Anti Tank Rifles

[Targan]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

The term "hydrostatic shock" springs to mind as being somewhat relevant....

Agreed and I did have hydrostatic shock in the back of my mind as I was writing my posts. I have a couple of points the first is a quote from the end of that Wikipedia article:

"Maximizing the ballistic pressure wave effects requires transferring maximum energy in a penetration distance that meets this requirement. In addition, bullets that fragment and meet minimum penetration requirements generate higher pressure waves than bullets which do not fragment."

Also, the fact that Beckwith suffered a single, narrow wound channel injury and was in a helicopter descending to drop off its passengers suggests to me that the round that hit him had retained a significant fraction of its initial velocity. What's the max effective range of a 12.7mm AA gun, 1.5km or so? The helo was probably at only a couple of hundred metres or less in altitude, and the round only had to go through a layer or two of thin aluminiun to hit Beckwith. It still had sufficient energy after leaving Beckwith's body to punch through the top of the helicopter and continue on its way. If it had been significantly slowed before it hit Beckwith it it would have been wobbling all over the place.

I'm not saying you guys are wrong by the way. I'm not an expert in this field. I'm just sharing my opinions based on the facts as I understand them.