For hiberNative
http://www.firearmstactical.com/pdf/fbi-hwfe.pdf
There's my source on some of this, it's a reproduced document evaluating choice of ammunition depending on damage of various bullets. My assumptions based on the 'shockwave' are on the fact that as it is, especially close range, large military rounds will penetrate through the body and exit, and a larger energy will not necessarily mean that the energy will be transfered inside the body. My sources on the weapons energy are wikipedia, and I'm also basing them on a bit of common sense. I personally don't see the damage as being an issue as it is currently, and with the state of snipers in-game it's not exactly hard to hit someone in the chest or head.
As for the 9ft of tree thing
YouTube - Hiram Maxim's machine-gun tree chopping demo! 470 Bullets!
There's a video of a maxim machine gun (which fired old british rifle rounds) taking 470 rounds to cut down a tree, which is perhaps 2ft thick at most. It takes quite a while of eating and chipping away to get the thing down. So I think it's a rather groundless claim to say that it will penetrate 9ft, especially since the .303 is an old rifle cartridge not dissimilar to the one that would have been used in that test.
Please feel free to tell me if I've made any mistakes with these sources, but these are my conclusions based on what I have read.
Fockzhound wrote:Apparently shockwave is actually more the function of the bullet speed, imparting a hydrostatic shockwave to the fluid-like flesh of the body, which creates damage adjacent along the axis of the bullet path. All I´m saying is that this may mean you could have more chance of incorporating a vital area with a higher velocity shot.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.303_British (sorry I'm quoting wikipedia I'll try and find another source)
Average velocity is around 800m/s
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7.62x51mm_NATO
Nato 7.62, around 840m/s, slightly higher but not a vast difference
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7.62x39mm
7.62x39mm the round used in AK47s, around 700m/s
The velocity of the bullets are not that different, and the rounds used in the g3 are higher velocity suggesting they should do more damage. Although admittedly I imagine the lower velocity of the Ak's round will mean that it will lose momentum faster and should perhaps have a faster damage drop off.
*Prepares for one of the military gurus to correct him*
edit: Just noticed this has become a little off topic. On a more related note, I think the rounds at the moment do a good amount of damage, and it pays to be accurate. I've found I can be about as effective with the 7.62 rifles as I can with the 5.56, generally because when I fire I don't aim to kill. I think people put too much emphasis on trying to pop off accurate fire and drop the enemy, and not enough on trying to blind the enemy and scare them off with firepower until you can get in nade range.
What I've found is that if when someone pokes their head round a corner they are confronted by a blanket of semi-accurate fire they don't try and fight back. But instead when they're confronted by the single man with an acog who's trying to fire off slow but accurate fire 100m away they can take the gamble and hope they kill them before they're hit (and if they're the one with the bigger bullet this is the case in which they'll generally win). So to put it simple, if you're not at the stage where the size of the bullet matters to you, you probably need to change your tactics.