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Full Metal Jacket

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6 comments

  • #72
    What is the advantage of a FMJ bullet and why does the military use them? I would think a soft point ect. would do more damage on a target. Somebody set me straight.
    Thanks
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  • sealyon
    Geneva Convention!! Some how they came up with rules for war. Hollow points and soft points are TOO lethal. Can't give the exact wording but ball ammo is suppose to increase the survivability of a wound.
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  • sundowner
    x-ring sealyon. Interestingly, I read somewhere (perhaps a post here or over in General Discussion) that the US never signed on to the Geneva Convention, but we obey it (mostly). This could be hearsay, though.

    Just imagine what kind of surplus ammo we could buy if the military was using non-FMJ munitions!?!?!!!!


    ". . . let me forget about today until tomorrow"
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  • p3skyking
    There is some truth to the stated reason of survivability. A more insidious, but unspoken, reason is that when a man is dead, he doesn't require much in the way of service. A wounded man requires; help to leave the field, medical personnel, and transport vehicle and operator. That's about 3 or so men NOT shouldering arms in battle. Since the GC prohibits killing the wounded (that are not firing back), by civilized countries that make war (?) it makes more sense to just wound. Hence, ball ammo.
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  • Darrell
    How do you explain our military snipers use the Federal Match King bullet which is a hollowpoint? Also we signed the Hague Convention not the Geneva. We never signed any agreement on ammunition.
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  • p3skyking
    Here ya go!

    "Declaration on the Use of Bullets Which Expand or Flatten Easily in the Human Body" adopted at the First Hague Peace Conference of (29 July) 1899 which states:
    The Undersigned, Plenipotentiaries of the Powers represented at the International Peace Conference at The Hague, duly authorized to that effect by their Governments,
    Inspired by the sentiments which found expression in the Declaration of St. Petersburg of the 29th November (11th December), 1868,
    Declare as follows:
    "The Contracting Parties agree to abstain from the use of bullets which expand or flatten easily in the human body, such as bullets with a hard envelope which does not entirely cover the core, or is pierced with incisions."
    The present Declaration is only binding for the Contracting Powers in the case of a war between two or more of them.
    It shall cease to be binding from the time when, in a war between the Contracting Parties, one of the belligerents is joined by a non-Contracting Power.
    Although not a party to this accord, as a matter of policy the United States has acknowledged and respected its applicability in conventional combat operations since its adoption more than one century ago.
    Where the U.S. did sign on, however, was with the Hague Convention IV of 1907, Article 23(e) of which Annex states:
    "...it is especially forbidden -?
    ? ? ? ? To employ arms, projectiles, or material (sic) calculated to cause unnecessary suffering;"
    In observance of this, for many years U.S. Military snipers went afield with M-118 ammo, a 7.62 X 51mm 173-grain solid-tipped boat tail round manufactured to much closer tolerances than M-80 "ball."
    This practice began to change subsequent to a 23 September 1985 opinion issued by the Judge Advocate General, authored by W. Hays Parks?, Chief of the JAG's International Law Branch, for the signature of Major Hugh R. Overholt, which stated:
    "...expanding point ammunition is legally permissible in counterterrorist operations not involving the engagement of the armed forces of another State"


    Art. 35, para. 2 of the 1977 Protocol I Additional to the Geneva Conventions of August 12,1949, states in part that "It is prohibited to employ weapons [and] projectiles . . . of a nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering." Although the U.S. has made the formal decision that for military, political, and humanitarian reasons it will not become a party to Protocol I, U.S. officials have taken the position that the language of Art. 35(2) of Protocol I as quoted is a codification of customary international law, and therefore binding upon all nations
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