I bring up striking distance just as a curiosity, as M193 will fail to fragment at distance (see below), I've seen studies this is as close as 150m out of a 16" barrel and 100m out of an M4 14.5" barrel. At which point it's damage is done more with tumbling and limited fragmentation. This is why there were reports of issues of effectiveness at distance in the GWOT with the M4's and M193 or M855 (which has lower fragmentation threshold ranges than M193) which is why the M855A1 was developed.
I think the big disconnect in comparing m193 and M43 is that they damage in very different ways. The M193 while ball ammo, fragments causing damage; whereas the M43 tumbles causing damage. That is why I keep bringing up 8M3 because it more of an apples to apples on terminal wounding as they both fragment. But this gets away from the intent of this thread as the desire is to compare FMJ's to each other, and technically 8M3 is not as it has a cavity at the tip to promote fragmentation.
View attachment 1144149
Most definitely, agree.
The three currently existing BRL energy-based provisional incapacitation models are still used by the military to develop and assess not only ball ammo, but fragmenting munitions, too. Considering how projectiles behave mechanically within the target is within the models' capabilities, but it gets considerably more complex to process. The 8m3 is one such example.
As for ball ammo, which most militaries are restricted to under convention and legal constraint, these models offer a unique way of evaluating them.
For example, using the 1968 provisional incapacitation P
[I/H] model, even at the relatively 'sedate' velocities of domestic commercial offerings, the .45ACP (230-grain ball @ 825 fps) and 9mm (124-grain ball @ 1,100 fps) offer very close terminal performance to one another, with a very, very slight edge going to the 9mm.
.45ACP 230-grain ball @ 825 fps: P
[I/H]: 31.13% T
[I/H]: 15.28 seconds
9mm 124-grain ball @ 1,100 fps: P
[I/H]: 31.34% T
[I/H]: 15.21 seconds
Despite the ''intellectual heartburn'' experienced by some very prominent researchers in the field of terminal ballistics, the fact is that the US ARMY's BRL Bio-Physics Division at Aberdeen Proving Grounds was able to design a round that successfully matched the battlefield capabilities of the 7.62x62 using those models. Tons (literally) of paper and ink have been spent denying the historical fact that the energy-based (ΔE
15) provisional incapacitation models were a tremendously effective methodology in matching our battlefield adversaries' small arms munitions, yet the Soviets must've seen the value in doing so since they later fielded the 5.45x39 in response to the 5.56x45. And, yet, here we are. The 5.56x45 still reigns as the dominant small arms cartridge in the US military with other developments in the pipeline.
Speaking of that...
What I find really interesting is that the Chinese must've also decided that energy-based (ΔE
15) provisional incapacitation P
[I/H] models were worth the effort. In the 1990s the Chinese fielded the 5.8x42 DBP87 that compares quite favorably with the 5.56x45 M193 and M855 as well as the 7.62x39 M43 and M67. With the US military developing the 6.8x51 (or the .277 Fury in civilian guise), it seems that the US military is once again ''setting aside'' these experts' opinions on the energy-based provisional incapacitation models and developing a new cartridge that offers (slightly) greater terminal performance than the Chinese DBP87—using these same models.