Along the Indo-Pak border, where terrorist activities are at its peak, 7.62mm assault rifle plays an important role as the theatre of action is very small and their targets are usually a small group of terrorists or insurgents. In such a case they want to finish their enemy than slow them down.
In a conventional war many armies prefer to use the 5.56mm bullets because they want to slow down the enemy by shooting at one but disengaging 2 to 3 soldiers whereas during counter insurgency operations, they always prefer to use 7.62mm bullets.
The India-China border where transportation is a big challenge, difficult to breath due to low oxygen, carrying a heavy 7.62x51mm ammunition is difficult. In such critical areas, quantity of ammunition matters a lot. A 4g of 5.56x45mm case length is 44.70mm compared to a 12g 7.62x51mm with a case length of 51.20mm is very difficult to carry during a conventional war.
5.56mm is vastly lighter, both for the ammunition and the associated weapons system. A soldier can carry roughly 3 times as much 5.56mm as 7.62mm. So a target miss from 7.62x51mm calibre bullet results loss of 3 numbers of 5.56x45mm calibre bullet which could easily injure multiple targets if not kill.
Smaller round means easier on the logistics, simply because they are smaller and take less space to transport. So the same convoy are going to be able to either transport more rounds or more space for other equipment or personnel.
5.56x45mm compared to 7.62x51mm calibre is relatively small sized, light weight, high velocity that produce relatively low thrust, free recoil impulse and automatic fire accuracy which increases hit probability. There were concerns that the 7.62x51mm rounds were too powerful, too large, too heavy, exert too much recoil for light infantry weapons making it difficult to operate during conventional war where the scenario is totally opposite to counter insurgency operations that wounding the enemy as much as possible.
The 7.62x51mm will cost more per round because it represents more components. The cost of the 5.56mm may be a bit lower than the component costs due to the volume of 5.56 ammo produced. 5.56mm is also abundant & produced by many NATO countries unlike 7.62mm.
“The lethality, of course, also depends on where a bullet hits.”
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This article is written by kostav k exclusively for defenceupdate.in
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The post Is the 7.62x51mm calibre assault rifle suitable for conventional war ? appeared first on Defence Update.
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