Revisit the SMG?

[fiannoglach]

The great thing about using armour piercing rounds on a small boat is once you fire it won't just hit your target but it will also penetrate what is behind him, such as bulkheads, people standing behind bulkheads, fuel tanks, bulkheads that are keeping the sea out.....

I'm sure there are other ammunition natures GF, maybe like frangible?

[Tribunius]

A ball round was developed for the civi market. I don't know if they went a head with it though. Also there is definitely a ball round for the P90.

[thebig C]

They are? Maybe someone should tell them, they dont seem to have realised yet!

Also how often is a drug suggler on a fishing boat going to be wearing body armour?

Well, according to their 2005/2006 Annual Report,

"MP7
By the end of December 2006, the MDP will have
deployed the Heckler & Koch 4.6mm Personal Defence
Weapon (MP7) as the weapon of choice for the Agency. This
is incrementally replacing the MP5, Browning Pistol and SA80
rifles in the majority of armed police roles. The MP7 was
rolled out with the aim of offering a modern weapon system
which presents a credible deterrent and significantly
improves our capability to respond to an armed attack. It
also enables us to meet most armed requirements with a
single weapon thereby reducing to a minimum dual arming."

(from http://www.official-documents.gov.uk.../1206/1206.pdf)

Have they changed their minds and given them back? (Interesting point about reducing dual arming to a minimum. Presumably that means officers don't have to carry a rifle/SMG and a pistol.)

As for drug smugglers and body armour, maybe you know more about this than I do, but body armour seems to be fairly readily available around the world. There's even an Irish website where you can buy them: http://www.bodyarmour.ie/index.htm.

[thebig C]

According to Wikipedia,

"The MP7 is classified as a personal defense weapon (PDW). It went into production in 2001. It is compact and light using polymers in its construction.

The proliferation of high-quality body armor has begun to make guns that fire pistol ammunition (such as HK's earlier MP5 or USP) ineffective. In response to this trend, HK designed the MP7 (along with the brand new UCP, which uses the same ammunition) to penetrate body armor, but small enough to be used in place of either a pistol or a submachine gun.

The MP7 essentially operates like a scaled-down assault rifle, with the same action as HK's G36. It fires a specially designed, armor-piercing round with a muzzle velocity nearly as high as that of the 5.56 x 45 mm NATO cartridge used by many modern rifles. This ammunition is unique among submachine guns in that the bullet is made almost entirely of a hardened steel penetrator instead of softer brass or lead. The ammunition is virtually exclusive to the gun (save for the H&K UCP and a planned variant of the Brugger & Thomet MP-9) and also offers low recoil. The round also has a small diameter (it can almost be described as a scaled down .223 Remington), allowing for high capacity in a very small magazine. Even though the round is much smaller in diameter than a 9 mm bullet, its special properties give it comparable stopping power. The projectile is designed to tumble in tissue after penetrating body armor, thus causing more damage than a bullet of this size would normally do. But this is still a point of widespread discussion since the MP7 and its specially designed ammunition have yet to prove themselves in action."

[Groundhog]

A ball round was developed for the civi market. I don't know if they went a head with it though. Also there is definitely a ball round for the P90.

There's a ball round for every pistol/rifle/SMG/MG.

[Barry]

A ball round was developed for the civi market. I don't know if they went a head with it though. Also there is definitely a ball round for the P90.

The idea of these new PDWs with "advanced armour piercing technology" is that ball rounds also pierce armour, and not just special armour piercing rounds.

[Tribunius]

Groundhog and Barry I am aware of that. What I meant was that rounds that will not pierce body armour were also developed.

See link for info on the P90 civi round.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5.7_x_28_mm

[Barry]

Groundhog and Barry I am aware of that. What I meant was that rounds that will not pierce body armour were also developed.

See link for info on the P90 civi round.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5.7_x_28_mm

From that link:

SS90 ball

An early prototype round. It used a lightweight 23-grain (1.5 g) full metal jacket bullet with a polymer core. It was abandoned in 1994 in favor of the heavier SS190 projectile, which has greater potential for accuracy and penetration, as well as being shorter and thus easier to fit in FN's then-upcoming Five-seveN pistol.

SS190 Duty Round

The SS190 AP ball FMJ is designated as Armor Piercing (AP) ammunition, designed to penetrate body armor.

[concussion]

Say if body armoured drug smugglers/fisherman resist the pistol equipped boarding party...how are they going protect themselves from the GPMG, HMG and 40mm/76mm on the NS vessel??

[Groundhog]

Groundhog and Barry I am aware of that. What I meant was that rounds that will not pierce body armour were also developed.

Low velocity ammunition perhaps.

A projectile for a centerfire cartridge that achieves maximum energy transfer with limited target penetration when fired from snub-nosed pistols. A hollow point lead bullet is provided with an aluminum jacket of sufficient hardness to avoid fouling the pistol barrel and which allows the cartridge containing the projectile to feed reliably in auto-loading pistols and yet does not restrict normal expansion of the bullet upon impact with the target. The jacket extends into the nose recess of the bullet and covers the peripheral portion of the bullet base, whereby the jacket is securely fastened to the bullet and separation subsequent to impact is prevented. The jacket is uniformly notched at the nosetip annulus to weaken the aluminum jacket and promote upset at surprisingly low impact velocities. A method of fabricating the projectile is also disclosed in which a cup-shaped aluminum jacket is partially filled with a lead core and simultaneously the cup base is notched before being formed into a hollow point bullet nose configuration. The notches can thus be uniformly controlled in contrast to slitting or cutting before or after forming in which the sharpness and force applied to the cutting knife governs the size of the slit or cut in a hard to control fashion.

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/4610061.html

[fiannoglach]

Say if body armoured drug smugglers/fisherman resist the pistol equipped boarding party...how are they going protect themselves from the GPMG, HMG and 40mm/76mm on the NS vessel??

That's a question to which there can be any amount of answers. What are the variables?

Is the Boarding party on or off the trawler?
Do the smugglers have RPG's? Submarines? ICBM's?

[Groundhog]

That's a question to which there can be any amount of answers. What are the variables?

Is the Boarding party on or off the trawler?
Do the smugglers have RPG's? Submarines? ICBM's?

Yes, I think it's safe to say that this conversation has now degenerated to the ridiculous.

[thebig C]

It's simple:

1. If an armed naval boarding party is required, then presumably there is the possibility of armed resistance. (Otherwise the boarding party - like the Gardaí - wouldn't need to be armed.)

2. If there is a possibility of armed resistance, it might be wise to assume that if people have weapons, they might also have body armour - which is well-known and widely available.

3. If there is the possibility of the 'bad guys' having body armour, then either
(a) the naval boarding party should be armed with weapons that can defeat body armour; or
(b) they should be trained to shoot people in those parts of the body that are not usually protected by body armour. Maybe that is the case?

4. If the naval boarding party can't look after themselves while aboard the suspect vessel, then they risk becoming hostages or human shields, in which case the firepower of the 'mother ship' becomes irrelevant.

[concussion]

Do the smugglers have RPG's? Submarines? ICBM's?

Why do you feel the need to ask that? My suggestion that a boarding party has big guns behind them is hardly in the realms of fantasy...

[FMolloy]

It's simple:

It is indeed. A member of the NS with real-world experience of doing this was asked what he thought & he said he was happy to stick with a pistol.

Now explain to us how you know better than him?