(Via Firearm Blog) According to the Daily Mail the SAS are looking at switching from the 5.56x45mm NATO round to a 7.62mm round. They seem unimpressed that their US counterparts have access to 7.62mm FN SCAR-H rifles [pictured above] and they are stuck with the M4-like 5.56mm Colt Canada/Diemaco C8 Carbine. From the Daily Mail:
The SAS are being issued with new ammunition designed to kill the enemy outright after they condemned a ‘shoot-to-wound’ policy that put their lives at risk.
Last night, a regiment insider said: ‘The shoot-to-wound policy was based on the assumption that once he was wounded an enemy combatant would stop fighting, and so would his comrades to give him first aid. ‘But this backfired against the Taliban. The 5.56 mm rounds did not take a big enough chunk out of them, allowing fanatical insurgents to keep on fighting despite their wounds. As a result, more SAS soldiers were shot and badly wounded
The elite troops will now use bigger, heavier rounds to overcome Islamic insurgents who are determined to fight to the death.
The bullets upgrade – and a new range of rifles designed to fire them – were recommended in a top-secret report on SAS operations in Afghanistan. It called for a return to a ‘shoot-to-kill’ policy and for heavier rounds to be issued to troops. The report’s authors described bloody clashes with Taliban jihadists who managed to ignore their bullet wounds and carry on shooting.
[….]
The problem of 5.56 mm rounds lacking killing power in firefights is worse because the Taliban use 7.62 mm rounds in their AK-47 Kalashnikovs and Russian sniper rifles. The SAS’s report said the 7.62 mm rounds flew farther and with greater accuracy – giving the enemy a distinct advantage, especially in long-range engagements.