• Wugmeister@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    354·
    20 hours ago

    Fun fact about this in real life: A problem that gunmakers have had to deal with is that, although a faster-moving bullet fires straighter and penetrates better into its target, if the bullet moves too fast it will just poke a hole straight through a person without imparting enough of its kinetic energy onto them to be able to do real damage. So, i doubt the peasant railgun would be effective in real life.

    • DaddleDew@lemmy.world
      311·
      18 hours ago

      That is simply not true. All you have to do is design your projectile in shape, construction and materials so the kinetic energy gets properly used to have the desired effect on the target.

      A tiny 40 grain .204 Ruger bullet with the insane muzzle velocity of 4100 fps will absolutely explode a watermelon if you use a rapidly expanding projectile such as a ballistic tipped varmint round. If you use the same against a reactive steel target that was only rated for rimfire, it will melt a clean hole through it without even noticeably moving it. And if you use it against a bull moose, it will absolutely destroy a large amount of surface tissue but not achieve enough penetration to reach the internal organs for a clean kill.

      It isn’t a simple problem, the are many different types of dynamics that you can encounter depending on the nature of the projectile, velocity and target.

      • DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social
        52·
        16 hours ago

        This is simply true, you do lose potential energy transfer if the bullet exits, that’s how it can exit, that’s just not usually the point of a bullet, and generally speaking making exit wounds is considered a positive.

        Now if you want to design a bullet that explodes inside a wound causing mass trauma and an incredibly difficult surgery to repair it is a problem, but surely no one would ever deliberately design a weapon to do that! /S

        Fun Fact: the .50 cal MGs the Soviets supplied to the Vietnamese during the American invasion usually had enough penetrative power to go through the M113 APC’s aluminum hull…

        Once. And then it would bounce around inside.

        • DaddleDew@lemmy.world
          21·
          4 hours ago

          I don’t see the point you’re trying to make here. You sound like you’re trying to disprove my point that more velocity won’t necessarily equate to overpenetration and “penciling through” with minimal damage but you all you did is explain that overpenetration means unused kinetic energy. Which is usually true depending on the situation but doesn’t disprove what I said.

          The rest is just unrelated edgy statements. But yeah, downvote me. What the fuck do I know, I’ve only worked for 15 years in weapons and ballistics.

          • Soup@lemmy.world
            2·
            12 hours ago

            They also said that exit wounds can have benefits, though they didn’t get into it nearly enough. I’m imagining that two wounds, especially on opposite side of a person, are going to be a lot harder to deal with and the increase blood loss potential while also distracting anyone trying to help them has a lot of benefits.

            Also I say benefits, but yuck.