Sectional Body Armor: Reality vs. Game Play

[Lucius]

On ‎5‎/‎19‎/‎2018 at 2:07 AM, Surrealone said:

 

I believe you meant 'magazine', not 'clip'.
 

 

What if I meant to clip an article out of a magazine?

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Cutting pages out of "!WOW!: the Magazine for Palindromedary RIders"

[RDU Neil]

To further complicate this original topic...

 

... what about real world/sectional body armor vs. explosives? What protection, if any, does a ballistic vest provide? The Pinnacle/Dragon Skin tests indicate a point blank M67 detonation heavily damaged, but didn't penetrate the vest. (The Dragon Skin concept is fascinating, and the fact that there is so much conflicting information around testing, and the general 'scale mail' concept... surprised it hasn't continued some sort of development, even though Pinnacle is out of business.)

 

My thought is that while shrapnel may not penetrate, the overall concussive damage is in no way impeded. Explosions affect the whole body, and even a heavily armored guy above is only marginally better off (again, due to possibly less shrapnel). Stopping ballistic penetration is a completely different thing that protecting from full body concussive wave that, in some case, can just tear a limb or head right off.

 

So how would you rule this in Hero? To me, explosive don't do enough damage, because they are essentially hitting multiple hit locations at the same time, which isn't accounted for in general. In supers, AE or Explosion is just about hitting more targets, not doing more damage, but in reality... a bigger attack of equal force does more damage, because it hits more of the body. At minimum, I feel like having any character hit by a grenade or IED or a mortar, or whatever, take at least three hits... one to the upper body, one to the torso, one to the lower body, etc.

 

Again, I'm thinking in terms of heroic level, more real-world simulation type, not as a rule for supers/standard Champs.

 

Anyone else have any information on sectional body armor vs. explosives?

[Funk Thompson]

The Dragon Skin armor would likely prevent *some* of the damage from an explosion's kinetic force / shockwave effect, kind of depends how you land.  If you just get thrown and land square on your back, probably not much worse than having the wind knocked out of you.  If you tumble and land on an outstretched arm, good chance of a broken arm.

 

And this should be covered, somewhat, by knockback and a breakfall roll, but you are likely only going to get STUN damage from the KB if the explosion itself didn't do any / much BODY damage.

 

Maybe house-rule that the BODY damage of an explosion combines with that of KB when applying vs. defenses?

 

That said, I really think even the best modern armor is 5-8 rPD, tops.  Kevlar can stop bullets, but it doesn't always stop them.

[RDU Neil]

Good points... here is what I'm referring to, in terms of shockwave damage.

 

"The compressed air layer is much denser than normal air.  If a human being is close enough to the epicenter of the explosion, the wave will be dense enough, and traveling fast enough, that when it reaches them it cause serious physical damage -- like hitting a brick wall."

 

"The worst part about a shockwave is that it hits you all over, thereby causing trauma on your entire body simultaneously.  This alone generates an overload of the nervous system that may be too much to recover from.  If that wasn't bad enough, the impact travels in waves through your body, and if powerful enough, will pulverize bones, rupture blood vessels, and even liquefy organs as it passes.  All that energy has to go somewhere, so it is absorbed by tissues and bone."

 

https://www.quora.com/How-exactly-does-a-shockwave-from-an-explosion-kill-a-person 

 

It is this second type of damage that I feel body armor would do nothing against. In some ways it is an NND killing attack, in game terms.  (Now much of this is that Hero damage and defenses are generic, when that isn't how the real world works. Damage effects are very different. Bullets actually do very little physical trauma, they are small, but they penetrate vital parts of a complex bio-system to shut the system down... explosion do massive trauma to the whole object/system inflicting holistic trauma... let alone getting into what radiation or electricity damage, freezing or burning damage, etc.)

 

If only 2 to 4psi over pressure is lethal for humans... any idea how levels of explosives are rated for generating overpressure? Typically a grenade would be too small to do much, unless you were right on top of it (overpressure damage decreases exponentially at distance), but a pipe bomb? An IED?

 

[Deadman]

I may be a little late to the party here but my take on this would to construct Trauma Plates a little different than Soft Body Armor.  You see Soft Body Armor prevents penetration of the bullet but does not completely remove the Kinetic Energy.  As a result it actually makes perfect sense that Stun Damage gets through as there will be significant trauma to the tissue and perhaps organs beneath the armor.  This means that creating Soft Body Armor using Resistant Protection works.  On the other hand if using hard trauma plates (either ceramic or steel) the Kinetic Energy is effectively stopped if the round does not penetrate the plate (well realistically it isn't completely stopped but the chance of internal injury is far less).

 

I would suggest creating Trauma Plates using Barrier instead of Resistant Protection.  This way if the BODY damage does not get past the DEF/BODY of the plate it will do no STUN either.  This requires a bit of hand-waving with regard to RAW interpretation of Barrier.  Since it isn't really a full coverage Barrier shooting through it isn't required for example.

 

I have also incorporated a Sectional Defense Limitation in addition to Requires A Roll.  This means that when I create a Bullet Resistant Vest it would cover specific areas but since it doesn't fully cover them it also requires a roll to determine if the shot hit an area that wasn't covered within that area. 

 

Here is a quick example of my write up of a Level IV Ceramic Trauma Plate using Barrier.

 

Real Cost: 13

Trauma Plates: Barrier 6 PD/6 ED, 3 BODY (up to 1m long, 1m tall, and 1/2m thick), Hardened (+1/4), Persistent (+1/4), Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2) (48 Active Points); Sectional Defenses (Covers Locations 10-12; 36.57% Coverage) (-1), OIF (-1/2), Ablative BODY Only (-1/2), Half Mass (-1/2), Requires A Roll (14- roll; -1/4), Real Armor (-1/4)

Of course your mileage may vary...

 

Tom

[CptPatriot]

If I might add my two cents, you could treat the coverage the armor provides for AoE attacks like the Mighty Protectors does.

 

Protection that is considered Light Coverage provides only 1/4 of its defenses towards AoEs & Heavy Coverage providing 1/2.

 

Barring that, give fractional defense based on the percentage coverage the armor gives. 

[Cassandra]

Real life body armor should only protect against BODY damage.

[Ninja-Bear]

30 minutes ago, Cassandra said:

Real life body armor should only protect against BODY damage.

Why? Don’t you remember the two armored bank robbers several years ago? They took plenty of small arms fire. They never dropped until snipers hit them.

[Cassandra]

1 minute ago, Ninja-Bear said:

Why? Don’t you remember the two armored bank robbers several years ago? They took plenty of small arms fire. They never dropped until snipers hit them.

 

That was very heavy body armor and they would have to take the Bulky penalty.  Most vests would only protect from penetration but the target would feel it.

[Pattern Ghost]

The Armor power works fine in regard to Stun. Kevlar disperses energy from a blow. Certainly not all of it, but let's assume that you build your game armor to protect against a certain level of attack. Let's say you want to have a vest that protects from shots up to a magnum caliber handgun. According to the weapon chart on page 332 of 5th Edition (Not revised), a .44 Magnum does 2d6 damage. Kevlar is listed as 9 Defense. (pg 334)

 

So, what happens when some fool (the owner of Second Chance) shoots himself point blank in a Kevlar vest with a .44 Magnum? Not much, really. He feels it and takes a lot of bruising, but doesn't get knocked out or knocked down from it. This is a stunt he's done on video many times to promote his product. It may be on YouTube, even. So, I'm going to say that we're looking for some Stun getting through and allow for minor Body damage on a high roll. I'll say the Second Chance guy has for the sake of argument 4 PD. Let's see what the official write ups give us:

 

Average of 2d6K: 7 Body, 14 Stun (3.5 average roll, minus 1, drop the fraction). Our guy takes 0 Body, 1Stun. It may be a bit too much protection. Even a couch potato would take only 3 Stun from this.

 

Let's say we roll 7 Body, but x3 Stun (a 4 on the die, slightly above average): He takes 0 Body, 8 Stun. That stings, and probably better represents his reaction.

 

Let's say we roll max damage, 12 Body, 60 Stun: Our guy takes 3 Body, 47 stun, and is down for the count. This never happens. (The guy has done this many times over the years.)

 

So, to make the armor align more with reality, we need to go exactly the opposite direction than Cassandra suggests. However, if someone rolls all 6's, I'm fine with the KO on the max end of things. It'd just be up to the GM to describe it. Overall, the weapon damage and armor values (at least in 4th and 5th) seem pretty well thought out to me. I think 6th edition using a fixed Stun multiplier is probably the only thing needed to level things out. What was it set to, x2? So a max 2d6k roll would be 12 Body/24 Stun? If it's x3, then 36 Stun still works.

 

 

 

[Pattern Ghost]

Found the Second Chance guy:

 

 

[Ninja-Bear]

Well to fair PG perhaps the Second Chance guy who you said been doing this for years has +xPD only bracing when doing stupid stunt? ?

[Pattern Ghost]

Or maybe Damage Reduction vs. Dumb Stunts?

[RDU Neil]

Great discussion all, still guess we have some areas that just aren't perfect.

 

One, which is balancing a) when vest works as expected it basically stops all but a few stun of even a large pistol round... and b) you don't see cops and soldiers putting on "Dumb Guy's Vest tm" and just wading into gunfights without a second thought.

Using Hero to build armor to its 'best performance rating' often makes it WAY too reliable and invulnerable making, because game statistics allow players to be way more carefree than they should be.

 

and Two, it doesn't take into account that once a bullet exceeds the rating, the armor doesn't really stop much of the round at all, instead it is like it isn't even there. Armor Type 1 stops Bullet Type 1 all day... but Bullet Type 2 acts like Armor Type 1 isn't even there.

That really doesn't reflect well in Hero, where defenses are just linear " more or less" and generic vs. all damage.

 

Ultimately we have to figure out multiple criteria with body armor:

• Stopping power (what exactly constitutes "stopped", how much defense does this translate to, how much damage translates through? body stopped? Stun stopped? etc.)
• Reliability (how often does the armor perform at full capacity for its rating? how much coverage does it provide for its rating? etc.)
• Ablative nature (does the armor continue to provide defense after being damaged? How much damage can it absorb before being damaged itself? etc.)
• Bulk (what are the limitations to movement, etc., while wearing body armor to movement, actions, endurance? etc.)
• Blowthrough (what happens when the armor's rating is exceeded? how much applies, or does it apply at all? etc.)
• Blade damage (cutting vs. stabbing, etc?)
• Explosive damage (wave form damage, shrapnel damage, does body armor help at all?)

I'm sure there are more concepts... and honestly, much of this is handled "pretty well" using a combination of RAW and some house rules

• rPD scaled to 3/4 of MAX damage of the type of bullet it is rated against (I think this is reflected in RAW)
• hard plates that add to the rPD, and put "hardened" on the armor to stop AP and higher velocity/larger caliber bullets, modern helmets considered hardened
• Hit Location to handle coverage and "stun multiplier"
• Extra activation roll for hard plates, since they don't cover the entire hit location
• Long gun rounds are automatically "light AP" by which I mean 1/2 of body rolled is subtracted from the non-hardened armor. (Full AP is subtracting full Body rolled from armor before applying.)
• Blowthrough rules (if Body rolled on attack doubles the non-hardened defense, and Body rolled also is more than body of target, blow through) hardened stops Light AP (as above) and AP... would need double AP to have a chance to blow through hardened
• Explosive damage is applied vs. 3 different hit location rolls (upper, standard, lower) and only 1/2 of rPD vs. each application (yes, explosive will eff you up)
• bulk/encumberance/etc. needs to be role played, invoked as is dramatic, and heavily situational. You are army guy in Afghanistan, no one looks at you twice when you wear your body armor everywhere. You are on the streets of Chicago, you will draw attention... and dramatic situations of water, cold, heat, etc. is all part of the story, not something with hard fast rules.
• All body armor is sectionally Ablative... gaining an activation that goes down for each successive hit in the same location.

The last two points will likely come up less, and be situational, and only really important if it feels dramatically appropriate, vs. too much complex book keeping.

 

I could even see a couple others:

• taking Deadman's point above and saying "Hardened Armor that stop all the body stops all stun... flat rule
• and +1 Stun multiplier on pistols only applies to unarmored targets... which I really like now that I've thought of it

 

Again... good conversations and ideas. Appreciate it. Running the line between "feels right/realistic" and "too many rulings/complications to be fun" in making this work.

[RDU Neil]

tl;dr version : I applied most of the rules we've talked about here, and they really worked, in an extensive gun fight scenario in last night's game.

 

For what it is worth, I ran a five and half hour (in game play) ranging gun fight in my game last night (PCs invading the corporate HQ of an elite Private Security/mercenary force), so we had the chance to really put the criteria I listed above, as well as in the thread about guns, damage, rate of fire, etc.  It was an amazingly cinematic gunfight that ranged from the basement to the seventh floor of a high rise, with more bullets, magazines and grenades spent than in most of the previous games put together. I found the combination of criteria worked pretty well.

 

Here are guidelines I wrote up for my campaign, and then we played the game to test them.

 

Hit Locations: As per RAW, the Hit Location chart will be utilized in combat. Exception Note: Called shots to a specific location will still roll if there is more than one number result. Ex.: If a called shot to the head hits after modifiers, then a die roll will determine if 3 (face), 4 (head), 5 (throat) was the actual location. 

Range Modifiers: SW will utilize the Range Modifiers from 3rd Edition Danger International.  

-0 for Point Black to 6 meters 

-1 for 6+ to 12 meters 

-2 for 12+ to 18 meters, etc. 

Multiple Attacks: There are several changes to this maneuver from the RAW. 

• Multiple Attacks suffer a -1 OCV penalty for each attack after the first. 

• Range is halved, so penalties accrue faster (e.g. -0 up to 3 meters, -1 up to 6 meters, etc.) 

• Not every attack can utilize multiple attacks. Weapon type affects whether Multiple Attack can be used, and how many attacks can be attempted in a single action. 

• Barehanded/hand-to-hand weapons requires Rapid Attack, limited to 2 attacks, only weapons size "small" are allowed  

• Bows, crossbows, thrown weapons cannot utilize Multiple Attacks w/o GM permission 

• Early firearms cannot utilize Multiple Attacks 

• Revolvers can only go up to 3 shot MAs 

• Semi-automatic pistols can go up to 5 shot MAs 

• Pump action shotguns cannot utilize MAs, semi-automatic shotguns may do up to 2 shot MAs 

• Select Fire automatic weapons can fire up to 2 bursts (3 or 5 rounds), but at -2 for both bursts.  

 

As for the armor discussion, I basically went with...

On ‎6‎/‎5‎/‎2018 at 12:08 PM, RDU Neil said:

• rPD scaled to 3/4 of MAX damage of the type of bullet it is rated against (reflected in RAW)
• hard plates that add to the rPD, and put "hardened" on the armor to stop AP and higher velocity/larger caliber bullets, modern helmets considered hardened
• Hit Location to handle coverage and "stun multiplier"
• Long gun rounds are automatically "light AP" by which I mean 1/2 of body rolled is subtracted from the non-hardened armor. Light AP doesn't increase blowthrough (Full AP is subtracting full Body rolled from armor before applying and does affect Blowthrough.)
• Blowthrough rules (if Body rolled on attack doubles the non-hardened defense, and Body rolled also is more than body of target, blow through) hardened stops Light AP (as above) and AP... would need double AP to have a chance to blow through hardened
• Explosive damage is applied vs. 3 different hit location rolls (upper, standard, lower) and only 1/2 of rPD vs. each application

 

Did not go with extra activation for plates... just didn't need another roll.

 

Did not involve increased stun multipliers for any weapons except the Benneli M4 one PC used. Just using Hit Location stun multipliers as is worked just fine.

 

With Light AP on rifle rounds automatically, I feel it very much makes long guns way better than pistol rounds, but doesn't escalate the damage into "one shotting" people with a 5.56 all the time. It was really important in the game last night, as the final aspects of the fight had both sides pretty heavily armored up and blazing away with SIG MCX variants using .300 AAC (2d6 +1 damage, light AP as noted above).

 

I adopted the rule of Hard armor, if no body gets through, no stun applied at all. This worked REALLY well, as it felt right when it happened, and sped up the game.

 

The Hard armor rule for no stun and vs. light AP really brought home how much more effective the armor is with the plates than hitting in just a soft armor spot, again without ramping up certain armor to really high levels.

 

The explosive damage applied as above is REALLY deadly, as two fully armored bad guys were caught point blank in a stairwell with a fragmentation grenade... (roll three 2.5d6K attacks vs. three different hit locations, and each only affected by 1/2 of any armor in those locations). It felt really correct, with the idea that damage drops off quickly with distance and any barriers. (third guy was slightly farther back and blocked by two buddies when grenade went off, so dropped the damage to 2d6 and only two locations... he was effed up but alive, until they shot him on their way up the stairs.)

 

Blowthrough came into play as a PC was in a close quarters shootout between two glass and paneling offices with a support column in between, and both guys ended up blazing away right through the thin walls at each other, which only stop a couple of rounds out of twenty or so that went back and forth in that burst series, after they'd been shooting at each other for a while. Felt very right.

 

Had great moments of multiple different effects from rounds hitting armor, where the bullets were simply stopped, others where they did partial penetration or just brusing damage, other time where soft armor was penetrated for really nasty wounds, though not lethal because they stopped some of it, hard armor totally sucking up some rounds, etc. One great scene had a PC get the drop on one guy with a three round burst. Two shots hit, head and chest, helmet and plate... but he rolled really well, doing just 1 Body over the defenses on each hit, so Stun did translate through, and this did lay the guy out, Con stunned and unconscious (briefly), and it felt right... not a common occurrence, but right in this instance with two high rolls dead center to noggin and chest.

 

What I do realize is that full body armor is very effective, especially against lighter rounds. The few pistols shots that weren't targeting heads/bare faces, got sucked up like nothing if it hit the armor. No SMGs were used, but I feel the lethality would have been much less if the Light AP was not in play. (I rule SMGs don't achieve the velocity of assault rifles/long guns, so don't achieve Light AP), so there would have been less armor penetration in those cases.

 

 

Anyway... really feel like these rules work well for a semi-realistic, cinematic, heroic level gun fights.  If that is your thing.... try 'em out.

 

•  

[Pattern Ghost]

Great account, thanks.

[Surrealone]

On ‎6‎/‎1‎/‎2018 at 2:23 PM, Cassandra said:

 

That was very heavy body armor and they would have to take the Bulky penalty.  Most vests would only protect from penetration but the target would feel it.

Incorrect.  The body armor worn during the North Hollywood Shootout (as it's known; Google it if in doubt) was Level IIIA soft body armor.  One of the robbers wore a level IIIA vest plus a plate carrier with trauma plate.  The other of them wore a level IIIA vest with groin guard … as well as home-made (out of level IIIA vests) thigh, shin, and forearm soft armor.

 

None of the aforementioned would qualify as bulky (i.e. "large and unwieldy" per 6e1 p378), IMHO.  It certainly isn't bulky enough to warrant 1/2 DCV (which comes with the 'Bulky' limitation), otherwise all of our troops and law enforcement/SWAT officers who wear soft armor with a plate carrier and trauma plate are all at 1/2 DCV, too -- and I just don't see it.

[RDU Neil]

Interested in opinions on the commonality of body armor these days.

 

It seems that nearly any decently funded military or police unit that expects combat will have Type II or Type IIIA vests at least.

 

Obviously the civilian rate of purchase has increased significantly.

 

Are there any stats about use of body armor by criminals... and not just old, high profile cases like the North Hollywood shootout.  It still seems, anecdotally, rare... but I was just wondering if there are FBI or police stats on this?

[Old Man]

On 7/1/2018 at 6:54 AM, Surrealone said:

Incorrect.  The body armor worn during the North Hollywood Shootout (as it's known; Google it if in doubt) was Level IIIA soft body armor.  One of the robbers wore a level IIIA vest plus a plate carrier with trauma plate.  The other of them wore a level IIIA vest with groin guard … as well as home-made (out of level IIIA vests) thigh, shin, and forearm soft armor.

 

None of the aforementioned would qualify as bulky (i.e. "large and unwieldy" per 6e1 p378), IMHO.  It certainly isn't bulky enough to warrant 1/2 DCV (which comes with the 'Bulky' limitation), otherwise all of our troops and law enforcement/SWAT officers who wear soft armor with a plate carrier and trauma plate are all at 1/2 DCV, too -- and I just don't see it.

 

FWIW the North Hollywood shooters were also partially sedated by the phenobarbital ingested prior to the engagement.  A closer reading of incident reports suggests that in several instances, they were momentarily stunned when gunfire struck their body armor, though they suffered more than enough hits to unarmored locations to eventually kill them.

[Surrealone]

On ‎7‎/‎2‎/‎2018 at 3:53 PM, RDU Neil said:

Interested in opinions on the commonality of body armor these days.

 

…

 

Are there any stats about use of body armor by criminals... and not just old, high profile cases like the North Hollywood shootout.  It still seems, anecdotally, rare... but I was just wondering if there are FBI or police stats on this?

 

Opinion:
I own a level IIIA soft vest and a level III ballistic clipboard.  I also know two other non-military, non-LEO individuals who also own level IIIA vests.  Let me categorize that properly, though: all three of us are law-abiding 'gun people'.  Specifically, the other two both work in gun shops … while I'm a certified firearm instructor and RSO with >800 hours of RSO time on a manned range.  (i.e. We're all at higher risk than most ... due to our jobs/hobbies ... and we know it, so we've taken some reasonable precautions.)

 

What I'm getting at is that while available and even inexpensive (i.e. just under $300 for a level IIIA covert/overt vest sans carrier [or with carrier if you're willing to go refurbished] … unless you also want stab and/or taser protection, in which case the cost begins to go up), most people just can't justify they spend -- because they don't have a well-defined need for body armour (like I did/do, for example).  I suspect the same is true of criminals -- i.e. most can't justify the spend … and only well-organized criminals tend to make the investment for their nefarious purposes.

 

As for stats:
I'm unaware of any specific data gathering that is available to the public on the topic of crimes committed using body armor.  

 

10 hours ago, Old Man said:

 

FWIW the North Hollywood shooters were also partially sedated by the phenobarbital ingested prior to the engagement.  A closer reading of incident reports suggests that in several instances, they were momentarily stunned when gunfire struck their body armor, though they suffered more than enough hits to unarmored locations to eventually kill them.

Wow, I had no idea.  That's an interesting tidbid!

[RDU Neil]

On ‎7‎/‎6‎/‎2018 at 10:13 PM, Old Man said:

A closer reading of incident reports suggests that in several instances, they were momentarily stunned when gunfire struck their body armor,

 

So my question is... in game terms, is this enough to rate as Con Stunned? Con Stunned essentially means "take advantage of a free shot on the opponent" in game, so only if the police were able to actively capitalize on the "momentarily stunned" to put the guy down... which is what happens in the game... or did they basically shake it off quickly enough that it had little to know effect on the combat, thus was SFX for "taking a good chunk of Stun damage from that shot"?

 

Also... did any shots that hit during that "moment" do more damage (x2 modifier for being hit while already stunned/surprised)?

Stunned/Con Stunned has such dire consequences in "game combat" that I'm loathe to adjust body armor to reflect "feeling the bullet" as more than just "ouch that hurt!" without clear indication that such "ouch" was really meaningful.

 

Yes... in real life, the simplest flinch in pain or slight misstep or stagger from a blow can mean life or death... but not consistently. In most cases, those little moments of weakness or misstep don't matter as much, (except maybe in a match fight between two high level professional fighters, where it is all about getting the micro-moments of advantage or disadvantage in a ring fight).

 

Hero doesn't and shouldn't try to emulate those hyper-realistic aspects of life... it is capturing the "big moments"... the cinematic reeling from a mighty blow, etc.

 

Anyone ever see "The Town" with Ben Affleck and Jeremy Renner? Love that movie, and in the culminating huge firefight at Fenway... there is an excellent example of the differences between taking Stun and "Con Stunned." When the crew is shooting it out with the cops, they get hit with a flash bang. The rest are shaking it off, trying to focus, but one of them is clearly concussed and out of it, and he staggers, zombie like, right into the open, where a cop puts a round through his skull. It was just like a game... "Oh... the guy is Con stunned? Cool. Taking a head shot!" That is how Hero games play out, that and the classic hand-to-hand moment in so many movies, where one opponent lands a shot that staggers the other enough for a big round house kick or upper cut, that lays him out.

 

Were the "momentarily stunned" moments in the firefight really up to the level of "con stunned" or simply SFX for taking a few stun here and there?

 

 

[Pattern Ghost]

Randomly found this video and thought of this thread:

 

 

[RDU Neil]

Ok... that was nice, concise and entertaining. It occurred to me, though, especially on the shotgun slug test, that I don't think he ventilated the watermelon/lung before shooting. We a semihard skin and no pre-venting, the impact of the bullet causes severe compression of the watermelon, causing the dramatic eruption. A lung has less of a hard skin, so better able to deform and not rupture, and the air inside it can evacuate... so I'm wondering if the damage done would be less... dramatic... at least.

 

Plus, not sure what type of body armor that was, but given that it stopped at pistol rounds and shotgun slug, I'd say at least level II.

 

Interesting.

[Pattern Ghost]

I don't think the guy takes into account just how much more resilient live human tissue is than his meat and veggie targets for his tests, but it does give some idea of the amount of kinetic energy involved.

 

[Ninja-Bear]

On 7/31/2018 at 9:22 AM, Pattern Ghost said:

I don't think the guy takes into account just how much more resilient live human tissue is than his meat and veggie targets for his tests, but it does give some idea of the amount of kinetic energy involved.

 

I have to agree. That meat is dead and missing fat plus the ribs in his scenerio aren’t arranged like a human bodies rib cage. Ours are designed to absorb and redirect blows to protect the squishy vitals.  And to RDU Neil’s point about the watermelon, have you guys seen the rubber band trick? People put enough rubber bands around a watermelon, and it will explode under that pressure.  It’s weird but neat.