Or a cup of tea maybe
Or a cup of tea maybe
Aragorn (6th February 2023), Diabolical Boids (6th February 2023), Lord Sidious (7th February 2023), modwiz (6th February 2023), Wind (6th February 2023)
Aianawa (7th February 2023), Aragorn (6th February 2023), Fred Steeves (6th February 2023), Lord Sidious (7th February 2023)
If anybody is doing any chastising around here, then it isn't me. I am only being precise about the facts amidst the obvious gratuitous misuse of technical terms within certain cultures, which then ends up creating confusion and misunderstandings. It's no different from the earlier discussion we had elsewhere on the forum regarding Earth's magnetic poles versus its geographical poles and what exactly would constitute the purported pole shift that this so-called Alternative Community™ was (and may still be) so alarmist about.
Besides, I was talking of calibers, not of ballistics. The ballistics information was only added so as to emphasize the humongous difference between a .22 LR and a 5.56 x 45 mm NATO, also colloquially known in the USA as a .223 Remington — even though it's not really the same thing anymore, because while a .223 Remington can be fired from a 5.56 mm rifle, the reverse is not true (and would be life-threatening to the shooter).
Drama much?
Okay, now I'm finally getting what you're talking about, but then let me be clear: you are still mistaken. The style of weapon you are referring to is indeed commonly referred to as "an AR", but not as "an AR-15".
There are indeed many arms manufacturers offering AR-style rifles and carbines these days, and indeed, as you say, in multiple different calibers. But the term "AR-15" specifically — with the "-15" added — is a very specifically branded and trademarked firearm designed and manufactured by Armalite, and they are the only ones who may legally refer to their AR-15s as AR-15s. Colt also manufactures semi-automatic AR-15s — same caliber and all — but they are marketing them as "M-15"s, because the term "AR-15" is trademarked to Armalite, and while Colt has a license to the patent, they do not have a license to the trademark.
And of course, Colt are not the only ones to offer that type of rifles and carbines, both in civilian and military versions. As you noted, there are many, many more. And they all have to market them under their own designations, because only Armalite may call them AR-15s.
So, I guess we had a fit of confusion going on here over the exact type designation, and the type designation is "an AR", or "an AR-style rifle/carbine".
The second thing you are mistaken in — or actually the third, since you are under the impression that I was attempting to character-assassinate you, which couldn't be farther from the truth — is that the weapons donated to the Ukrainian civilians by the US government would truly be .22-calibers.
But I cannot blame you for that, because given that the 5.56 x 45 mm NATO round is based off of the pre-existing .223 Remington hunting cartridge, US Americans tend to often still refer to that caliber as a .223 — even though the military variant packs more power — and, misleadingly, also often in a derogatory sense as a .22. Because the calibers are similar in bullet diameter — a .22 LR is a little over 5.55 mm in diameter, and a .223 is a little over 5.56 mm in diameter.
And so by referring to a 5.56/.223 as "a .22", they are mocking the small bullet diameter and are conveying the message to whomever they are talking to that they would prefer a bigger caliber, like a .308 Winchester, or a .300 Blackout, or something similar. But the bullet diameter is only that, and it doesn't even have that exact diameter anymore when it leaves the barrel, because the bullet is always just a little bit bigger than the barrel diameter. That way, the bullet — which is made of lead or another malleable material — gets squeezed into the lands and grooves of the barrel, giving it a stabilizing spin around its axis.
Just because it's being referred to as a .22 in common parlor in the US does not mean that it would truly be a .22 LR — or for that matter, a .22 Hornet, or any of the other .22-caliber rimfire cartridges. And sending real .22s to Ukraine would be completely nonsensical, because actual .22 ammunition exists in several different and incompatible varieties, and is in overall very difficult to come by in large quantities. 5.56 mm NATO on the other hand is readily available everywhere, just as 9 x 19 mm ammo. As the matter of fact, it's even easier to come by the military-grade 5.56 mm NATO ammunition than to come by the civilian .223 Remington variant, because the latter is only really used within the USA, and a 5.56 mm rifle can fire either one, while an explicit .223 Remington rifle can only fire .223 Remington.
And as the matter of fact, the rifles that were sent to Ukraine are indeed chambered for the military-grade 5.56 mm NATO round, not in any of the civilian backyard-plinking .22 rimfire cartridges, exactly because 5.56 mm NATO is available everywhere while .22 rimfire cartridges are not. Hell, even the Chinese military use 5.56 mm NATO in one of their own assault rifle designs — they have several types of assault rifles, among which also AK-47 and AK-74 clones (and derivatives) in both the generic 7.62 x 39 mm Russian and 5.45 x 39 mm Russian calibers respectively, as well as in calibers that are specific to China only and are neither used nor manufactured anywhere else.
No, that is where you were wrong — see below.
No, they are often wrongfully referred to in US-American culture specifically as ".22s" because the diameter of the bullet is approximately the same as that of a .22 — as you can see in the photo in one of my earlier posts on the subject — and because "real men use bigger guns", you know? But those rifles are effectively 5.56 mm NATO rifles, and they have all of the performance of a military-grade M16 minus the capability for fully automatic fire, and most likely also without the specialized optics that the military weapons are fitted with, such as reflex sights, laser pointers, night vision sights and telescopic sights.
So they'll just have the stock iron sights, and maybe they'll have Picatinny rails or Weaver rails for mounting additional optics, or a flashlight, or a vertical fore grip, and so on. Many of the civilian-grade AR-15 variants come standard with such rails, but not all — it depends on the price range. Maybe they even still have fixed stocks instead of the collapsing/folding stocks that most of the military variants now come with.
I don't know what you're implying with the above paragraph, because it just doesn't make any sense to me. An AR-style weapon is never a home defense weapon, simply because it's unpractical — it's too big. And I don't see why they would be peashooters — remember, these are 5.56 mm NATO rifles — because as I said earlier, they can easily penetrate most body armor — especially at a close-enough ranges where the bullet still travels at supersonic speed. Remember that 3-mm-thick steel helmet at 500 meters?
Again, barring the lack of special military-grade optics and the potentially fixed stock — which doesn't really make any difference at all — the only difference between the sent AR-15 rifles and a military-grade M16 is that the M16 has full-auto capability while an AR-15 does not.
It would even be a ludicrous decision to send weapons over to Ukraine that use ammunition which is both difficult to come by and completely different from what the military uses, and had the US government done indeed that, then the whole of NATO would probably have been rolling on the floor and wetting themselves over such stupidity.
The term "assault rifle" is relatively new — i.e. from the 1960s — and was first coined during the Vietnam war. Up until then, the designated military rifle was called a battle rifle, and battle rifles existed in select-fire versions and semi-auto-only versions. They were quite long and typically fired a roughly .30-caliber round — which includes the .308 Winchester round that was used as the basis for the more powerful military-grade 7.62 x 51 mm NATO round.
But battle rifles were particularly suited for a different kind of warfare — the kind where the opposing armies were fighting each other from within the trenches in an open field, or from both sides of a river. They were way too large and too heavy to be used in the jungle, or even in cities, as the US found out in Vietnam. That's why the battle rifle had to make way among the majority of the military for a shorter and lighter type of rifle that used a smaller but nevertheless still powerful caliber, and that offered the ability for both semi-auto and full-auto fire, as well as allowing the shooter to carry more ammunition on them for the same weight.
And that's how the term "assault rifle" was born. I don't care what it's called in American culture or how it's used there in pro- or contra-weapons politics and propaganda. To me, an assault rifle is still what it is: a fairly light select-fire rifle that can fire in both semi- and full-auto mode. If it cannot fire in full-auto mode, then it's not an assault rifle anymore, regardless of what it looks like. Similarly, submachine guns typically fire the 9 mm NATO round, but a semi-automatic-only variant of a submachine gun is not called a submachine gun anymore; it is called a pistol-caliber carbine, even if it's an Uzi or an H&K MP5.
That won't be necessary, Brother. Besides, it would be difficult to maintain thread continuity after tearing out the digression about firearms and calibers. And given that I'm being accused of character assassination simply for trying to educate someone on their US-centric — or US-typical? — misuse of technical terms, I'm not feeling compelled to post much more on this thread for the foreseeable future after this post here. I don't like ad hominems and I don't like false allegations.
Besides, I know I'm right because the Sidinugget and I are from two different countries, and we have both served in our respective military, and he perfectly understood and corroborates the information I've been presenting here. So the point has been made, but there's no arguing with a person who chooses to redefine the meaning of terms according to what would be common parlance in their own culture only. It's exactly this kind of liberal interpretation of what any given thing means that has brought this so-called Alternative Community™ onto so many ridiculous misunderstandings and conspiracy theories.
"Facts don't matter anymore, son. Hell, just redefine it as however you want. That way, you'll always be right, even if you're wrong."
= DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR =
Aianawa (7th February 2023), Lord Sidious (7th February 2023), Wind (6th February 2023)