I read this in.)

Skeeve's two bodyguards (Mafia types) are trying out one of the army's new crossbow pistols.

First one hits a nice grouping in the left shoulder, asks the other guard to give his opinion. Second guard hits nice grouping on right shoulder (to differentiate).

While they're discussing the flaws in the design, the commander comes up, purple in the face, asking why they only wounded the target, not right for the kill, since they obviously were talented with the weapons.

I forget if the guy actually said it to the commander, or if it was just the internal goings of the guard's head, but he gave the reader a discourse on why a wounded enemy is much more disheartening for the rest of the guys you're shooting at.

Screaming, blood, dragging the wounded soldier behind you, etc. causes a lot of disruption, takes out at least two guns, not just the one you kill. You got the wounded, and the guy dragging the wounded. Third guy covers for those two. You tie up at least three guns with one shot.

Funny what reading SF/Fantasy can learn ya.

[NNN0LHI]

12. And you can't leave your guys lying there bleeding to death...

...even if that is the most prudent thing to do in a given situation either. Really bad for the moral of others.

Don

[texastoast]

13. Here is a casualty for you . . .

How about when a reservist who has a family is called? It happened to my niece and nephew-by-marriage.

The nephew had been "staging" in Djibouti since February. He is scheduled to come home in the next few weeks (for now). He called ahead to tell his wife and mother of his three children (who is a 10) that he no longer loves her and wants a divorce after nine years of marriage. My guess is that two lonely hearts found each other in Africa.

Thanks, Shrub. They were doing fine until you came along. Why don't you write a letter to her kids for us explaining why it had to happen?

[ArkDem]

14. First

the 5.56 is identical to .223 cal. Second a bullet doesn't tumble until it hits something. If it tumbled going out of the barrel not only would it not go anywhere but you wouldn't be able to hit the ocean. The rifling in the barrel puts a spin on the bullet which greatly increases speed and accuracy.

[NNN0LHI]

15. Second

That may true of a new pristine rifle barrel. But what about an AK-47 that that has had a few thousand rounds poured through it already? That rifling you speak of may become nearly non-existent. May be enough left to make it go fairly straight, but the spin to keep it from tumbling will not do that job anymore. And I don't think these folks worry too much about the condition of their gun barrels either.

Don

http://www.fen-net.de/norbert.arnoldi/army/wound.html

<snip>Yugoslav 7.62x39mm - The Yugoslav copper-jacketed, lead-core, flat-base bullet, even when fired from the same Kalashnikov assault rifle, acts very differently in tissue. It typically travels point-forward for only about 9cm before yawing. Due to the lead core, this bullet flattens somewhat as it yaws, squeezing a few small lead fragments out at its open base, but this does not add significantly to its wounding potential. Referring to the wound profile of the Soviet AK-47 bullet (Fig. 2) and blotting out the first 17cm of the projectile path will leave a good approximation of what one might expect from this bullet.

Since this bullet would be travelling sideways through most of its path in an abdominal wound, it would be expected to cut a swath over three times the dimension made by the bullet travelling point forward. In addition to the larger hole in organs from the sideways-travelling bullet, the tissue surrounding the bullet path will be stretched considerably from temporary cavitation. Actual damage from the stretch of cavitation can vary from an almost explosive effect, widely splitting a solid organ such as the liver, or a hollow one such as the bladder if it is full at the time it is hit, to almost no observable effect if the hollow organs (such as intestines) when hit contain little liquid and/or air. The exit wound may be punctate or oblong, depending on the bullet's orientation as it struck the abdominal wall at the exit point. The exit wound could be stellate if sufficient wounding potential remains at this point on the bullet path. The thigh entrance wound will be small and punctate but the exit wound will probably be stellate, measuring up to 11 cm from the tips of opposing splits. The stellate exit wound results from the temporary cavity simply stretching the skin beyond its breaking point. These stellate wounds generally bleed very little. Small-to medium-sized vessels are certainly cut or torn, but the temporary cavity tearing action generally stimulates the tiny muscles in the vessel walls to constrict and clots will form in their open ends, limiting blood loss. Being wide open, these wounds tend to drain and heal amazingly well even in situations of limited surgical resources. This increased tissue disruption of the leg will, of course, temporarily limit the mobility of the person hit to a greater extent than wounds causing less tissue disruption.

more

[ArkDem]

16. I'm afraid you don't know much about the way a rifle works.

You may wear the rifling but the bullet DOES NOT tumble in flight. The aerodynamics would not allow it to go far. Trust me on this one.

[Bandit]

17. A very good point

I was a machine-gunner and we had to change barrels sometimes as many as five times in one situation. It would soon be apparent when a barrel needed changing because the rounds would exit in a random manner. IOW the bullets were no longer acurate. The barrels would lose their rifling because of the tremendous heat generated during sustained firing. Once the barrel cooled it would again become accurate. The M-60 is designed to allow a change of barrels in a matter of seconds. I never went anywhere without at least six spare barrels.

[ArkDem]

20. They weren't tumbling out of the barrel.

.

[Bandit]

21. I don't know that for a fact

I know they were shooting off in all directions but I suspect you are probably correct. They only "tumble" after striking an object.

[ArkDem]

18. Please note that all of the bullets on the web page you

supply are entering the wound POINT FIRST NOT TUMBLING.

[NNN0LHI]

19. That is only for the first 9cm though according to the page n/t

[ArkDem]

22. a little more info..............

http://home.sprynet.com/~frfrog/miscelli.htm#tumble

[NNN0LHI]

23. I agree any bullet properly stabilized won't tumble until impact

>>>A properly stabilized bullet (that is, one spun with sufficient rotational speed by the rifling) does not tumble in flight, but may tumble upon impact with a soft target.<<<

But after reading your cite though, in a war zone there is still nothing that will guarantee one of being hit with a bullet that is "properly stabilized". Yes accuracy will be diminished as the stability decreases. But do you not agree that there are probably some bullets flying through the air in Iraq as I write this that are not properly stabilized due to wear of the rifling in the gun barrel? And whether or not it is tumbling in flight the chance of getting hit by the side of of one of these bullets due to yaw rather than the nose of the bullet is still very high? And I don't think these people are terribly worried about accuracy either. I suspect they are getting within 100 feet or less rather than 100 yards before emptying a clip or two into a Humvee or a group of soldiers standing at a roadblock like a fire hose.

Don

[ArkDem]

24. Guns don't do much damage if they don't hit the target

. If they aren't spinning they would go off like popcorn. I've been working in an ammunition factory (Remington) for 23 years and fire automatic weapons for testing often (including the AK-47). We fire thousands and thousands of rounds through these weapons to test for accuracy and to make sure they will load and eject properly from the weapon. Believe me a weapon is USELESS if it can't hit the target regardless of the number of bullets fired. Try it sometime.