scrambler Posted April 3, 2004 Share Posted April 3, 2004 1-shot killer excerpt: Ben Thomas and three colleagues were driving north out of Baghdad in an SUV on a clear mid-September morning, headed down a dirt road into a rural village, when gunmen in several surrounding buildings opened fire on them. In a brief but intense firefight, Thomas hit one of the attackers with a single shot from his M4 carbine at a distance he estimates was 100 to 110 yards. He hit the man in the buttocks, a wound that typically is not fatal. But this round appeared to kill the assailant instantly. “It entered his butt and completely destroyed everything in the lower left section of his stomach ... everything was torn apart,” Thomas said. Thomas, a security consultant with a private company contracted by the government, recorded the first known enemy kill using a new — and controversial — bullet. The bullet is so controversial that if Thomas, a former SEAL, had been on active duty, he would have been court-martialed for using it. The ammunition is “nonstandard” and hasn’t passed the military’s approval process. “The way I explain what happened to people who weren’t there is … this stuff was like hitting somebody with a miniature explosive round,” he said, even though the ammo does not have an explosive tip. “Nobody believed that this guy died from a butt shot.” The bullet Thomas fired was an armor-piercing, limited-penetration round manufactured by RBCD of San Antonio. (See above link for full article.) video discussing blended-metal bullet technology http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/bullets/ Lacroix's 76mm High-Impulse Weapon System. Oh yeah, more videos... Shootout at Blackwater: How the latest firearms stack up Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jake Posted April 3, 2004 Share Posted April 3, 2004 Oh yeah I heard about that stuff. Guess it works pretty well. Might as well use I say. And don't gimme any crap about it being inhumane. You're trying to kill these people, right? Nothing humane about that. If you can kill them better(probably a more useful term than that) in a manner that might save your life, why not? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scrambler Posted April 4, 2004 Author Share Posted April 4, 2004 All of us will die sometime. If I was facing off with someone, I'd rather you (or whomever the enemy is) die first. Sometimes it's not so much the gun, as the bullets used, that provide the lethal power. Seems this blended metal technology is simple but very ingenious--will penetrate armor intact but will heat up in soft materials and literally explode. Did you see the video of the Lacroix 76mm high-impulse weapon in action? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gotterdamerung Posted April 29, 2004 Share Posted April 29, 2004 Ben Thomas is a good friend of mine. He's quite a character. He was one of the 8 Blackwater personnel who repelled the assault on CPA/Najaf, and has been credited with saving the life of a 10th Mountain Division soldier east of Fallujah after an IED attack killed their platoon leader. He and the other BW contractors then secured the LT's body because the soldiers in the incident were afraid to enter the area of the IED. Ben was a short course SEAL medic. The rounds he carried cost somewhere in the neighborhood of about $8.00 a piece. I believe the boxes are stamped HAARP2 and the tip of the round appeared to be platinum. North of Basra we fired some rounds over some Bedohuins (sp?) heads to dissuade them from approaching us any further. They have a loud report. After I fired a few into a berm I observed this same ammunition careening back and forth in an obvious heavy top spin. The evidence of the report leads me to believe that they also have an enhanced burn. I was told that this type of round will burn the barrel out an M4 in no time. At the time I was carrying an 11.5 inch M4. I continued to carry 5 at the top of each magazine. He gave me 2 boxes of them when I was living in East Baghdad, but I left them there for my collegues when I returned home after my 1st 5 month stint. I haven't seen any of those rounds floating around since then. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catbirdseat Posted April 29, 2004 Share Posted April 29, 2004 Someone already posted this topic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gotterdamerung Posted April 29, 2004 Share Posted April 29, 2004 I didn't post this. I merely saw it and responded to it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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