Anti-personnel weapon

For instance, an anti-personnel landmine will explode into small and sharp splinters that tear flesh but have little effect on metal surfaces, while anti-tank mines have considerably different design, using much more explosive power to effect damage to armored fighting vehicles, or use explosively formed penetrators to punch through armor plating.

Such weapons often create much collateral damage and may affect large numbers of civilians, as well as causing long spanning consequences when they are not detonated in the case of buried explosives.

The Barrett M82 rifle, standardized by the U.S. military as the M107, fires a large-caliber .50 BMG round that will penetrate most commercial brick walls and concrete blocks.

However, Maj. Hays Parks states that "No treaty language exists (either generally or specifically) to support a limitation on [the use of .50 BMG] against personnel, and its widespread, longstanding use in this role suggests that such antipersonnel employment is the customary practice of nations.

The International Committee of the Red Cross has sought to have the ammunition banned, due to concern over the incendiary and explosive components and their effect on personnel.

Further, the Hague treaties of 1899 and 1907 – which superseded the St. Petersburg Declaration, and were signed by a far wider circle of nations – do permit the use of such ammunition for auto-cannons and heavy machine guns.

using the round train their soldiers not to deploy the projectile against personnel, but in the heat of battle such regulations are easily overlooked.