PROCUREMENT: The Army has developed a bullet that penetrates 5.56 mm-resistant body armor.

During a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the Army’s budget request, Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, asked Milley how the Army was doing in developing a new rifle to replace the M4 and a more powerful round to replace the 5.56 mm bullet it fires.

“We think we have a solution,” Milley said. “We know we have developed a bullet that can penetrate these new plates.”

Milley said that rifles and body armor for U.S. troops are “critically important,” noting that 70 percent of U.S. casualties are borne by ground troops, mostly infantry and special operators conducting infantry-type missions.

“The 5.56 round, we recognize there is a type of body armor it does not penetrate, and adversarial states are selling that stuff on the Internet for about 250 bucks,” Milley said.

As I learned years ago from reading Austin Bay and Jim Dunnigan, in the escalating battle between thicker armor and deadlier projectiles, typically the deadlier projectiles win out in the end.