Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!att!cbnews!military
From: asulaima@udenva.cair.du.edu (SULAIMAN)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: on Exploding bullets and war conventions
Message-ID: <7510@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Date: 16 Jun 89 03:34:03 GMT
References: <7392@cbnews.ATT.COM> <7435@cbnews.ATT.COM>
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From: asulaima@udenva.cair.du.edu (SULAIMAN)

In article <7435@cbnews.ATT.COM> kluksdah@enuxha.eas.asu.edu (Norman C. Kluksdahl) writes:
>
>> From: ut-emx!walt.cc.utexas.edu!cyrius@cs.utexas.edu (Juan Chen)
>> 
>> hollow point ammo ... is not "legal" to be used in combat
>>   ... what kind of rifle ammunition is allowed in combat,
>> 
>The kind that kills and injures people (no smiley's).
>
>Seriously, any 'rules' of war are at best fallacious, and at
>worst, a hinderance which keeps one side honest by trying to follow
>the rules which are ignored by the other side.  This type of thinking,
>that you have to keep battle 'clean' and 'honest', can easily lead to
>defeat.  Crying foul while you are being soundly thrashed does no good
>unless there is someone there to listen to you and intervene.

The intent of rules of war is not to keep it clean or honest. That is already
gone by the time you go to war. The intent is really self-preservation. You
really don't want to get into an escalating battle with the enemy over how
badly to hurt your people. Its really hard to tell your troops that odds
are that with the enemy firing explosive rounds at u even if u are lightly
wounded you are probably gonners. While it may seem fine from the enemy point 
of view odds also are that your side will start killing them with the same 
kind of weapons. The intention of rules of war is to prevent genocide and 
slaughter as much as possible. Given your perspective why not kill POWs? 
They'll only be a drain on manpower and take much needed troops to keep an eye
on. The reason being that if u start killing people so will the other side
and if you are losing its nice to have a way out by surrendering. Current
conventional technology is good enough to take most injured out of the war 
anyway. While that is by no means true in all cases, would you, if u were
a soldier like it to be that way.

>
>Hypothetically, if Y percent of hits with 'honest' ammo results in dead
>enemy, and X percent results in disabling injuries, then you have
>100-X-Y percent of the enemy casulties who will be patched up and return 
>to battle, probably rather angry at having been hit in the first place.  
>If, on the other hand, 'illegal' ammo increases either X or Y or both, 
>fewer enemy casulties will end up back in the lines against you, which
>improves the chances of you and your men surviving.  
>
>If you were an infantry commander, which would you rather use???


Question really is, would you like to have those same stats rationalize
their use AGAINST you. If I was an infantry commander I'd like to have 
something left to command after suffering Y dead and X disabled in an
even firefight.



	Ameer Z. Sulaiman.