Fact & Fiction

[dieseltaylor]

Following on from a JK linky and as I rather loathed the style of writing for " The Longest Winter " and I wondered about it. Looking at Wikipedia gives the battle and the information there comes from an Army captain writing in the 90's. Looking at the bio of Boucks on Wikipedia reveals a very large discrepancy. So read it first! and then the second is the research bit. Here is about the book.

Excerpt from Alex Kershaw's THE LONGEST WINTER (.50 on desperate defense--MG jeep). If I'm reading this correctly, on of the guys has the gun at least partially out of the mount and is holding it while firing! And here I thought firing an AN/M2 "Stinger" (air-to-air high ROF .30 cal MG) carried manually was pretty impressive.

http://www.thelongestwinterbook.com/excerpt.html

(Fair Use)

"The platoon again opened fire as the Germans got to the fence. This time, it was Private First Class Milosevich who let rip with the .50-caliber jeep-mounted machine gun. The armor-piercing bullets, employed by rear gunners on B-17s to bring down fighters, blew holes a foot wide in the German soldiers. But the .50 caliber’s field of fire was too narrow, and the gun was not easy to maneuver from its fixed position in the jeep. Milosevich tried to take it off its stand but burned his hand because it had become so hot. He wrapped a handkerchief over the burn and again picked up the gun so he could better traverse the pasture.

Suddenly, Milosevich saw a German paratrooper to his left only yards from Lyle Bouck’s dugout. He fired and the German fell.

The enemy fire suddenly became particularly fierce. Milosevich decided to make for his dugout. A German appeared a few yards away, wielding a "potato-masher" grenade. Milosevich let rip, cutting the German in two.80 Milosevich made it back to his dugout and began to fire again. He screamed for Slape, who dived into the dugout, bruising his ribs.

The Germans kept coming.

Slape took over on the .50-caliber machine gun.

"Shoot in bursts of three!" shouted Milosevich, knowing the gun would overheat and they would be out of ammunition if Slape kept firing away without pausing.

"I can’t!" shouted Slape. "There’s too many of them!"

Slape continued to fire, hitting dozens of men with a sweeping arc. Milosevich saw the unwieldly gun start to pour off smoke. When he looked down the hillside, it seemed that they were outnumbered by at least a hundred to one, and the Germans just kept coming."

[Stuka]

Can't see how an AP round would blow a foot wide hole in a body, 50 cal or not...

[noob]

Can't see how an AP round would blow a foot wide hole in a body, 50 cal or not...

It's hyperbole.

[Michael Emrys]

And typical veteran [whopper telling] embroidery of a good story.

Michael

[Erwin]

Probably. But, have also seen how while the entry hole may not be that big the surrounding damage does appear very large (esp on exit).

[John Kettler]

(Moderator removed the links because no sane person would need to see such pictures to believe the point being made. Anybody looking for snuff pictures can do so on their own time)

Judging from the above, heads will pretty much explode from a .50 caliber hit, and where it may punch through the first person semi cleanly, anyone else in the path is likely to be ripped apart by several hits in rapid succession.

Regards,

John Kettler

[akd]

(links removed by moderator. And accidentally AKD's comments that amounted to "why do we need the links?")

[John Kettler]

akd,

There is an ongoing raging dispute, not just here, over what .50 caliber BMG fire does and doesn't do to those hit. I went looking for data, and I put very prominent warnings on what I found. If you chose to look anyway, that's on you. If you're going to discuss weapon effectiveness, you have to be willing to look at the data. Sparse though they may be, these are knowns in making that assessment. For general analytical purposes, we're not seeing .50 cal MG fire (likely torso and legs), but .50 cal sniper fire (head). This significantly impedes drawing useful center of mass aimpoint related conclusions based on studying the wounds.

But you don't have to have big bullets to kill people and make big holes in them in the process. Death can be caused by a tiny wound so small as to be easily missed. One of the great surprises to emerge from studying WW II wound ballistics was that a high velocity fragment weighing 1/100th of an ounce was enough to kill someone. This was never factored into those wartime WO effectiveness studies. Additionally, it turns out that the Russian telogreika padded jacket and quilted winter uniforms provided substantial protection against grenade and similar small fragments.

Regards,

John Kettler

[John Kettler]

How did we wind up with two active threads, with the exact same title? Maybe the mods could go in and label them so we can readily determine which one began the discussion and which one, weirdly separated form the starting thread, continues it.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Sergei]

I appreciate it how you post a link to (link removed by moderator) for a picture of, I presume, a terribly malformed body and then warn that nudity could be harmful to children.

I suppose there is a chance that (link removed by moderator) is a site promoting Pete Best and Al Gore but I'm not going to check, tyvm.

[John Kettler]

Sergei,

It was meant to be two levels of warning. The first was regarding the image content. The second applied to what was on the page next to the image. Gore's shown on TV all the time, so that might not bother some, indeed, many kids revel in it. "If it bleeds, it leads" is, after all the maxim of the mass media. Spike TV's got 1000 Ways to Die and Deadliest Warrior, neither of which I'd recommend for small children. But over and above the pics proper, I thought it appropriate to warn of highly explicit FMV ad content on the same page. I do think the mods went a bit overboard. In their haste to eliminate the gore, they removed both ordnance gelatin tests, though they were clearly labeled as such. Oh well. MythBusters shows such tests, sometimes including bone.

I do find it interesting that people are totally into war stuff but, by and large, can't handle what the real thing looks like. I find war both endlessly fascinating and endlessly appalling, but that doesn't mean I refuse to accept what the consequences are of it. And if we're going to debate a particular weapon's effectiveness, usable data are needed. I found precious little online on .50 caliber use against infantry, where terminal effects were described. This meant finding what I could on firing tests and any casualty pics related to the .50 or its 12.7mm/.51 cal DShK cousin.

I talked to a Vietnam war veteran and was informed he'd seen a .30 caliber hit into the shoulder practically remove it, and he had seen outright limb removals (legs) from .50 caliber fire. To a first order, I'm therefore of the opinion that a .50 cal hit produces either a heavy wound or is fatal, but I don't know how feasible coding that might or might not be.

Regards,

John Kettler

[akd]

I do find it interesting that people are totally into war stuff but, by and large, can't handle what the real thing looks like. I find war both endlessly fascinating and endlessly appalling, but that doesn't mean I refuse to accept what the consequences are of it. And if we're going to debate a particular weapon's effectiveness, usable data are needed. I found precious little online on .50 caliber use against infantry, where terminal effects were described.

This is idiotic. Anyone who claims that someone is continuing to fight after taking a .50 cal round is a fool. The actual terminal effects are irrelevant, and the fact that you think they are relevant shows how deeply misguided you are on the issue being discussed. It is irrelevant to CM and irrelevant to the discussion, therefore it is simply gratuitous, especially when it is mostly in service of you displaying what you clearly believe is an impressive prowess at using Google.

Furthermore, the firing system is far less important than the ammunition, so finding videos of ".50 cal" wounds tells you nothing about terminal effects (if they were relevant) unless you can prove you are comparing the same ammunition at the same velocity.

[General Lee Irked]

No need to make this forum a mirror of graphic gore sites . JK you gave fair warning but still... really?

Tact and discretion please.

Maybe those links would have been better directed in a PM or a more indirect hint as to where to look? Just my opinion.

[Duckman]

But you don't have to have big bullets to kill people and make big holes in them in the process. Death can be caused by a tiny wound so small as to be easily missed. One of the great surprises to emerge from studying WW II wound ballistics was that a high velocity fragment weighing 1/100th of an ounce was enough to kill someone. This was never factored into those wartime WO effectiveness studies. Additionally, it turns out that the Russian telogreika padded jacket and quilted winter uniforms provided substantial protection against grenade and similar small fragments.

I am probably derailing the thread here, but another very interesting find from WWII studies is that the vast majority of casualties were caused by shell fragmens and not bullets. Given the vast attention to bullet firing weapons in WWII imagery, wargames etc this is quite interesting.

According to two US studies from the ETO shell fragments accounted for 60-75% of casualties while bullets caused 20-25%. In the PTO shells caused 50% and bullets 33%, showing a clear difference between the theatres.

Figures from here:

http://history.amedd.army.mil/booksdocs/wwii/woundblstcs/chapter1.htm

(Scroll 4/5 down page, or search for "causative agents".)

As for the .50 Cal, wasn't it fairly marginal as an antipersonnel weapon in WWII anyway? According to Wiki the standard allocation was one per infantry battalion, and most vehicle MGs were .30 Cals as well.

[Michael Emrys]

As for the .50 Cal, wasn't it fairly marginal as an antipersonnel weapon in WWII anyway? According to Wiki the standard allocation was one per infantry battalion, and most vehicle MGs were .30 Cals as well.

I've been looking at a lot of photos of vehicles lately, and at least from mid-'44 on the standard AA weapon for tanks and HTs is the .50. It's the .30 that is rare for AA work. And my readings have included such comments as "The US army was lavishly supplied with the .50 BMG." He didn't give absolute numbers, but the word "lavishly" is suggestive that they were not rare. And as for their use on ground targets, well the M16 is unlikely to have gotten the nickname "Meatchopper" for no reason at all.

Michael

[MikeyD]

What's the Russian equivalent, the DShK? I can't recall anyone referring to that mg as a war-winning wonder weapon though it outranges and outperforms the M2 Browning. .50 Cal Browning seems to have become an anti-personnel weapon by default. An anti-aircraft gun without any aircraft to shoot at. Like M10 TDs being used as SP artillery batteries because there were no enemy tanks around. .50 cal soldiered on into the cold war years because they were expecting vehicle-heavy combat against the 'Russian hordes', but in Vietnam it once again became a default infantry killer, there being no vehicles to shoot up.

[Sublime]

Nevertheless it's still in use by our military today and seems a very popular weapon. The barret sniper rifle with the .50 round has become incredibly popular with our troops as well...

[Mord]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYSGuiko6Gg

Mord.

[moneymaxx]

This post does not contain any gore.

http://karws.gso.uri.edu/jfk/scientific_topics/wound_ballistics/how_a_high-speed.html

This short article explains why the velocity of a bullet is an important factor to make predictions about the damage it does. If the speed difference is big enough, then a bullet with a small diameter does equal or more damage than a slower bullet with a larger diameter, e.g. a 5.56x45 rifle bullet does (much) more damage than a 9mm pistol bullet. That´s because it carries more energy. The 5.56x45 +/- 1700 Joule, 9mm only +/- 600 joule and the 0.50 cal a whopping 13.000 joule! (source Wikipedia).

For those who do not want to read the article:

A bullet does 2 types of damage. The primary cavity is the path of the bullet itself and upon impact of the bullet tissue is propelled outwards away from the bullet path as can be perfectly seen in this video. This is called a temporary cavity.

The size of the temporary cavity depends largely on bullet energy and can be as big as 30 times the diameter of the bullet. If the tissue that surrounds the temporary cavity is elastic enough it might just bulge like the ballistic gel in the video or an abdomen of a human and fall back into place. While there might be extreme internal damage, only a small entry and exit wound might be seen from the outside.

If the surrounding tissue is not elastic, e.g. a head, then the pressure of the moving tissue might be high enough to make it explode. Even if it was elastic the temporary cavity of a 0.50 cal is quite big, if a leg or arm was hit, I suspect that the surrounding tissue would not be able to contain the cavity rather than being torn or cut off it would more or less burst.

(Primary and temporary cavity also depend on othe factors like the yaw of the bullet, material, shape but of minor imprtance in this context.)

[John Kettler]

Duckman,

The 12.7mm DShK was nowhere nearly as common in the Red Army as the .50 was in ours. The Russian squad automatic weapon is the DP, and the go to MG is the 7.62mm Maxim. You have to go to Regiment to even find the Dushka. Our own Michael Emrys shows the Russians had NO Dushkas at battalion.

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=79&t=92777

The HMGs listed are really Maxims, which may be readily proved by looking at the equipment roster. LMGs are DPs, so the next ones, based on their ubiquity in Russian Army footage, must be Maxims.

The fundamental reason? An acute lack of unit motorized transport. As the WW II Gyrene site below wryly notes, the .50 was designed for truck transport, which caused the foot mobile Marines considerable hassle, but they used them anyway. You would find a lot more Dushkas IF higher HQ allocated whole MG formations to its lower units, but I'm talking baseline case here.

http://canuckcommander.pbworks.com/w/page/14311324/WW2%20Soviet%20Wargaming

By contrast, a U.S. leg infantry battalion, appropriate for Sicily, has 6!

http://www.bayonetstrength.150m.com/UnitedStates/Infantry/united_states_infantry_battalion%20mid%201943%20to%201945.htm

If you talk Armored Infantry, there are.50s all over the place.

http://www.bayonetstrength.150m.com/UnitedStates/Armored/united_states_armored_infantry_battalion%201944%20to%201945.htm

The U.S. Marines had 2 .50s at battalion level

http://www.ww2gyrene.org/weapons_M2HB.htm

Mord,

Good stuff, one of which I've, er, seen before. The second one should be called "Music to Blast Watermelons By." Lovely music and slow mo high speed! Third link is the dread YT black screen, an alarmingly common phenomenon these days.

Regards,

John Kettler

[John Kettler]

Lest I get in trouble with the Mods again, I'll just say that the standard reference on this issue, at least, for WW II, is

MEDICAL DEPARTMENT UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II

Body Armor in Korea

MEDICAL DEPARTMENT, UNITED STATES ARMY

WOUND BALLISTICS

Prepared and published under the direction of

Lieutenant General LEONARD D. HEATON

The Surgeon General, United States Army

Editor in Chief

Colonel JAMES BOYD COATES, Jr., MC

Editor for Wound Ballistics

Major JAMES C. BEYER, MC

OFFICE OF THE SURGEON GENERAL

DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY

WASHINGTON, D.C., 1962

The parent site on which the study may be found is

U.S. Army Medical Department, Office of Medical History

http://history.amedd.army.mil/in

Am sure people here can figure it out from there.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Duckman]

The fundamental reason? An acute lack of unit motorized transport. As the WW II Gyrene site below wryly notes, the .50 was designed for truck transport, which caused the foot mobile Marines considerable hassle, but they used them anyway.

I must admit I missed the start of this so I'm not quite sure if what's being discussed is if the .50 Cal was used against infantry (undoubtedly), if it was effective (certainly), or to what exetent this is modelled in the game (can't say).

On the issue of how common they were in actual ETO firefights I think it's hard to be sure. As you show they are quite abundant in TOEs, but they also seem to be clustered at battalion level and the weight is mentioned as a problem for foot-mobile troops. At 60 kgs it is almost twice as heavy as the (rather bulky) HMG version of the MG 42, and the ammo is heavier as well.

What it adds up to for me is that they were probably used a lot in defensive positions, especially if there was time to prepare. Offensively I think there's a good chance they would not be up front considering WWII infantry normally did not ride to contact. However given the vast numbers of vehicle mounted HMGs there would still be that kid of firepower up front, so I guess it wouldn't matter much.

[MikeyD]

About current .50 cal popularity I wonder how much of that is due to - for lack of a better term - machismo. Firing a .50 cal downrange would seem to be more of a 'cathartic' experience for the firer than squeezing off a few SAW roounds. Though the target you're shooting at would most likely wind up with just as many holes in it. The effect of firing the big gun is more psychological than tactical, the value of which shouldn't be discounted. I recall a story of when they were first designing the F117 stealth fighter. The engineers had painted the prototype in a disruptive scheme of desert pastel colors. When the visiting general saw it he flipped out - Pastels? You painted it in pastels? Its a G-D stealth fighter not Barbie's Dream House, it should be BLACK! And so we got the all black stealth fighter.

[Andrew H.]

About current .50 cal popularity I wonder how much of that is due to - for lack of a better term - machismo. Firing a .50 cal downrange would seem to be more of a 'cathartic' experience for the firer than squeezing off a few SAW roounds. Though the target you're shooting at would most likely wind up with just as many holes in it.

This is true in the open (in fact, the SAW would probably put significantly more holes in them). But the .50 has a significant advantage against troops in buildings, and it also has a much greater range, which can allow you a bit of stand off room.

[John Kettler]

MikeyD,

I never encountered that story before, and there's nothing on it in this site, but I believe you'll find it fascinating reading. And the American flag version is simply breathtaking!

http://www.f117reunion.org/index.htm

Andrew H.,

I'd say it's a lot more than just troops in buildings. A typical tree not only wouldn't faze it, but would be chopped down quickly--if the projectile didn't go clean through it the first time!

Regards,

John Kettler