American joins the Kurds in their fight against ISIS.

In WW2 the Germans were afraid of the .50 because one hit could smash the whole arm/extremity. SO no wonder it was feared.

 

I don't think it was the fifty that launched Abdul. If you watch and listen closely, there's a pause then a pop followed by Abdul vaulting skyward. I suspect he was crawling around back there and accidentally set off some ordnance on his belt. Either that or one of the last rounds set off a fuse on his person. Either way, the fifty chewing up that position is impressive.

 

I've seen more than one person launched in a similar manner by a hit by the .50 cal. I'll stick by may assessment.

 

Great story A. And nice blood trail on the wall from that scum.

 

The trajectory of ahmed seemed weird. If a .50 could penetrate that thick mud wall and then toss buddy up 15 feet and forward toward the incoming round...That's why wondered about the ammo type. Would an explosive round penetrate wall and then explode?
What does SLAP stand for...

 

Glad you enjoyed the bedtime story. I'll put some more out when the fit the subject matter at hand.

 

Some times reaction to being hit incluldes involentary muscle movements. Hitting something before the body can also sometimes result in greater energy transfer. I remember hearing of one case where a Jihadi on a water tower was target by a 50 cal. The bullet would likely have just gone in one side of his torso and out the other (perhaps killing him certainly giving him a significant would) however it hit a steel rail he was apparently leaning against. The resulting spalling from the rail and tumbuling 12.7mm round apprently cut him in half litteraly at the lower abdominal level.

To put it in other terms getting hit with a 50 cal (using a muzzle energy of 15,600 joules) is roughly the equivalant of getting hit with a hardball moving at over 460 m/s or a 16 lb bowling ball moving at over 65 m/s or a 200lb man moving at over 18 m/s. That's if I have done my calculations right.

 

SLAP is Saboted light armor penetrator. A sub-caliber titanium penetrator carried in a polymer sabot. The higher velocity and greater cross sectional density of the penetrator gives a significant boot to the penetration capability of the round.

I agree the trajectory of Achmed is wierd, especially moving forward to strike the wall. However, I am not a physicist, never claimed to be one, haven't played one in films or on TV, nor slept at a Holiday Inn Express last night. What I do know is I've seen it happen 1st person and it was weird then also. One time the dude went straight up several feet, and then straight down, however about a third of his forearm with cloth and hand still attached went spiralling away to the left like he was waving bye-bye. Another went straight up vertically, but spun horizontally, feet head, feet head, like a top. Don't know why, but the sniper that popped him (with a .50 cal Barrett) said he'd seen it before and it has to do with the target being prone or semi-prone and the round travelling down the long axis of the body. Don't know if he was right or just feeding me BS, but I bought the explaination, since I'm no physicist, never claimed to be one, etc. (see above).

LWD's explaination in #47 above sounds as reasonable as anything else I've heard.

I do not believe it is exploding ordinance because:
1) there would be a much..bigger cloud of dust, smoke, dirt and debris thrown up if it were a frag, 40mm grenade, RPG, 60mm/81mm mortar round. Especially on a flat roof in the desert.
2) I have never seen a frag, 40mm or RPG throw someone like that.
3) The video shows the turfed terrorist and he's not shredded like would be expected if he were laying on ordinance that exploded (which would be required to throw him up). An 81 or 60, and probably the RPG would leave a lot less than the relatively intact body shown.
4) You don't hear a whoomp like you do when most of the previously listed explosive devices go off.

My two cents...

 

Great reading.
Bowling ball at 65m/ps would be an awesome weapon. The gun would have to be immense though.

 

The War Nerd is usually quite entertaining and incisive on this stuff.
Followed him for many years, and the amount of times he's been proven correct on what will eventually happen is not half bad:

Gary Brecher is The War Nerd.

Worth a Google for the other sites he writes for.

 

Thanks for that. Always looking for an interesting site...I like foxtrotalpha and danger room.

 

How has the Iraqi Army been doing against IS, have they been standing their ground now against those terrorists?

 

Better now apparently. The problem was that the Iraqi army was apparently very uneven as far as quality goes primarily due to variability in the officer corp. ISIS convinced at least some in the Iraqi governent that they couldn't afford incompetence or at least the current level in their officier corp. Of course since the incompetence often went hand in hand with corruption/graft both the equipent and the moral of the soldiers currently leaves something to be desired in many units.

 

I don't think our premature withdrawal of all our troops back in 2011 helped either, leaving behind advisors to continue training the Iraqi army might have made a difference when IS first emerged.

 

When they first reemerged the Iraqis were actually doing fairly well. However they apparently concentrated all their good units near Mosul. When ISIS attacked other areas there weren't any good units to stop them and when the rest of the Iraqi army more or less fell apart so did the units near Mosul.

The training advisors would have helped but perhaps even more helpful would have been the oversight to prevent corrupt commanders from robbing pay and support budgets. It has at the very least been speculated (as with Afghanistan) that one of the reasons higher ups wanted the US (and NATO) out was the oversight got in the way of their profit making opertunities.

 

Sounds like how the Nationalist Chinese Army was run during WW2.

 

Meanwhile a British squaddie has also just joined the Kurds-
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2960443/Teenage-British-Army-soldier-leaves-join-Kurdish-Peshmerga-fight-against-ISIS.html

 

The more people taking a stand against IS, the better.

 

That's probably a good analogy although the Nationalist Chinese also had a huge problem with their forces being under more control of local warlords than the central governement. That may exist to some extent in Iraq as well but I don't think it's as bad. Could be wrong though.

 

Well let's hope that the Iraqi Army is not as badly run as the Chinese Nationalist's/War Lord armies. I forgot about the war lords, thanks for bringing that up. Massive disorganization led the way for the commies to take over. We don't need ISIL to be running Iraq.