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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mmadsen" data-source="post: 3650758" data-attributes="member: 1645">Exactly.What's interesting is that the 5.56 round was introduced when the US had a conscript army.  Once you have a highly trained professional army, your goal isn't necessarily just to put as much lead in the air as possible.I enjoyed this piece on <a href="http://www.strategypage.com/militaryforums/29-1220.aspx" target="_blank">the truth about the 5.56 round</a>.  As a collection of comments, it makes a number of points: As hunters, at least American hunters, have gone from 'standard' cartridges like the 33-30, 308, etc. to super magnum calibers we have learned one thing. The kill rate has not increased. More powerful, flatter shooting rounds may slightly increase the effective range at which hits can be made but the percentage of kills and the rapidity of death really have not increased, at least not for the last 100 years. NOTHING works, instantly or otherwise, all the time. In past wars enemy have walked away from hits by .45 ACP, .303, 8mm Mauser, 30-06 and even 50 BMG and 20mm. A hit to a non lethal area is a non-lethal hit no matter what gun one is using. A hit to the brain or spinal cord is a show stopper, no matter what is being used. Anywhere else an inch one way or the other makes all the difference between a quick stop and eventual recovery. Combat is imprecise. If we are going to be realistic we must learn to accept that. In the last century there has not been a service rifle caliber cartridge used by any nation so inherently inferior in performance against personnel that its use had made the difference between victory or defeat. The qualities of the weapons themselves and the soldiers who use them is of ordinately greater significance that the caliber itself.One oddity of D&D combat is that it makes hitting easy but disabling on a hit relatively hard, which skews weapon choice toward size and power rather than accuracy.</blockquote>

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