Small Caliber FMJ Rounds Ineffective?....

Sebastian has a post up discussing the use of the 5.56 round by the U.S. military, specifically the M855 Steel Tipped penetrator round. Here's the article.

It should be of no surprise that a varmint caliber rifle round that doesn't expand or fragment is going to perform poorly in combat situations. From what I understand, M855 is good for punching through barriers (I.E. mild steel) which makes it terrible as an anti-personnel round. M193 is much better since it will fragment given adequate velocity.

As stated in the article,

The Hague Convention of 1899 bars hollow point bullets that expand in the body and cause injuries that someone is less likely to survive. The United States was not a party to that agreement. Yet, as most countries do, it adheres to the treaty, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

I've discussed this before, and I still think it's ridiculous. Regardless of whether military issued 5.56 is fragmenting or not there is no doubt that there are many 5.56 loads which are more effective than what our soldiers are currently using. If we're going to hamper them with small caliber weapons those weapons need to inflict maximum damage on the enemy. At the very least they should be allowed to use hollowpoints in the M9. You're in a heap of shit if you need to draw your sidearm in a war zone conflict, yet troops are armed with 9mm ball ammo. There's a reason no one uses 9mm ball ammo, or any FMJ ammo for carry / self-defense. The military should jump on the bandwagon and use the best rounds available, particularly since our enemies aren't abiding by the "rules of war."