AP writer Slobodan Lekic’s semi-cogent article the suitability of the M-4 in Afghanistan misses the point. Actually, it lacks one. Was he trying to introduce the Army’s new policy of having nine M-110 SASS equipped “sharpshooters” in each company? Suggesting that the U.S. military is fighting the Afghanistan war with the wrong weapons (a point he contradicts when he acknowledges that most firefights in the conflict are at distances within the M-4’s ideal operating range)? Anyway, there’s some good intel with re: the suitability of various calibers at various ranges.
The U.S. military’s workhorse rifle — used in battle for the last 40 years — is proving less effective in Afghanistan against the Taliban’s more primitive but longer range weapons . . . a U.S. Army study found that the 5.56 mm bullets fired from M-4s don’t retain enough velocity at distances greater than 1,000 feet (300 meters) to kill an adversary. In hilly regions of Afghanistan, NATO and insurgent forces are often 2,000 to 2,500 feet (600-800 meters) apart.