Small one man space fighters

[srogerscat]

I agree with BP on the likely effect of a bullet strike. The video of the soldier getting flipped back stuck in my mind because it was so unusual. I myself have considerable familiarity with firearms, so when I saw it my reaction was : "WTF? I've never seen anything like THAT before! With all the thousands of people who have been hit by bullets,you are going to get some statisticaly improbable events. It certainly looked like unstaged combat footage - it might have been faked, but I don't think so. An anomaly, I suppose. But it was dramatic as hell.

 

[far-trader]

... movement depends on too many factors to define as 'centimeter range only' - as in the case above 'on ice' and in space as well...

Yes, of course - this is why I inserted the "normally" in the post above,
there are lots of possible exceptional cases, up to a target jumping into
the air and hit at the highest point of the jump, and so on.

In the case of the target jumping straight up and being hit say in the head with a helmet stoppign the bullet completely for full momentum, all that will result is the target rotating about the center of mass and landing exactly where they jumped up from, though not on their feet and just as dead from concussion as if the bullet had gone through their head.

Re: "Knockback" aka "Stopping Power" from personal slug weapons.

Ye gods but I loathe HollowWood and blame them for the persistence of this myth. Only there do you see a shotgun wielded one handed by an improperly braced shooter who continues to fire with no recoil effects, while their charging targets are launched up to great heights and thrown back through the air several feet and fly through a solid wall :roll: (not all of the movies, but far too many of those in the last few decades - it wasn't always so)

Presuming the video you claim to have seen was an actual real world shooting and not some brain-dead movie scene you've conflated with an actual real world situation the explanation is still NOT bullet force. It is physiological and psychological reaction. The bodies natural reaction to encountering a sudden force is recoiling from it. Reaction of the body (not the brain), NOT action of the bullet.

This article is well researched and explained, with references, better than I can type it up:

http://www.answers.com/topic/stopping-power

For those skipping the light reading above, it's a myth. The most you'll see from anything less than an anti-material or other very heavy round is a couple inches worth of force, easily countered by the act of the target moving forward with any speed.

 

[srogerscat]

Far Trader,

Body recoil: that is a great way of putting it!

Funny how this thread has drifted from impact affects on fighters to impact affects on people

 

[far-trader]

Also, somewhere above is a note about a tank hit that killed the crew but not the tank. That was probably due to a concussion effect. The overpressure created in the sealed tank killed the crew even though (and probably because of) the tank was not penetrated by the round. Or so I've read somewhere. Though a vague recollection has that (the tank crew killed but the tank ok) being an urban legend.

 

[rust]

In the case of the target jumping straight up and being hit ...

Of course, but a hit near the center of mass would move it further than
if it were standing on firm ground, although - as mentioned above - I
think it would still be a movement within a centimeter range.

 

[far-trader]

Far Trader,

Body recoil: that is a great way of putting it!

Funny how this thread has drifted from impact affects on fighters to impact affects on people

It's a more natural progression than some thread drift I've seen

(the funny thing is I only gave this thread a second look because I wondered what was still being talked about after 7 pages and found the knockback discussion and couldn't keep my mitts off it lol)

 

[far-trader]

In the case of the target jumping straight up and being hit ...

Of course, but a hit near the center of mass would move it further than
if it were standing on firm ground, although - as mentioned above - I
think it would still be a movement within a centimeter range.

Yes, insignificantly so imo/study, cm range only if you're talking a couple or so cm, again imo/study, and I'm not even sure about that much.

Mythbusters should have done their knockback (time for a viewer demanded revist*) with a dropping body (not one on a hook) to eliminate the friction issue. I fully expect the results would show little or no deviation from a straight fall.

* come to think now, maybe they did, or some other show, I have a vague recollection of just such a demonstration, somewhere...

 

[rust]

... cm range only if you're talking a couple or so cm, again imo/study, and I'm not even sure about that much.

Yep, at least as I use it "centimeter range" means any distance between
0 cm and 10 cm/1dm, and I would actually expect less than 5 cm at best,
and only if musket or heavy rifle ammunition would be used.

 

[BP]

A man massing 80 kg hit with 1 kilojoule imparted by a negligible mass object, in an elastic collision, will be imparted a velocity of 5 m/s.
A common hunting caliber (like the Springfield .30-06) typically has a muzzle energy of 3~4 kilojoules (10 m/s at 4). A .50 Browning machine gun may have 16,000+ kilojoules (20 m/s).
Air resistance and gravity over distance travelled, and the actual inelastic nature of a hit drastically reduces this in most situations.
Further, our bodies terrestrial response to impacts are designed to utilize the friction available in our environment and leverage the huge mass of the earth, along with translating linear motion over rotational distances.

Reality is, the motion imparted by a bullet is dependent on so many factors that one must be very specific in examples, or they are easily invalidatated by other examples. (Hence, my original example was an extremely poor choice.)

(BTW: I have seen 3 episodes of Mythbusters - they were very entertaining. But, in no real way 'scientific' - more like rationalized stunts. The show might entertain and stimulate thinking, but is not rigorous enough to be applicable to vaguely defined 'myths' that were described in the shows I watched nor be applicable to greater generalities based on their 'analysis'. Not to say their conclusions were wrong (or right), just not scientific enough to be 'proofs'.)

 

[Ishmael]

Re: "Knockback" aka "Stopping Power" from personal slug weapons.

"Knockback" is not the same thing as "stopping power"

knockback is the old conservation of momentum stuff, which I think we can all agree is very small.

"stopping power" is the ability of a shot causing a relatively instant mission kill on the target.... one shot=one mission kill

actually I'd suspect that laser weapons and high energy weapons to have more knock back as portions of the target are vaporized in a small explosion, due to instantaneous heating, with the same energy ( mostly ) that the beam/bolt hits the target with.

hollywood's 'physics' are done for dramatic reasons and thus do have a place in dramatic games [in moderation]

 

[far-trader]

(BTW: I have seen 3 episodes of Mythbusters - they were very entertaining. But, in no real way 'scientific' - more like rationalized stunts. The show might entertain and stimulate thinking, but is not rigorous enough to be applicable to vaguely defined 'myths' that were described in the shows I watched nor be applicable to greater generalities based on their 'analysis'. Not to say their conclusions were wrong (or right), just not scientific enough to be 'proofs'.)

QFT. I stopped watching with interest after a few episodes where they felt compelled to "bust" what any grade school graduate should know from basic science. Really really basic stuff. And some of those still had "fans" screaming foul on the forums that the busters didn't properly test it. Depressing actually. I didn't know whether to fault the show for stooping (pandering) to such low IQs or applaud them for trying to educate. The "curving bullet" idiocy leaps to mind.

Re: "Knockback" aka "Stopping Power" from personal slug weapons.

"Knockback" is not the same thing as "stopping power"

Correct, I should have been clearer. What I meant is believers in HollyDumb knockback typically call that stopping power. They mean it quite literally as the power to stop a person with the force of the bullet, and more of course as bigger bullets throw people across rooms and through walls or out of windows.

hollywood's 'physics' are done for dramatic reasons and thus do have a place in dramatic games [in moderation]

Ah, I almost missed that "in moderation" and blasted you for that remark I don't think SillyWood "physics" (to clarify, I mean the silly bits) have any place in a sci-fi game, or any game that wants to treat realism with at least a nod of respect. Save that style for SuperHero type games and fantasy. It's not dramatic, it's just gratuitous, and that's why it's done. Drama doesn't depend on such schlock. No more so than drama demands every car that flies off a cliff will explode, often before hitting the bottom (when they mistime the firing of the bomb in the gas tank)...

...but now we are drifting off topic, or have we returned? Was anyone suggesting that one man fighters should blow up spectacularly when they miss a turn and fly past their target

 

[rust]

Small one man fighters explode spectacularly whenever they take a sharp
turn downwards, because interstellar dust assembles under the flight path
of the fighter, and when the fighter dives into this cloud of dust the friction
heats the fighter's surface until the fuel tank explodes.

Sorry, I could not resist, and perhaps George Lucas will pay me for the
rights to use that in the next Star Wars pre-prequel ...

 

[Ishmael]

hollywood's 'physics' are done for dramatic reasons and thus do have a place in dramatic games [in moderation]

Ah, I almost missed that "in moderation" and blasted you for that remark I don't think SillyWood "physics" (to clarify, I mean the silly bits) have any place in a sci-fi game, or any game that wants to treat realism with at least a nod of respect. Save that style for SuperHero type games and fantasy. It's not dramatic, it's just gratuitous, and that's why it's done. Drama doesn't depend on such schlock. No more so than drama demands every car that flies off a cliff will explode, often before hitting the bottom (when they mistime the firing of the bomb in the gas tank)...

yeah...no place in a sfrpg for FTL or contra-grav or humongous battleships that are as nimble as fighters
and can accelerate in any direction at 60m/s^2 without having to bother about reaction mass ':twisted:'

Was anyone suggesting that one man fighters should blow up spectacularly when they miss a turn and fly past their target

only if the run into a micrometeor

why not allow sillywood physics on a really good effects number?

 

[rust]

why not allow sillywood physics on a really good effects number?

I think it would depend a lot on the "feel" of the campaign. If it is more
like the Hitchhiker's Guide anyway, I would not hesitate at all to use silly
physics, while with a grisly and somber campaign I would see a risk to
damage the suspension of disbelief. Most campaigns are somewhere in
between, I think, and could survive a silly scene now and then, at the
right moment and with the right momentary mood of the players. But I
would really use it very sparingly, there is always some danger that too
much of it at the wrong moment could turn a setting into a bad joke.

 

[far-trader]

yeah...no place in a sfrpg for FTL or contra-grav or humongous battleships that are as nimble as fighters
and can accelerate in any direction at 60m/s^2 without having to bother about reaction mass ':twisted:'

Agreed to a point, but we need some plausible future tech to make the setting work, like FTL and (less so) gravity manipulation. I'm 100% with you on the silliness of the rest, though even there with gravity manipulation one might plausibly see inertia tossed out the window too.

I don't think those quite come to the same level of silly as powerful knockback from hand weapons, spontaneously exploding cars, and curving bullets though. All done without excuses of fancy future tech

 

[BP]

...
I don't think those quite come to the same level of silly as powerful knockback from hand weapons, spontaneously exploding cars, and curving bullets though. All done without excuses of fancy future tech

What, you mean future bullets don't automatically come with contact graviton release and gravitic trajectory control? Then there is that side effect of near-100D jumps that occassionally causes aircars to spontaneously explode especially after crossing over large expanses of open space? :lol:

 

[far-trader]

What, you mean future bullets don't automatically come with contact graviton release and gravitic trajectory control...

...well, could be Once you open that box of grav manipulation you just never know where it'll stop. Which is to say, if it's fun for all involved, why not? Might not be my cup of tea (Earl Grey, hot ) but who am I to ruin anyone's fun. I'm mostly just opining like everyone else on the internets, try not to take me too seriously, I don't much. While it's not my TU* it could be yours, or his, or hers, or theirs... HEY! WHO LET THEM IN HERE!!



* except maybe as some Ancient MacGuffin

 

[captainjack23]

Re: "Knockback" aka "Stopping Power" from personal slug weapons.

"Knockback" is not the same thing as "stopping power"

knockback is the old conservation of momentum stuff, which I think we can all agree is very small.

"stopping power" is the ability of a shot causing a relatively instant mission kill on the target.... one shot=one mission kill

actually I'd suspect that laser weapons and high energy weapons to have more knock back as portions of the target are vaporized in a small explosion, due to instantaneous heating, with the same energy ( mostly ) that the beam/bolt hits the target with.

hollywood's 'physics' are done for dramatic reasons and thus do have a place in dramatic games [in moderation]

best comment on this issue was from some serious forensic ballistics articles I found. " Only a brainstem or high spinal shot is consistently likely to cause an instant knockdown; beyond this, people differ in their tendency to fall down when shot".

 

[zozotroll]

Just over a year ago my son, working as a bounty hunter was the first through a door on what was considered a low risk warrent. He took a .32 to the upper right chest, right on the sem of my flak jacked. It punched through the seem, and penetrated to just under the skin. According to the guy right behind him he dropped straight down, no hesitation or anything.

He was back up quickly, and pulled the bullet out himself while waiting for the paramedics to arive. And then called me to complain that my jacket didnt do a good job. I replied that his ability to still complain meant that in fact it had.

But the fact is a young man, in good shape with a military flak vest, but no plates was stoped midstride by a .32. A fact we have not let him live down either. He had been certain he could get hit a lot harder than that and keep going. I dont think many game systems wouls allow that result. Nor would most DNM allow my vest to be locked up in the evidence locker for the next several years either, GGRRRRR.

I guess the main point is that the real world of gunshot wounds can be pretty freaky.

 

[far-trader]

...the fact is a young man, in good shape with a military flak vest, but no plates was stoped midstride by a .32. A fact we have not let him live down either. He had been certain he could get hit a lot harder than that and keep going. I dont think many game systems wouls allow that result.

Not many no, could be added though. I'm pretty sure I've seen (but not played) one system that did a very realistic covering of gun combat, and it was Traveller related context I saw it in (either for Traveller or converted to Traveller). ACQ might have figured in the name. I do seem to recall a rule/roll that would have covered and could produce that result. Maybe someone else knows it.

I guess the main point is that the real world of gunshot wounds can be pretty freaky.

QFT. No argument there.