Comments by "geodkyt" (@geodkyt) on "A Gun For Aiming: M8C .50 Caliber Spotting Rifle" video.
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This rifle and its ammunition are thenorigin of the "Barracks Lawyer" myth that, "You can't use a .50 against personnel- you have to aim at their equipment like their web gear!"
Exploding bullets below 400 grams are prohibited from use against personnel. The spotter/tracer bullet in the M48 (the nomenclature for the family of these .50 spotting rounds) ammunition weighs under 60 grams, and qualifies as "exploding" due to the spotter flash charge that detonated on impact. So, deliberately using this spotting rifle ammo against troops is a war crime under what are generally considered "universal" rules of war, since the 19th Century. You can vaporize them with a 500 lbs bomb or disassemble them like a jigsaw puzzle with a 40mm grenade, but since this bullet isn't big enough to be able to blow them apart completely, it's considered to inflict "unnecessary suffering" with no real military advantage.
On top of that, the Army didn't want guys wasting the expensive (and necessary for the recoilless rifle) M48 spotting ammo plinking at individual troops. So, when these came out, dire warnings were given to never use them on people, with NCOs emphasizing the, "It's a war crime," aspect because PVT Snuff doesn't care about wasting the Army's money. (I might, for example, be aware of some troops who, hypothetically, have used blanks and cleaning rods to go "spear fishing" trees while bored during field exercises. Purely speculatively, without admitting anything that isn't covered by the statutes of limitation... 😉 )
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AFAIK, the first spotting gun was mounted on the first recoilless rifle, the 1910 Davis gun. But that used a Lewis Gun, be a use the Davis Gun was intended for use from an early Caritas seaplane, and the idea was to give the pilot something to help him calculate the lead. (I believe the Davis Gun never entered actual Us service, despite being extensively tested by both the US Navy and British RNAS, only the RNAS seems to have adopted them for actual service.)
The British, IIRC, were the first to actually use spotting rifles in service aside from the Davis Gun - the BAT precedes the US M40 by two years. And, IIRC, one of the purposes of the dual armament Vickers guns in WWI RFC fighters was the .303 gun would be used as a spotting gun (making sure you were in range, in plane, and had the right lead) and only then would the 11mm "balloon buster" gun be fired.
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@Treblaine More to the point, the prohibition is against using projectiles less than 400g that explode inside the human body for antipersonnel use.
You shoot grenades at an area target, as the 5m effective burst radius is entirely wasted when you shoot one into a human on purpose. And war crimes require an intent to do the thing you are prohibited from doing, so accidentally punching a 40mm HEDP into a dude (and wasting 90% of its effect) isn't a war crime, even if it falls within the definition of an exploding projectile under 400g.
And 400g was the original (19th Century) definition, as the goal was to ban the use of antipersonnel exploding projectiles in small arms to avoid "unnecessary☆ suffering", and the smallest artillery shells of the time were around 400g.
The rule under the "customary laws of war" has evolved to accept that exploding antimateriel rounds for small arms are militarily necessary☆ sometimes.
This sort of line drawing, by the way, is why Raufoss ammo isn't prohibited - its designed NOT to explode inside a human body under normal circumstances.
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☆ Military "necessity" is basically a proportionality rule - does the military value of such a weapon outweighs the suffering it inflicts on combatants? If the design of the weapon is intended to fulfill a valid (i.e., otherwise "lawful") military objective, the weapon is acceptable. If the intended use of the weapon in a specific incident is to fulfill an otherwise valid military objective rather than simoly.to increase the horror and suffering of war out of cruelty, that use case is "lawful". Blowing a guy up by punching a 40mm grenade directly into his ribcage doesn't achieve any valid military objective that blowing the guy up by landing the grenade at his feet would (if anything, it reduces the mikitary utility of the round). Likewise, faulty fuzes can mean that the exploding projectile then goes on to endanger protected persons, like surgeons - again, no valid military purpose is being advanced there.
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