[MUD-Dev] Source data on Crossbow

[Travis Casey]

On Wednesday 23 January 2002 12:20, Malcolm Tester II wrote:
> From: Rudy Neeser [mailto:rneeser at cs.uct.ac.za]
>> On Sun, 20 Jan 2002 daggers at iquest.net wrote:
>>> On Fri Jul 18 01:04:17 1997 CUT clawrenc at cup.hp.com wrote:

>>> The US Army studies of Thompson and LaGuardia in the 1920s,
>>> using suspended corpses show a deflection of less than 2" from a
>>> .45.

>> Um ... Suspended corpses really aren't standing people. They have
>> a much more even weight distribution than a standing person
>> necessarily has.

>>> The recoil of the weapon equals the impact of the bullet,
>>> energywise.  If it doesn't knock down the shooter, it won't
>>> knock down the target.

>> There are complications. The shooter can be (and, I suppose,
>> probably often is) shooting from a well balanced and stable
>> position, while the person being shot at is usually rather
>> unbalanced, especially if he / she's moving around (since human
>> movements like walking is a controlled unbalancing of your body).

>> So if it doesn't knock down the shooter, something could still
>> knock down the shootee.

Little note here: a year or so back, while doing some research on
gun wound statistics for a paper RPG, I came across an article in
the International Journal of Wound Ballistics that discussed people
falling down as the result of being shot.  The authors found that
there was no physical mechanism that could explain the observed
rate, and came to what I think is a fascinating conclusion -- that
it's psychosomatic.  People fall down when shot because that's what
they've been trained by movies and TV to believe is supposed to
happen when you're shot.

Unfortunately, I don't have anything more about that handy -- since
I was researching for a game and not for a paper, I didn't keep
specific issue, etc. notes.  I don't know whether the authors
conclusions held up under further analysis or not, but I still think
it's a very interesting thought.

[snip a bit]

> Shooting a corpse is like shooting a solid brick of mud.  There's
> much more resistance involved.  Shooting someone alive, with
> fluids intact, soft flesh, etc., you have much less resistance,
> and thus, the shootee is going to be much more prone to being
> thrown back than the shooter, who if prepared, won't move an inch.

That doesn't make sense, though.  If a corpse has more resistance,
than a greater portion of the bullet's energy will go into moving
the corpse (rather than into tearing up flesh, bone, etc.).  Thus,
if a corpse has more resistance, we'd expect a corpse to be moved
*more* than a living body, not less.  Further, due to fluid loss,
etc., a corpse generally weighs less than it did while alive --
thus, it also has less mass to move, which again would make it move
farther in response to being shot than it would have while alive.

The best physical explanation that I've seen is neuromuscular shock
-- that the shock of being hit is enough that your muscles
momentarily "let loose", starting you on a fall.  If you can't
manage to catch yourself after the shock passes, you fall down.
However, the authors of the above-mentioned article couldn't find
data that they considered to satisfactorily support that idea.

> As for TV, they do over-dramatize it.  But back to the note from
> JCL that daggers was replying to, I agree.  You won't die if the
> bullet doesn't penetrate the jacket.  But in most cases of
> existing "police grade" equipment in use, you would easily be
> stunned, for lack of a better word.  Bruised too, in most cases.
> Think about it.  Someone punches you in the gut, you crumple, bend
> over, maybe even fall down.  And that doesn't even bruise you,
> generally.  Now, you get hit by something traveling at high
> velocity, bruises you for sure...It isn't likely you're still
> going to be standing.

There was an interesting special on bulletproof vests on one of the
Discovery channels a few weeks ago.  There were a couple of
interesting things mentioned in it:

  - It's not enough to prevent penetration; the bullet also has to
  be stopped from causing fatal blunt trauma.  The current standard
  for vests is that with the vest on, the bullet should not "push
  back" more than 44 millimeters.  If the vest on the body is pushed
  back farther than that, the target may die anyways from blunt
  trauma.

  - Most vests are not designed to take multiple hits.  The material
  "bunches" towards the point of impact when shot.  This both
  creates areas within the vest that are no longer properly
  protected, and means that a repeated hit to the same spot, while
  it may not penetrate, may "push back" more than the allowable 44
  millimeters.

The program showed that now vests are coming out that are designed
to take multiple hits.  Unfortunately, I'm not sure exactly when
that program was written and produced, so I'm not sure what value of
"now" that's for.

--
       |\      _,,,---,,_     Travis S. Casey  <efindel at earthlink.net>
 ZZzz  /,`.-'`'    -.  ;-;;,_   No one agrees with me.  Not even me.
      |,4-  ) )-,_..;\ (  `'-' 
     '---''(_/--'  `-'\_) 
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