Anti Tank Rifles

[Targan]

Originally Posted by ChalkLine

It was and is considered that the .50 round caused excessive injury, and in the wording of the convention 'to ensure the death of the combatant'. The idea is you should be able to survive, no matter how torn up.

Colonel Charlie Beckwith, the founder of Team Delta, survived being shot through the torso by a 12.7mm round so there goes that idea.

Of course he wasn't your average human...

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Originally Posted by Targan

Colonel Charlie Beckwith, the founder of Team Delta, survived being shot through the torso by a 12.7mm round so there goes that idea.

Of course he wasn't your average human...

Of course, the round had passed through the bottom of the helicopter he was a passenger in so it wasn't at full velocity by the time it hit him having passed through the hull and then the floor...

Another, more graphic, account of a soldier being hit by a 12.7mm round is the British soldier who was hit in the upper arm. He was fighting in the Falklands at the time and the round tore away the muscle essentially ending his use of that limb.

[Targan]

Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic

Of course, the round had passed through the bottom of the helicopter he was a passenger in so it wasn't at full velocity by the time it hit him having passed through the hull and then the floor...

Absolutely true and I thought about that at the time I made my post. The thing is though, 12.7mm/.50 cal rounds at full velocity or at reduced velocity are likely to do pretty much the same damage to the human body because unless they have spent nearly all their energy they will pass right through a meat target and out the other side without tumbling (thus imparting only a small fraction of their energy into the target). The round that hit Beckwith had, as you say, come through the bottom of a Huey and lets face it, a couple of layers of thin aluminium wouldn't slow a 12.7mm round very much at all.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

As you say, the .50 BMG is still going to have a lot of power behind it but I like to have as much information as I can get about a subject before drawing conclusions from it. In Beckwith's case, the round had travelled some distance from the ground and then hit the helicopter so it may have lost enough energy to not kill him outright.
Don't misunderstand me, he was a tough bastard - the medics said it wasn't worth doing triage on him because he was obviously dying, they obviously underestimated the man's will to live - but the loss of energy suffered by that round, no matter how small, is a significant factor in his survival.

[Targan]

Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic

In Beckwith's case, the round had travelled some distance from the ground and then hit the helicopter so it may have lost enough energy to not kill him outright.

Everything you say about the circumstances of Beckwith's shooting is true but perhaps I haven't been clear enough. The thing about a round like the 12.7mm or .50 cal is that they are a long, AP bullet. They don't fragment when they hit a human body, they don't expand and they don't tumble. This means that whether they hit you at 20 feet or at a kilometre they are still going to punch right through you. My point is that if the round doesn't fragment, expand or tumble there is a finite amount of energy it can impart to a human body before it punches out the other side, and that energy transfer is roughly the same whether the round is at full velocity or not.

This is a different situation to that of a pistol or rifle round that fragments, expands or tumbles when it hits a meat target, as those sorts of rounds are much more efficient at dumping their energy into a target.

[pmulcahy11b]

Originally Posted by Targan

Everything you say about the circumstances of Beckwith's shooting is true but perhaps I haven't been clear enough. The thing about a round like the 12.7mm or .50 cal is that they are a long, AP bullet. They don't fragment when they hit a human body, they don't expand and they don't tumble. This means that whether they hit you at 20 feet or at a kilometre they are still going to punch right through you. My point is that if the round don't fragment, expand or tumble there is a finite amount of energy it can impart to a human body before it punches out the other side, and that energy transfer is roughly the same whether the round is at full velocity or not.

This is a different situation to that of a pistol or rifle round that fragments, expands or tumbles when it hits a meat target, as those sorts of rounds are much more efficient at dumping their energy into a target.

And we have yet another thing that RPG rules in general don't really simulate very well.

[Targan]

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

And we have yet another thing that RPG rules in general don't really simulate very well.

Sadly true. I guess its a case of finding a rules set that does hmm? As I have done. What is the rules set I use again? I can't quite seem to remember...

[Legbreaker]

The term "hydrostatic shock" springs to mind as being somewhat relevant....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrostatic_shock

[copeab]

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

And we have yet another thing that RPG rules in general don't really simulate very well.

FWIW, in GURPS an AP round halves effective armor but then has it's damage divided by two against a living target.