Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!gatech!mcdchg!att!cbnews!military
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: m16xx
Message-ID: <7700@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Date: 23 Jun 89 02:22:15 GMT
Sender: military@cbnews.ATT.COM
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Approved: military@att.att.com



From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
>It is correct that the bullet tumbled when entering flesh. This was a
>design feature, but also caused the round to lose forward velocity rapidly.
>The result was very little stopping power at longer ranges...

The lack of long-range stopping power in Stoner's AR-15 was a conscious and
deliberate tradeoff.  Very little infantry combat ever happens at much more
than baseball range, especially in places like Western Europe.  And most
soldiers can't hit anything at more than baseball range anyway, regardless
of what scores they make on a dry, safe rifle range with no hostile fire.
There are large differences between the official military mythology
of infantry combat and the real thing.  Stoner designed the rifle for the
real thing.

                                     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
                                 uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu