the wars were very different affairs, the deaths don't take into account the numbers/tons of bombs dropped or the intensity of the conflict, that is to say 'Nam was counter insurgency/limited conventional where as WW2 was 100% conventional total war, not to mention the great lack of tank support in 'Nam and the great air power used in it;'s place, really the wars were so different as to place simple numerical comparisons invalid, plus a number of the rounds fired there include ones fired with M14s..
anyway, on real terms, you can't turn back the clock, so don't try, if you want to dump the '16 and have nice heavy M14, why not dump that and have the Garand back/ or a bolt action Springfield of the 1st WW, or a rifled musket of your civil war, or the smoothbore musket before then?
times change, opposing armies develop and equip with new and innovative guns and the rules of warfare change, full-auto and small calibres had been on the drawing boards for decades before the M16 was taken into service, the nature of warfare had changed for accurate rifle fire at the start of the century to sharp firefights in close combat with massive armour, artillery and air support of the end of the 20th century
now adays if the enemy is more than a few hundred metres away you call in for fire support from combined arms, be it air or arty support if not tanks in the area, your infantry gun doesn't need to be effective out past a few hundred meters, that is only needed on the weight of fire role, i.e. section machineguns and sniper teams, and anything that reduced the weight carried is a good thing, I've got stats somewhere but lets say 'generic' assault rifle of 5.56mm can be fully loaded and have 3 full mags and be the same weight as an empty 7.62 gun
as for stopping power that really is of little actual use, this isn't hunting where you're up against bug heavy wild animals, the people that are going to be shot with modern guns will be approx 100 to 200lbs of thin skin and small bones, and in army terms a casualty is just that, not specifically a KIA or a wounded, but a catchall term for both, if your best mate is killed next to you, you're going to get revenge, but if he's hit and bleeding shouting for your help.. well, you're suddenly torn between helping him and going and getting the guy who shot him
on an operational level, wounded men cause great trouble for the army, medical facilities, transport and logistics, it's actually better to wound rather than kill in the end, you put a man down and he's down, dead or bleeding and in shock still has the same effect short term effect to you as a guy on the ground, but to their side if a big difference
Israel is blamed of this very often, by using 5.56mm bullets, it is said, they cause far more wounds than they would with other ammo calibres, the bullet fragments when hitting the body (especially bone) and has a dum-dum effect shredding tissue and making it hard to extract from the body. I should point out that 5.56mm ammo has vastly different fragmentation properties depending on what manufacture you get it from and what specifications it is made to, it can be designed to be more dum-dum or less if you really want, the blanket accusation against 5.56mm is made by pressure groups hearing stories, not technicians
as for bullets going straight through people in Somalia, well, they would be at the lower end of the 100-200lbs scale sated earlier (the US Army slang for them was 'skinnys' as they were so malnourished and thin) and the newish ammo being used at that time was, I think, 'green tip' 5.56mm (or some other code-colour) as the army was moving towards amore environmentally friendly bullet, no lead and less other harmful chemicals etc as, mainly, it caused health and safety troubles for them using it on firing ranges back in the USA and if you don't fire in practice with the same ammo you use in combat then what's the point etc, it wasn't 'real' armour piercing (what point would it be, few armies wear body armour and they had practically zero armoured vehicles to speak of)
in conclusion? the smaller the bullet the better, as I said above, if you're going to go back to muskets remember that they used 13-20mm balls fired at low velocity, today we fire 5.56 at very high velocity (and Russia 5.45 at similar speeds) then guns were about killing people, now it's more about projection of power, thatis to say keeping the enemies head down, stopping them from shooting by overwhelming them withthe weight of your fire etc, only killing them if you catch them in the open or up close, the actual killing is done by air and arty assets, the infantry directthese and provide covering fire and close combat specialisation
you have to remember that even in WW1 bayonet training got more time and emphasis in combat than rifle shooting did, they worked din the old premise that guns were the things you used until you got to 'cold steel' ranges, it seem today that many people think of infantry rifles as being the most useful things in the army, with all supporting arms being secondary, in reality they are only useful at short range, everything else is done by air and indirect fire support, that's th way things have moved and to ignor eit and worl by 50+ year old tactics is to invite the sort of scenes in WW1 where old tactics were used against modern weapons
the infantry gun is becoming more of a sidearm to be used in addition to their specialist weapons, fire support radios and designators, squad machineguns and rocket/grenade launchers etc. the reason why NCOs and offices carry SMGs and carbines is to give them a smaller gun so they have more space and effort designated to using tactical weapons and directing the battle, the modern soldier is going in that direction, smaller gun + bigger responsibilities and flexibility.
_________________ ollie.
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now your tears are worth it
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