Okay, I'm writing a story, and I thought I'd ask for a little tech help from some of the many gun- and pysics-minded souls on this board. Here's the scene:
We've got a military sniper squad of two. Assume a high-caliber long-range rifle (standard military issue, whatever that might be). The target is a large (read: fat) man covered by at least one bodyguard. I want to know if a bullet fired from 100 yards which hits and takes off the bodyguard's nose from the side would still have enough momentum to penetrate the skull of the target for the kill.
Any help you could give would be... well... helpful. Thanks.
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Queeb Salaron wrote:Okay, I'm writing a story, and I thought I'd ask for a little tech help from some of the many gun- and pysics-minded souls on this board. Here's the scene:
We've got a military sniper squad of two. Assume a high-caliber long-range rifle (standard military issue, whatever that might be). The target is a large (read: fat) man covered by at least one bodyguard. I want to know if a bullet fired from 100 yards which hits and takes off the bodyguard's nose from the side would still have enough momentum to penetrate the skull of the target for the kill.
Any help you could give would be... well... helpful. Thanks.
Yes, a high powered rifle can go through heftier things than someones nose without loosing much momentum.
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I'm sure it'd be fine, you could shoot straight through a car door at that range and still core out his head.
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Ok, well since that's done with and I don't really want to make another thread. If you got a load of people of equal height to stand in a straight line, how many heads could a bullet from a rifle like the L115A1 go through?
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Keevan_Colton wrote:Yes, a high powered rifle can go through heftier things than someones nose without loosing much momentum.
But would it be deflected enough that he would miss? I seem to recall reading or hearing somewhere that SWAT and Hostage Rescue Sniper teams practice firing a split second apart so that if they have to shoot through a window one can drop it just before the other's bullet gets there and hits the target.
Keevan_Colton wrote:Yes, a high powered rifle can go through heftier things than someones nose without loosing much momentum.
But would it be deflected enough that he would miss? I seem to recall reading or hearing somewhere that SWAT and Hostage Rescue Sniper teams practice firing a split second apart so that if they have to shoot through a window one can drop it just before the other's bullet gets there and hits the target.
I doubt it at that range. It's a fraction of your average sniper rifle operative range, and the human nose is a lot softer and wetter than glass.
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The Spartan wrote:
But would it be deflected enough that he would miss? I seem to recall reading or hearing somewhere that SWAT and Hostage Rescue Sniper teams practice firing a split second apart so that if they have to shoot through a window one can drop it just before the other's bullet gets there and hits the target.
Ah, but technically that's not what Qeeb asked. He only wanted to know wether the bullet would retain the momentum to kill the target-which a piddlin' 9mm bullet would-, not wether or not the bullet would actually HIT.
Which isn't to say you're wrong, of course. Because you aren't. Quite the opposite.
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Batman wrote:Ah, but technically that's not what Qeeb asked. He only wanted to know wether the bullet would retain the momentum to kill the target-which a piddlin' 9mm bullet would-, not wether or not the bullet would actually HIT.
Which isn't to say you're wrong, of course. Because you aren't. Quite the opposite.
And since it is a valid concern even though it's not technically what he asked for he should technically (sorry couldn't resist) consider it. To flesh out the "reality" of the story.
Rye wrote:Ok, well since that's done with and I don't really want to make another thread. If you got a load of people of equal height to stand in a straight line, how many heads could a bullet from a rifle like the L115A1 go through?
The density of bone is 1900 kg/m³. The density of flesh should be somewhere near the density of water, but I'm not going to look that up. So, I make the mean density of a human skull 1500 kg/m³. The diameter of each head is 20 cm.
Bullet surface area is 0.00005795 m² and I assume a mass of 0.02 kg.
I make a crude assumption here and make its drag coefficient 0.3
I'm going to simplify this and eliminate gravity and air. I'm also using the formula for fluid drag.
936²*0.3*1500*0.00005795*1/2=11 420 N
11420/0.02=571 160 m/s²
Multiply that by 0.2 m of distance travelled though the head and then multiply by two, then find the square root. The delta-v caused by one head is 478 m/s. I divide the muzzle velocity by that and I have the answer.
