I always think its funny how bullets never seem to penetrate anything in movies. Like, guy hiding behind a barrel? Nope, cant penetrate, even with a rifle. The newest Batman movie had me shaking my head as he shrugged off multiple rifle rounds to his armor.
Bullets are insanely dangerous and powerful. A .223 round can penetrate a solid brick wall pretty easily, and can destroy a cinderblock wall with some effort. Even if it doesnt penetrate, the amount of force applied is incredible. Plates designed to stop bullets have to be made in specific ways to make sure a bullet doesn’t penetrate, but even with that plate, the sheer force of an impact can break bones.
So many movies show people getting into gun battles indoors, and they will jump behind a couch or flip over a coffee table and take shelter from a hail of bullets, like that thin furniture is going to stop anything.
Reminds me of a story I heard about a friend of a friend (so grain of salt and all) who worked as security at a nuke plant. They’ve got a well-stocked armory and he liked to borrow guns to shoot with in his back yard.
He had brought a .50 cal rifle home and was shooting cans or something with a hill as a backdrop.
Then the cops showed up. Turns out the bullets were going through his targets (assuming he was hitting them), then passing right through the hill and hitting a house on the other side whose occupants called the police because they thought someone was shooting at them from the hill.
Not sure if anything came of it afterwards, though I remember he wasn’t allowed to borrow guns from that armory anymore.
Yeah I don’t know the details, though as I understand the story, he was shooting at the targets so would have at least gauged the bullet drop unless he was missing entirely. But for all I know, the “hill” might have just been a small rise that immediately dropped off. Or maybe it was angled such that it was actually ricochets hitting the house or even rock fragments as bullets were obliterating bits of rock.
I’m thinking if he had like slightly higher ground towards a high so he’s shooting just slightly downhill, and the hill is “too close”, then he might feasibly shoot over it at a house behind it. So for instance the sights are supposed to be adjusted to 200 yards and the hill is somewhere around 100 yards away, then it would be about at the apex of the trajectory of a sight set for 200.
Ugh I don’t remember it properly but when we shot with 7.62’s in the army, iirc, the bullet arc was something like 30cm on a 150 or a 300m shot. I don’t remember which.
Or maybe it was angled such that it was actually ricochets hitting the house or even rock fragments as bullets were obliterating bits of rock.
That would definitely make sense yeah. A loud boom and something hitting your building, you’d think someone is shooting at you sure enough.
worked as security at a nuke plant. They’ve got a well-stocked armory and he liked to borrow guns to shoot with in his back yard. He had brought a .50 cal rifle home …
That last part is bullshit. If the force distributed across the plate were enough to break bones, then firing the rifle would dislocate the shoulder of the shooter.
The momentum is the same, the impulse (and therefore forces) are very different. The bullet is propelled down the barrel gradually - the force is spread through the entire time it takes the bullet to travel the length of the barrel, the reaction forces are applied to the stock gradually, and spread over the area of contact between the shooter and the gun.
A bullet stopped by a vest/plate has a much larger impulse. The bullet needs to be stopped essentially immediately, rather than gradually slowed down over a length equivalent to a rifle barrel, otherwise it kills you. The force is also more concentrated, occuring over the cross-sectional area of the bullet, rather than over the entire contact surface with the rifle.
Just because a plate stopped a bullet, doesn’t mean the plate then distributed that force evenly across it’s whole surface. The bulge on the back side of an impacted plate doesn’t form gently.
I would just like to note that they were shooting at 2 separate plates here, and only shot each plate once with the grade of ammo at which they were rated. The first plate they did shoot with 5 smaller rounds after they hit it with the larger one, but they didn’t shoot both of those larger rounds at the same plate.
Those “smaller rounds” were extremely hot 5.56 rounds - an upgraded version of the rounds the guy above me is saying fires through brick walls and cracks ribs if it hits armor.
All the guy you replied to said was that the bulge on the back of the plate from each of those rounds forms fast and hard enough that you’d feel it. Top comment of this chain was a different account.
Backface soft armor also catches spall, which can be very dangerous itself. Even ceramic plates can have a danger of ceramic shards. I believe modern ESAPIs, XSAPIs, and such modern plates are designed stand alone, but original SAPIs carried a warning that their rating was only in conjunction with soft armor.
I recently watched Hunter-Killer, and one of the good guys was killed while swimming underwater and the bullets kept coming. They did it right at least in that sense
Actually, MythBusters proved that one couldn’t happen, unless the bullets were sub-sonic or low-powered and the diver was within 1 or 2 foot of the surface… water’s just too dense and depletes the power. And something higher power just made a big splash and bits of shrapnel that didn’t have much penetrating power.
Okay, so if we are going to give batman flack for having super-alloys, where do we stand on Tony Stark putting a reactor in his chest with no concernable heat sink. (He wears it without the suit)
Simple, stark is a semi latent technomancer. His arc reactors might actually work, but the mini ones don’t. They are effectively conductors for magic. They turn magic into electricity with zero heat output. This also explains the suits momentum damping capabilities, and why they can’t be copied easily.
The ork waaaaaagh requires enough orks to function. It’s sort of an average belief. Even the warpheads (their psykers) just channel the collective waaaaaagh energy.
What do you think the effective power generation and heat production is for whatever that reactor is producing, when not in a suit?
If memory serves correctly, the entire outer shell is a round metal cylinder, so that’s a fairly large surface area to transfer heat to the body. Tony might not need winter clothes if he’s got a portable heater in the chest.
Well since it’s on a small scale, maybe 500 million gallons of water per year might cool it off. So we are definitely in a skin melting blood boiling and non breathable hot air situation rising towards his face. -mostlu joking, I haven’t done enough math to back up these claims, but it very much seems like it would be so.
You can’t really dial down output from it, so I always assumed the one in his chest also has the energy to power all of the suit features.
I always think its funny how bullets never seem to penetrate anything in movies. Like, guy hiding behind a barrel? Nope, cant penetrate, even with a rifle. The newest Batman movie had me shaking my head as he shrugged off multiple rifle rounds to his armor.
Bullets are insanely dangerous and powerful. A .223 round can penetrate a solid brick wall pretty easily, and can destroy a cinderblock wall with some effort. Even if it doesnt penetrate, the amount of force applied is incredible. Plates designed to stop bullets have to be made in specific ways to make sure a bullet doesn’t penetrate, but even with that plate, the sheer force of an impact can break bones.
So many movies show people getting into gun battles indoors, and they will jump behind a couch or flip over a coffee table and take shelter from a hail of bullets, like that thin furniture is going to stop anything.
It’s can also be used to block the bad guy from seeing the good guy. If you don’t know where to shoot, it’s hard to hit your target.
Just got reminded of the silencer gun battle scene in one of the John Wick movies. That was perhaps the most unrealistic thing I’d seen in those.
Reminds me of a story I heard about a friend of a friend (so grain of salt and all) who worked as security at a nuke plant. They’ve got a well-stocked armory and he liked to borrow guns to shoot with in his back yard.
He had brought a .50 cal rifle home and was shooting cans or something with a hill as a backdrop.
Then the cops showed up. Turns out the bullets were going through his targets (assuming he was hitting them), then passing right through the hill and hitting a house on the other side whose occupants called the police because they thought someone was shooting at them from the hill.
Not sure if anything came of it afterwards, though I remember he wasn’t allowed to borrow guns from that armory anymore.
unless it was a very small hill made mostly of weeds or some other vegetation, I strongly doubt it. sand/earth will stop bullets quite effectively.
edit he may have shot over the hill though, perhaps? there’s quite a high arc when shooting a bit further, which I assume he was doing with a .50 cal
Yeah I don’t know the details, though as I understand the story, he was shooting at the targets so would have at least gauged the bullet drop unless he was missing entirely. But for all I know, the “hill” might have just been a small rise that immediately dropped off. Or maybe it was angled such that it was actually ricochets hitting the house or even rock fragments as bullets were obliterating bits of rock.
I’m thinking if he had like slightly higher ground towards a high so he’s shooting just slightly downhill, and the hill is “too close”, then he might feasibly shoot over it at a house behind it. So for instance the sights are supposed to be adjusted to 200 yards and the hill is somewhere around 100 yards away, then it would be about at the apex of the trajectory of a sight set for 200.
Ugh I don’t remember it properly but when we shot with 7.62’s in the army, iirc, the bullet arc was something like 30cm on a 150 or a 300m shot. I don’t remember which.
That would definitely make sense yeah. A loud boom and something hitting your building, you’d think someone is shooting at you sure enough.
that was the part that was unrealistic for you?
pfft lol
I assume it was either America where I assume 50 cals are like umbrellas, or s former Soviet country with so and so nuclear security.
That last part is bullshit. If the force distributed across the plate were enough to break bones, then firing the rifle would dislocate the shoulder of the shooter.
The momentum is the same, the impulse (and therefore forces) are very different. The bullet is propelled down the barrel gradually - the force is spread through the entire time it takes the bullet to travel the length of the barrel, the reaction forces are applied to the stock gradually, and spread over the area of contact between the shooter and the gun.
A bullet stopped by a vest/plate has a much larger impulse. The bullet needs to be stopped essentially immediately, rather than gradually slowed down over a length equivalent to a rifle barrel, otherwise it kills you. The force is also more concentrated, occuring over the cross-sectional area of the bullet, rather than over the entire contact surface with the rifle.
In modern body about it’s spread over the area of the entire 8lb plate, which is way, way more area then the butt of the rifle.
Just because a plate stopped a bullet, doesn’t mean the plate then distributed that force evenly across it’s whole surface. The bulge on the back side of an impacted plate doesn’t form gently.
Maybe on a plate from 1965 that is just a sheet of steel inside cloth. Modern ceramic plates spread the energy of the impact.
Here’s a video of a Level IV plate taking a 30.06 AP round followed by like 6 5.56 AP rounds and a 7.62x54R AP round so powerful it jammed the rifle.
There’s no significant plate bulge even after all of that.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=D1qLZwBeMuM
I would just like to note that they were shooting at 2 separate plates here, and only shot each plate once with the grade of ammo at which they were rated. The first plate they did shoot with 5 smaller rounds after they hit it with the larger one, but they didn’t shoot both of those larger rounds at the same plate.
Those “smaller rounds” were extremely hot 5.56 rounds - an upgraded version of the rounds the guy above me is saying fires through brick walls and cracks ribs if it hits armor.
All the guy you replied to said was that the bulge on the back of the plate from each of those rounds forms fast and hard enough that you’d feel it. Top comment of this chain was a different account.
Well, body armor has certainly improved from what i can tell 😅
Mind you, this is what people wear going into combat. It’s for military, SWAT, etc.
An everyday police vest wouldn’t take that kind of beating.
To add to your point, trauma pads exist to help mitigate this. Blunt force trauma is no joke.
Backface soft armor also catches spall, which can be very dangerous itself. Even ceramic plates can have a danger of ceramic shards. I believe modern ESAPIs, XSAPIs, and such modern plates are designed stand alone, but original SAPIs carried a warning that their rating was only in conjunction with soft armor.
Okay, neat. Fire a rifle with the stock held just in front of your floating ribs instead of welded to your shoulder and get back to us.
I recently watched Hunter-Killer, and one of the good guys was killed while swimming underwater and the bullets kept coming. They did it right at least in that sense
Actually, MythBusters proved that one couldn’t happen, unless the bullets were sub-sonic or low-powered and the diver was within 1 or 2 foot of the surface… water’s just too dense and depletes the power. And something higher power just made a big splash and bits of shrapnel that didn’t have much penetrating power.
Also, among rifle calibers, .223/5.56 is quite weak on purpose. Many common rifles are far more powerful.
Okay, so if we are going to give batman flack for having super-alloys, where do we stand on Tony Stark putting a reactor in his chest with no concernable heat sink. (He wears it without the suit)
Simple, stark is a semi latent technomancer. His arc reactors might actually work, but the mini ones don’t. They are effectively conductors for magic. They turn magic into electricity with zero heat output. This also explains the suits momentum damping capabilities, and why they can’t be copied easily.
Simple, Stark is an Ork. His belief in his suit is all that’s required. And note, it’s red, so it goes dakka fast.
The ork waaaaaagh requires enough orks to function. It’s sort of an average belief. Even the warpheads (their psykers) just channel the collective waaaaaagh energy.
What do you think the effective power generation and heat production is for whatever that reactor is producing, when not in a suit?
If memory serves correctly, the entire outer shell is a round metal cylinder, so that’s a fairly large surface area to transfer heat to the body. Tony might not need winter clothes if he’s got a portable heater in the chest.
Well since it’s on a small scale, maybe 500 million gallons of water per year might cool it off. So we are definitely in a skin melting blood boiling and non breathable hot air situation rising towards his face. -mostlu joking, I haven’t done enough math to back up these claims, but it very much seems like it would be so.
You can’t really dial down output from it, so I always assumed the one in his chest also has the energy to power all of the suit features.
Dirty Harry knew all about this when he shot the hijacker on the plane.
And notably, plates that do stop bullets often still only work once.