RE: [SG] Shotguns

At 8:47 AM -0800 2/14/03, Bradley, Jason (US - Minneapolis) wrote:
>Hehe, I served in the USMC on FAST team 1 for four years and I can tell
you
>that the shotgun is much much better then your standard assault rifle
in
>CQB.  There are several reasons for this, but primarily because of
>flexibility with ammunition types (light loads for indoor work, so you
don't
>hit your buddies through walls, etc..chees cutters for knocking down
wood
>doors...).  With shot you get a larger spread and can open up the choke
to
>really use it to sweep hallways and rooms.  Plus shotguns tend to be
shorter
>on the whole and more easily wielded in urban terrain.
>However I have to question it being better then an assault rifle
against
>something like powered armor, unless of course you are using solid
slugs ;)

Solid or Sabot slugs would be excellent against a hardened target up 
close (the SAS uses a shotgun to take doors off their hinges). A 
Shotgun as you said, tends to be lighter (lower pressured involved) 
and more handy than a weapon firing equivalent weight down range.

One could surmise that as materials science advances to improve body 
armor, that one could improve the shotgun rounds to defeat such 
armor. Even today, with lack of penetration, a shotgun blast can be 
incapacitating through the blunt trauma. A slug against the torso or 
to the abdominal/hip area should take any man down even if the armor 
stops the round overall. The deformation that you'd get (especially 
in the lower abdominal area) against soft armor would likely cause 
serious internal bleeding and bone damage.

Remember, a shotgun slug or 00 buck load is able to take down a 900 
pound animal with a much thicker chest area and far higher muscle 
density than a man is typically able to manifest.

Example rounds	projectile wt	m-Vel	Muzzle Energy
12 Gauge,	28.4 grams	488m/s	3378 joules
12 Gauge 3"	28.4 grams	536m/s	4088 joules
.223		4 grams 	945m/s	1786 joules
.308		11.7 grams	754m/s	3319 joules

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