Auto Rifles in Boot Camp

Adrian Hurt writes:
>I have not been in any military service myself, but I can tell you that
>until recently, the British Army at least did use semi-auto rifles.  Their
>SLR (Self-Loading Rifle) was a version of the Belgian FN-FAL, modified so
>that it could not fire full auto.  Why it was so modified, I do not know;
>perhaps to save ammo, perhaps to save money on ammo, perhaps to encourage
>the soldiers to shoot more accurately, perhaps because letting a soldier
>loose with a full auto weapon in a situation such as the streets of Belfast
>was decided to be too risky.  The decision has since been reversed, though,
>because the newer rifle, the SA-80, can fire full auto.  Mind you, it only
>fires those toy 5.56mm bullets, so perhaps it needs to. :-)

Well, in the U.S. Military, it was because of ammo considerations.
I believe that they were disturbed by the ratio of rounds expended to
number of kills; it was *way* to high.

>(Yeah, I know, they aren't really toys, and I wouldn't want to be hit by
>one! :-)

No, you wouldn't.  The reason they use those 5.56mm bullets is because
velocity kills, not size.  I'm not saying that it dosen't hurt to get
hit with a .45 caliber at 450fps, but a 5.56mm at about 3000fps is a
lot nastier.  They tend to bounce around inside the body a bit, and
even when they don't, hydrostatic shock will probably get you.  I
assume that's why a 4mm Gauss Rifle round is deadlier in the game than
your standard autorifle, or ACR.  (And you thought Traveller wasn't
going to get into this!) :-)

Lee Eilers  [email removed]
^Z