Posted on 12/05/2011 2:19:41 PM PST by Iron Munro
A female Army medic has told of the dramatic moment she gunned down a Taliban fighter after being caught in an ambush, saying: It was him or me.
Chantelle Taylor, who became the first woman soldier known to have killed in combat, said the man was only 50 feet away and firing drug-crazed bursts from his AK-47.
The 32-year-old, then serving as a sergeant in the Royal Army Medical Corps in Afghanistan, was overwhelmed by fear during the firefight but It was the first time Miss Taylor had ever fired her standard issue SA80 assault rifle at another person.
Speaking about being forced to choose between his life or her own, she said: Faced with the choice of him or me, I chose me. Officially, female soldiers in the Army are not allowed to fight on the front line in battle.
But Miss Taylor is one of many women who have served in Afghanistan and Iraq as medics, drivers and artillery support troops.
The young medic, who now works as a security consultant, even once taught Prince William to apply a tourniquet. Describing her first and only kill in a book about her experiences in Afghanistan, Miss Taylor said the attack happened as a patrol was ambushed by 20 heavily-armed insurgents in the Taliban stronghold of Marjah, Helmand, in July 2008. As we turn on to one of the tracks that leads to a canal, I can see villagers running and they are running away, she writes. Boom! Boom! Two deafening explosions are followed by small arms fire and heavy machine guns. The first explosion rocks the vehicle, smashing my head against the front of the wagon.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
The last thing I told my son before he went to Iraq was “if there is any doubt, just pull the frickin’ trigger.”
Lame Stream Media reporter: “Why did you shoot him 7 times?”
Sgt. Taylor: “Gun jammed!”
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grouping
LOL!
So true, I needed a good laugh today.
And they kidded her for wasting ammo?
***Guys? They dont pay you to bring ammo back.***
This was not Isandlwana where ammo was not to be wasted. It was properly issued to proper military units, from boxes properly screwed together. That’s why the Brits lost.
Our guys are issued 5.56mm NATO green tip ammo, not hollow point.
I worry that the Islamists in the UK will track her down when she gets home.
Love it! She was doing what we pay her to do. Atta girl!
A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.
I think those have the steel core in them, but even so 5.56mm isn’t enough knock down power. A steel core might penetrate well but will have a tendency to over penetrate. If that steel core could be have a hollow point that ammo would rock.
7.62mm/.308 cal. is the best. I’ve read way too many war stories about the 5.56mm not getting the job done and the enemy shakes off the hits and just keeps on coming. It’s kinda like the 9mm and the .45 cal. rounds. Again the 9mm just doesn’t have the knock down power like that of the .45. Cops have had many run-ins with drug-crazed criminals who take five or six 9mm rounds and they just keep on going. Why do you think the .40 and .45 caliber pistols have become popular again with law enforcement?
When you have a drug-crazed criminal on the street or in the high mountains with drug-crazed Muzzies in another country you have to have confidence that your gun and ammo are going to do the job intended.
I know a former Army Ranger who was in Vietnam who would go out on patrol and exchange his M16 for an AK-47 he took off of a dead NVA or Vietcong he had stashed away simply because it had a longer effective range and had better knock down power. Not as accurate as an M16 but the gun proved itself in jungle warfare.
The soft points penetrate further and also expand rapidly doing devastating damage on a target. Don't discount the ability of the 5.56 to rapidly incapacitate providing you pick the proper bullet for the task at hand. You also need to remember that at 100 yards a 5.56 bullet has as much energy as the venerable .45 ACP does at the muzzle.
Now us civilian types aren't limited to those crappy FMJ steel core rounds our military guys are. Those steel core bullets do indeed penetrate like crazy. That's what they were designed for. But they're a lot like pushing a pencil through a bad guy. But I guarantee that if you hit a bad guy with a 62 grain PSP 5.56 center mass there will be a decidedly different outcome.
So if you're a civilian and own an M4gery of some kind just be sure you get decent ammo for it and it'll do the job.
The 7.62 AK round is better at penetrating jungle growth than the lighter 5.56 round, but the 5.56 used today is a 62 grain bullet fired through a 1:7 twist bore.
The 55 grain bullet fired through the 1:12 twist M16s used in Vietnam created massive wounds because the bullets were not as stable as the modern NATO load, and they tumbled on impact.
Me reading the article
'Her husband is one lucky guy!'
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