willner%cfa183@harvard.harvard.edu (Steve Willner) (06/20/89)
From: willner%cfa183@harvard.harvard.edu (Steve Willner) When the M-16 was first put into use, wasn't one of its characteristics an abnormally small amount of rifling twist? The idea was to make the round nearly unstable, so it would tumble when it hit and do more damage. Supposedly, M-16's to be used in the arctic needed a bit of extra twist because of the greater air density. Does anyone know whether the above is correct? Is low twist still used on the M-16? On what other weapons? And how much does the damage increase? On a slightly different subject, one controversial weapon type used by the US in Vietnam exploded into plastic instead of metal fragments. (I believe these were used only in aerial bombs, but they might have been used in artillery shells as well.) Being transparent to X-rays, these fragments were far harder to remove from wounds than metal fragments. As far as I know, such weapons are not specifically prohibited by the Geneva Conventions, but they do seem to come awfully close to the line of "causing unnecessary suffering." (My source for usage of these weapons is contemporary newspaper accounts, so apply an appropriate reliability factor. More information would be welcome.)
henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) (06/22/89)
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) >When the M-16 was first put into use, wasn't one of its characteristics >an abnormally small amount of rifling twist? The idea was to make the round >nearly unstable, so it would tumble when it hit and do more damage. >Supposedly, M-16's to be used in the arctic needed a bit of extra twist >because of the greater air density. > >Does anyone know whether the above is correct? Is low twist still used >on the M-16? On what other weapons? And how much does the damage >increase? It is important to distinguish between Stoner's original AR-15 and the M-16. THEY ARE NOT THE SAME RIFLE!!! The Stoner AR-15 did indeed have a fairly light twist that lead to marginal stability. This worked out extremely well in initial combat testing in Vietnam; that testing (note: real live combat, not rifle-range tests) was the source of the rifle's dinosaur-killing reputation. In the course of turning the Stoner AR-15 into the M-16 (and the civil version, the Colt AR-15), several changes were made, including increasing the rifling twist to avoid an in-flight instability problem in extreme cold. These changes made the new rifle Officially Acceptable, at the cost of destroying its unique terminal ballistics pretty thoroughly (and, incidentally, turning an unusually reliable rifle into a spectacularly unreliable one). Recent modifications to the M-16 have, if anything, gone the other way: heavier bullets and stronger spins to give better penetrating power against helmets and the like. That is, making it more like the rifles it replaced. Plus ca change... Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu