Back to the main page

Mailing List Logs for ShadowRN

Message no. 1
From: rogue@*****.fr (Sebastien Andrivet)
Subject: Re: Ballistics (Was : Funky Combinations)
Date: Tue, 13 Aug 1996 19:45:37 GMT
Paul Adam wrote :
[snipped lot of highly interesting stuff on ballistics and traumatology]

>Temporary cavity (the expansion and contraction of tissue after a bullet
>passes through) is also over-rated: dramatic shots of its effect on duct
>sealant or soap, or slow-motion footage of ballistic gelatin being hit
>by a rifle bullet, suggest incredible damage, but unless a reasonably
>solid organ (the liver, mostly) is hit, temporary cavitation does little
>real damage.

From your post, I get the impression that modulating damage according to
the area of the body hit is a bit pointless unless it's the head, heart or
liver. Damage seems to stem mainly from the shock of being hit, and from
blood loss. Did I understand correctly ?

Sebastien Andrivet
rogue@*****.fr
France / Europe
"I'm not gonna try to hit him. I'm gonna try to hit myself. Since my skill
with a staff is so low, I have a good chance of achieving critical failure
and hitting the wrong target, and there's only me and him around. So I
attack him by trying to hit myself".
- Fred
Message no. 2
From: rogue@*****.fr (Sebastien Andrivet)
Subject: Re: Ballistics (Was : Funky Combinations)
Date: Tue, 13 Aug 1996 19:45:47 GMT
Paul Adam wrote :
[snipped lot of highly interesting stuff on ballistics and traumatology]

>Also, _all_ spitzer-type (i.e. long, thin rifle-type) bullets tumble
>when they hit: their natural inclination is to travel base-first, and
>while in air their spin stabilises them, in denser media (like a person)
>they flip ends, still spinning about their axis, and thus cutting a very
>severe wound track. Modern rifle bullets (e.g. the M855 ball) are
>designed to begin yawing almost on impact: older ones would travel a
>foot or more before yaw began.

Another question about a possible myth : it is sometimes said that a
modern 5,56mm ammo (which, as you say, tumbles in the body) might have an
exit point very far from on its entry point ; for instance, it might hit
you in the guts and exit at the shoulder. Is it merely a legend to scare
conscripts ?

Sebastien Andrivet
rogue@*****.fr
France / Europe
"I'm not gonna try to hit him. I'm gonna try to hit myself. Since my skill
with a staff is so low, I have a good chance of achieving critical failure
and hitting the wrong target, and there's only me and him around. So I
attack him by trying to hit myself".
- Fred
Message no. 3
From: rhoded01@******.STCLOUD.MSUS.EDU (Ahzmandius)
Subject: Re: Ballistics (Was : Funky Combinations)
Date: Tue, 13 Aug 1996 19:20:19 -0600 (CST)
Tumble rounds are extremely ineffective. They don't have any stopping power
and are inaccurate at long ranges. Most pistol/smg rounds don't tumble. A
9mm is fast and has penetration, but no stopping power. I believe that this
is why FASA has the two parts to the damage code. The power (ie stopping
power) and the damage code (L,M,S,D & VVVVD). 7.62x52 is the most effective
round to have ever been developed. It is used in M-14 and M-60 machine guns.
The only drawbacks that it ever had was that the rounds were both heavy and
expensive ( I believe that the latter was the primary motivation).


Just a little FWI.

Ahzmandius
Message no. 4
From: "Paul J. Adam" <shadowrn@********.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Ballistics (Was : Funky Combinations)
Date: Tue, 13 Aug 1996 22:22:17 +0100
In message <v0153051bae36a106f247@[194.250.185.56]>, Sebastien Andrivet
<rogue@*****.fr> writes
>Paul Adam wrote :
>[snipped lot of highly interesting stuff on ballistics and traumatology]
>
>>Also, _all_ spitzer-type (i.e. long, thin rifle-type) bullets tumble
>>when they hit: their natural inclination is to travel base-first, and
>>while in air their spin stabilises them, in denser media (like a person)
>>they flip ends, still spinning about their axis, and thus cutting a very
>>severe wound track. Modern rifle bullets (e.g. the M855 ball) are
>>designed to begin yawing almost on impact: older ones would travel a
>>foot or more before yaw began.
>
> Another question about a possible myth : it is sometimes said that a
>modern 5,56mm ammo (which, as you say, tumbles in the body) might have an
>exit point very far from on its entry point ; for instance, it might hit
>you in the guts and exit at the shoulder. Is it merely a legend to scare
>conscripts ?

That's a good one. Typically the wound track is relatively straight. or
at most slightly curved. However, some bullets (such as the M193 bullet,
the earlier 5.56mm ball round) tend to break up while yawing, and the
fragments (often quite substantial) follow wildly divergent paths: this
can account for occasional cases of widely seperated entry and exit
wounds. The breakup of the bullet also causes very severe wounding, part
of the reason the M-16 and it's "tumbling bullets" acquired such
notoreity.

Also, remember that in combat people drop prone, get attacked from the
side, get shot by weapons firing on full-auto... a lot of urban myths
start that way, when an uncomplicated straight wound appears to have
gyrated wildly because the target and shooter were oddly placed, yet
others assumed the target had to be standing upright when hit.

It's a very persistent myth, mind you, I've heard tales of it going back
at least as far as World War 2.


--
"There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable and
praiseworthy."
Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
Paul J. Adam paul@********.demon.co.uk
Message no. 5
From: "Paul J. Adam" <shadowrn@********.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Ballistics (Was : Funky Combinations)
Date: Tue, 13 Aug 1996 22:16:43 +0100
In message <v0153051cae36a28c4df7@[194.250.185.56]>, Sebastien Andrivet
<rogue@*****.fr> writes
>Paul Adam wrote :
>[snipped lot of highly interesting stuff on ballistics and traumatology]
>
>>Temporary cavity (the expansion and contraction of tissue after a bullet
>>passes through) is also over-rated: dramatic shots of its effect on duct
>>sealant or soap, or slow-motion footage of ballistic gelatin being hit
>>by a rifle bullet, suggest incredible damage, but unless a reasonably
>>solid organ (the liver, mostly) is hit, temporary cavitation does little
>>real damage.
>
> From your post, I get the impression that modulating damage according to
>the area of the body hit is a bit pointless unless it's the head, heart or
>liver. Damage seems to stem mainly from the shock of being hit, and from
>blood loss. Did I understand correctly ?

The "shock of being hit" has some effect, and where you're hit matters,
but there are just too many variables for most "vary damage by hit
location" systems to work well unless you get into Rolemaster-like
complexity. Even head shots aren't universally lethal - a guy in the
Falklands took a bullet that went in the side of his nose and out below
his ear. He walked to the RAP under his own power, apparently, and was
back on duty three weeks later (with his broken jaw wired up, and minus
a lot of back teeth, admittedly).

For a long time "shock" was a goal, and high-velocity lightweight
bullets proliferated. The infamous 1986 Miami shootout (made into a
reasonably good movie as "The FBI Murders") where an armed robber was
shot in the chest with a 9mm hollowpoint bullet, yet went on to kill two
and wound more agents before finally collapsing and dying (having been
shot no less than five times at close range) led to a major rethink: the
bottom line is, torn and bleeding flesh is what kills people.

Anyone still interested is referred to the work of Dr Martin Fackler. I
have some International Defence Review articles of his, and will
summarise them if there's interest.

--
"There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable and
praiseworthy."
Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
Paul J. Adam paul@********.demon.co.uk
Message no. 6
From: "Sascha Pabst" <Sascha.Pabst@**********.Uni-Oldenburg.DE>
Subject: Re: Ballistics (Was : Funky Combinations)
Date: Wed, 14 Aug 1996 20:58:20 +0000
On 13 Aug 96 at 19:20, Ahzmandius wrote:
> Tumble rounds are extremely ineffective. They don't have any stopping power
> and are inaccurate at long ranges. Most pistol/smg rounds don't tumble.
[snip]
Ahz, tumbling AFTER impact...

> Just a little FWI.
a little WHAT?

Sascha
--
+---___---------+----------------------------------------+--------------------+
| / / _______ | Jhary-a-Conel aka Sascha Pabst |The one who does not|
| / /_/ ____/ |Sascha.Pabst@**********.Uni-Oldenburg.de| learn from history |
| \___ __/ | | is bound to live |
|==== \_/ ======| *Wearing hats is just a way of life* | through it again. |
|LOGOUT FASCISM!| - Me | |
+------------- http://www.informatik.uni-oldenburg.de/~jhary -----------------+
Message no. 7
From: rhoded01@******.STCLOUD.MSUS.EDU (Ahzmandius)
Subject: Re: Ballistics (Was : Funky Combinations)
Date: Mon, 19 Aug 1996 18:18:54 -0600 (CST)
>On 13 Aug 96 at 19:20, Ahzmandius wrote:
>> Tumble rounds are extremely ineffective. They don't have any stopping power
>> and are inaccurate at long ranges. Most pistol/smg rounds don't tumble.
>[snip]
>Ahz, tumbling AFTER impact...
>
>> Just a little FWI.
>a little WHAT?
>
> Sascha
F(or) Y(our) I(nformation)

Tumble rounds DO start to tumble in flight.
Message no. 8
From: Marc A Renouf <jormung@*****.umich.edu>
Subject: Re: Ballistics (Was : Funky Combinations)
Date: Tue, 20 Aug 1996 05:04:20 -0400 (EDT)
On Mon, 19 Aug 1996, Ahzmandius wrote:

> Tumble rounds DO start to tumble in flight.

*ALL* rounds start to tumble in flight, as the bullet is not
exactly a paragon of aerodynamic sleekness. But "tumble" is probably the
wrong word to use to describe this behavior. It's not like the bullet
is flipping end-over-end or anything like that. "Wobbling" would
probably be a better approximation of what bullets do as they fly through
the air. Even then, such motion is relatively small, generally only a
few degrees off the axis of forward motion at most, and rotating in the
direction the barrel of the weapon was rifled. Sort of like a spinning
top that is knocked ever so slightly askew.
Time to dispel another myth. "Tumbling," or the vast amount of
tissue damage associated with certain rifle rounds, is not a merit of a
bullet's design, but a result of physics and the relative material
properties of bullets and bones.
Put simply, a soft bullet will deform when it hits something
hard, such as a bone. Most pistol rounds are considered soft, and some
are designed to deform easily so as to cause a larger wound cavity (basic
hydrodynamics, blunt stuff causes more displacement than pointy stuff).
As previously pointed out, the wound cavity is only temporary in most
cases.
A hard bullet, on the other hand, is less likely to deform on
impact. As such, and given the tendency of *all* bullets to enter in a
not-quite-perfectly-straight fashion, it is likely that a bullet will
impact upon a bone obliquely, causing the bullet to either a) break the
bone and keep going, or b) deflect off the bone, heading in a new
direction. Generally, it is the bone that yields first, but in certain rare
instances, the relative geometries involved allow the bullet to actually
"change course," or "bounce" off the bone. It's not a question of
bullets
being designed to go in sideways, or hydrodynamically turn themselves,
or anything strange like that. It is simply the natural (and very
slight) wobble inherent in a flying projectile coupled with the hardness
of a round. Realize that such behavior is the oddity rather than the rule.
It should be noted that many rifle rounds, especially
steel-jacketed rounds, are considered quite "hard" and unlikely to deform
too much on impact. It is also of note that these are the kinds of
ammunition most often mislabeled as "designed to tumble," which is
patently untrue. Any bullet is capable of it, but the circumstances that
cause it are unusual and they are not necessarily easily repeatable.
Consider the myth dispelled.

Marc
Message no. 9
From: "Paul J. Adam" <shadowrn@********.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Ballistics (Was : Funky Combinations)
Date: Tue, 20 Aug 1996 00:30:41 +0100
In message <01I8GWTOAJFU0000IA@******.STCLOUD.MSUS.EDU>, Ahzmandius
<rhoded01@******.STCLOUD.MSUS.EDU> writes
>
>Tumble rounds DO start to tumble in flight.

If you mean M-16 rounds, even the marginally stable M193 ball had to
encounter *something* to make it tumble.

Once a round becomes unstable, it loses velocity and accuracy almost
instantly. This from artillery: an underspun shell will *never* be
consistent ('underspun' means its spin slows slowly and the shell begins
to tumble as it flies)

Outside very marginal rounds like .25ACP, nothing I've heard of tumbles
in flight unless it had previously encountered an obstacle (even a minor
one like underbrush).

--
"There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable and
praiseworthy."
Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
Paul J. Adam paul@********.demon.co.uk

Further Reading

If you enjoyed reading about Ballistics (Was : Funky Combinations), you may also be interested in:

Disclaimer

These messages were posted a long time ago on a mailing list far, far away. The copyright to their contents probably lies with the original authors of the individual messages, but since they were published in an electronic forum that anyone could subscribe to, and the logs were available to subscribers and most likely non-subscribers as well, it's felt that re-publishing them here is a kind of public service.

Thwap!