.50 caliber being use!

So not only are they using WHITE PHOSPORUS (allegedly) and NAPALM (allegedly)...now THIS? 'The Hell? Is there ANY low these bastards WON'T stoop to?! What next? Sex with a dog on TV?

How is it they can get a buttload of .50 caliber ammo, but, they seem to be having a shortage of 9 MM bullets! If you haven't read "WILL THEY EVER TRUST US AGAIN" by Mike Moore, DO SO. One kid got sent over to Iraq with, get this, just a 9 mm pistol and 19 BULLETS. These scum can even fill 2 clips. HELLLLLO!

And the repukes keep saying "OH BUT CLINTON WAS BAD FOR THE MILITARY AND..." SHUT THE FRIG UP!

Geneva Convention, anyone?! (Sorry if dupe.)

http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1130846175240150.xml&coll=2

.50-caliber ammo used so much that supplies run low
Tuesday, November 01, 2005
David Wood
Newhouse News Service

Washington- U.S. troops in Iraq are firing .50-caliber machine guns at such a high rate, the Army is scrambling to resupply them with ammunition - in some cases dusting off crates of World War II machine gun rounds and shipping them off to combat units.

Above the staccato crackle and squeak of small arms fire, the fiddy-cal's distinctive "THUMP THUMP THUMP" indicates that its 1.6-ounce bullets, exactly the weight of eight quarters, are going downrange at 2,000 mph. The bullets are said to be able to stop an onrushing car packed with deadly explosives dead in its tracks from a mile away. A .50-cal round can travel four miles, generally not with great accuracy.

At closer ranges, it is so powerful that a round will obliterate a person, penetrate a concrete wall behind him and several houses beyond that, gunners in Iraq have said. "You can stop a car, definitely penetrate the vehicle to take out the engine - and the driver," said Army Maj. Gen. Charles Swannack Jr., who recently retired after commanding the 82nd Airborne Division in Iraq. The gun alone weighs 84 pounds, not including its 40-pound tripod and heavy brass-jacketed ammunition.

Swivel-mounted in the turret of a Humvee, the gun can lay down a heavy steel blizzard, 40 rounds a minute, on grouped insurgents or vehicles, and is often used in convoys or at checkpoints as a last resort to stop suicide car bombers.

That was a rhetorical question, right!

...kinda like asking "Why didn't he read the Aug. 6, 2001, PDB."

Lu

I was thinking each clip being a max. of 10. Either way! 19 BULLETS?!
"OH BUTT CLINTON AM BE WAS BAD FOR THE..." SHUUUUUUUT UUUUUUP!
Case closed!

Lu

"Send in your spare 9mm rounds to help our boys overseas"

I'm sure there are some gun nuts stateside that could fill that order...

You'll realize how horrible a "conventional" weapon a .50 caliber full-auto is...

MojoXN

Jesus! Have some of you forgotten what guns are for?

THEY'RE MADE TO KILL PEOPLE.

The .50 does that well in certain circumstances.


If you want to get pissed, get pissed about war in general. The .50 is NOT a "horrible" weapon, it's just very good at what it does.

.50 caliber round? Also, I assume you cut and pasted the portion of the article you posted, so David Wood needs to either do some fact checking or correct some typos. The typical military .50 cal round has a muzzle velocity of 2000 - 3000 feet per second not miles per hour, and the fire rate would be closer to 400 rounds per minute. Also, in your commentary you make reference to the Geneva Convention and I'm not sure why. There is nothing about the caliber of MG rounds in the Geneva Convention.
Just a FYI for accuracy.

... back in 85 while going through infantry basic at Fort benning, we were instructed that it was against the Geneva convention to use the 50 cal on personel. We were instructed to use it on equipment, which included protective masks and helmets while being worn. (not kidding).

One thing to remember, this insane war not withstanding. You win wars by superior tactics and overwealming firepower. That generally means "terrible" weapons. I can't imagine being killed by a 1 ton smart bomb is any better.

Winning wars (conventional wars at least) is why the US will not sign the treaties barring use of land mines etc., we won't give up that which gives us that much advantage.

War itself is a terrible business. It should never be entered into lightly or for political gain, it should be the last resort when everything else has totally failed. Once started though don't expect anything less than all out use of the weapons at hand. The ONLY weapons that have been universally demonized are Nukes, Chemical (and by that definition, WP is NOT a chemical weapon...it's an incendiary weapon), and biologicals. We still maintain a huge nuclear arsenal, and were reluctant at best to destroy our supply of binary nerve agent shells. The only real reason we did destroy them is they were getting really dangerous to store. As for biologicals who knows.

The US military is dedicated to winning the war through whatever force is necessary. Like it or not that includes WP, depleted uranium, nukes and whatever else gives us an advantage the other doesn't have. Sadly chivilry is dead. It died with the advent of gunpowder...

I agree with everything else you've said, although I'm pretty sure we didn't destroy all our bio and nerve weapons.
War is so ghastly that people that haven't seen it cannot really imagine it, and that's why I advocate full disclosure of any and all pictures and films of war being shown right in prime-time network TV. If you're going to support a war, you should see what you're doing to other people (and animals, the environment, historical items, etc.), and what you're sending your children into. It is the very definition of "the evil that men do".
And yes, if we have exhausted every last avenue and option and war is required then, by all means, go in with overwhelming force and end it as quickly as possible.

has been used for quite a long time now. I have no problem with the army using it, if there is a suicide bomber running towards them they need to protect themselves.

weren't THERE!

FWIW, I've fired both the 50 cal machine gun and sniper's rifle, and they are amazingly powerful, but isn't that the point?

what about them chain guns, the ones that blow up frickin' tanks?

they have those on the converted C130 gunships.

those are a brazilian times worse than 50s

I have pix of the 50s here, I think

let's see

You have a problem with the military using .50 weapons?

Would you feel better if we were doing all our killing with only .22s?

You are not allowed to shoot people in war with:

* expanding bullets, like hollowpoints or Dum-Dums.
* fragmentary or explosive bullets (you're not allowed to directly engage a human target with a Mk.19 automatic grenade launcher, for instance)
* incendiary bullets (although tracers, which have a small amount of incendiary material at the tail, are okay to use)

There are plenty of .50BMG (BMG means Browning Machine Gun) ball and tracer rounds that don't expand, fragment or burn, and they're perfectly legal to shoot people with. Google "Barrett sniper rifle." That weapon is specifically made to shoot people, and it fires the .50BMG round.

I'm still trying to figure out the "generally not with great accuracy" comment. The M2 Browning is probably the most accurate weapon we have, with the exception of sniper rifles, when it's bolted to the tripod. If you look at a picture of a tripod-mounted Ma Deuce, your eye will be drawn to the little leg connecting the back of the receiver to the tripod. That little leg is the Traverse and Elevation Mechanism, and by using it you can not only very accurately lay the gun on a target, but can maintain your lay. My platoon sergeant at Fort Campbell was a sniper in Nam, and Ma Deuce was his weapon of choice. He shot 260 NVA and VC troops at ranges between 500 and 700 meters (he claimed that 1,000 yard kills were almost impossible, so he rarely attempted one) with a fifty-caliber machinegun. Actually, I think I just figured it out: put Ma Deuce on a pintle mount and hold down the trigger until the barrel sags, like the dickheads in Iraq are probably doing, you won't hit shit. But that's kinda the nature of the beast.

machine gun


sniper's rifle


this is the gun that allegedly can bring down a jetliner, under proper circumstances.

there was a debate on making it illegal in congress, and it was subject of discussion here

If that is not enough pistol rounds, another nineteen is not likely to help.

I would hope that the 9mm is in addition to his main arm.