In this episode of What the Fuck America, a retired army kernel goes head to head with a lifelong fed. Colonel Tucker declares before the court that…
spoiler
…NATO 5.56 and/or (?) 0.223 caliber ammo can decapitate or split the upper body from the lower in a single shot. To support this claim, he makes up a story about a marine and then describes the Iraqi children he saw torn in half.
Did this hero just self report? It also turns out that your average lifelong war criminal doesn’t really even need to know how guns work lmao
dude said “yeah, 556 ammo can cut folks in half. I saw kids cut in half in Iraq”
…sir?damn the “tumbling” myth just keeps on chuggin’
I bet this guy talks about “stopping power” and thinks his .45 1911 is the apogee of small arms technology
Can you explain what you mean by “tumbling myth”? Is it about .5.56 rounds tumbling in flight vs tumbling after the round hit the target? Wouldn’t rounds still tumble or yaw outside of the effective range of the weapon?
I’m actually asking, i looked into it a bit and still don’t know the score
Yeah, once a round isn’t spinning enough to properly stabilize itself it’ll tumble in the air and lose any accuracy. The tumbling myth I’m talking about is the myth that the 5.56 does more internal damage that some larger calibers because once it enters the body it tumbles. This is similar to the .22LR myth that once they enter the body they get “deflected” by bones and zip around inside doing a lot of damage. Both of these things sort of fall under the umbrella of fudd lore.
Right…5.56/.223 are very fast rifle rounds relative to other similar calibers, which is probably part of how this sort of myth gets started
IIRC, it typically has the opposite problem to what colonel Tarantino is lying out his ass about in the above testimony; it easily over penetrates because of the high velocity (and it will not rip people in half with one shot)
I remember a CSI episode where a .22 bullet bounces around inside a dude’s skull lmao
Gun myths are fun, I think mythbusters did this one specifically.
I remember soldiers swearing up and down that .50 bmg could kill you if it passed near you.
the colonel who wrote the sur-rebuttal where I cropped the image from believes that the rifling in a gun’s barrel is designed to make the bullet tumble upon impact. Below is from his initial ‘expert report’:
the ballistics expert Fed who wrote the rebuttal asserts the below and may answer your question:
What’s weird is this is opposite from the myth I usually see, that 5.56 and other intermediate cartridges are designed to wound and not kill, because allegedly wounding takes 3 soldiers off the battlefield (the wounded and two comrades to get him to safety) whereas killing only takes away 1
I’ve heard that 5.56 was chosen over 7.62 NATO cause it was about as effective with the added benefit of being small and therefore lighter to carry. I think this accounted for the tumbling myth, but i dont have any background in ballistics to know or believe otherwise.
This is likely the reason (50% more bullets per weight or whatever), but there were a lot of propaganda attempts to get soldiers to like the M16 over the AK47 especially after soldiers had felt like they’d been done dirty.
Increased bullet tumbling, the wounding argument, and hydrostatic shock advantages all feel like variations of this to me, and verifying gun myths was a lot harder back then. Also soldiers tend not the be the brightest bulbs. Such myths would have spread like wildfire as soldiers compared their standard issue to their trophy AKs.
Yeah the M16s initial reliability issues were also the fault of procurement, as I’ve heard they were firing rounds with the wrong powder it was designed for, causing jams or something.
In that position who wouldnt lie to their soldiers to get them to use the weapons they paid so much money to have?
I think you just don’t want your junior officers surrounded by people with guns angry at them lol
I’ve heard that 5.56 was chosen over 7.62 NATO cause it was about as effective with the added benefit of being small and therefore lighter to carry.
This is almost always the answer. Logistics is what wins wars. If you can carry more ammo and stack more in a truck than your enemy, you’re in a good spot.
Funnily enough the US military is planning on going to a larger caliber (6.8x51 I think?) that’s also predicted to wear out the rifle faster.
Just looked up some of the ballistics, and its called .277 sig fury, and outshines 6.5 creedmoor, so yeah. that’s a big boi.
The standard issue length of barrel is going to be 13inches with that thing which makes it worse lmfao it’s the f-35 of rifles.
Edit: it also comes stock with a suppressor which also makes it worse.
those guys would also tell you that mustaches and full beards are tactically superior to being clean shaven in a kinetic environment
Is this just some dork making things up or did this actually happen? I know there were military orders for fancy 1911s that solved none of the problems of the 1911 back in the day, decades after the wonder-9s were perfected.
Using a pistol is probably more a function of gun length while indoors. You are less maneuverable if you have to fit a rifle through a doorway, for example
The only thing that kind of makes sense is they wanted a quiet suppressed pistol caliber and .45 fits the bill better than 9mm, so you slap threaded barrels onto the 1911s that are on the rack
Also 1911’s look really cool
I mean yeah, if you’re a fan of antiques roadshow. Me, I like cutting edge Czechnology.
Ok yes the CZ Shadow 2 is a babe
True true.
If he’s a Marine he’s probably referring to MARSOC, which issued 1911s as standard long after the Corps itself had switched to 9mm. IDK what they issue nowadays though.
MARSOC is pretty much in line with other special operations units now, but honestly you’d be surprised how many units used 1911s back then because it was tacticool
It did happen back then, but mostly because people really hadn’t figured out how to do cqb until well after falluja. To put it in perspective falluja was the largest urban combat operation in history since Vietnam (Saigon I think?). You didn’t need to know how to enter a room until then pretty much.
his .45 1911 is the apogee of small arms technology
He’s right about this tho
Peaked at Browning HI Power. Modern propellants/bullet design have made the 9 the superior cart since the 90s.
A special load 9mm can get equivalent, the feds use it for a reason.
Didn’t the US military pull scaremongering shit like this about 5.45x39? Screeching about how 5.45 is DESIGNED TO BE BRUTAL and CAUSE MORE DAMAGE in the 1970s?
lol yeah I do believe they did
The tumbling thing isn’t a myth, but it’s not the round itself that does that it’s a combination of the round along with velocity and terminal ballistics. 5.56 was made to be shot out of a 20” barrel in order to reach terminal ballistics and that’s where the yawing (tumbling) effect takes place. This makes some sense since he mentioned falluja because the marines were still being issued M16s and not m4s (m4s have a shorter barrel and therefore do not reach the required velocity with regular 5.56)
are you leaving out the bit where the claim is that a single 556 bullet would cut somebody in half? this is gross but i don’t think they’re actually claiming that.
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lol ‘rifling is to make bullets tumble for damage’
kids.
from the excerpt he was talking about kids being cut in half.
coincidentally speaking of bullets doing decapitations and marines being cited for examples of such, I’ve had a marine tell me about how he saw one of his squadmates get his arm blown off by an AK-47 round impacting the bone.
Wow, that just kept getting worse.
“oh yea this thing does such damage to kindergardeners”
sounds like a great person
Holy iguana shit in a tin can Batman, this dude’s dumb as fuck! Like, how can you be an officer and go on record to just spew out urban legends from the barracks where they keep the grunts that actually do eat crayons (it was a bet bro, funniest shit I’ve ever seen bro!).
Then to be like “yeah, I’d know… Mowed down a few grade school classrooms in my day, cut a few of the lil’ bastards clean in half Itellyouwhut”. Immediately send him to the wall, doesn’t matter if it’s bullshit, test out the tumbling effect on him.
Also, wtf does he think terminal velocity means? 🤣
