[OT] [I mean totally OT] Re: What can you "new"

[Sean Kelly]

Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> BCS wrote:
>> Hello Andrei,
>>
>>> One that I do think would be more lethal is the mounted Gatling M134
>>> (that Terminator made famous), see
>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minigun. That fires up to 6000
>>> rounds/minute which is pretty crazy. I think a salvo of that would
>>> have made a trench through the Orcs, the same bullet killing or
>>> maiming several of them.
>>
>> IIRC the 7.62 NATO doesn't have that much penetration (more than the 
>> 5.56), enough to do in an Orc, but I don't think it would get the next 
>> in line, particularly if the Orc in question has armor on his back.
> 
> Not enough penetration to do in an Orc? I haven't read the book, but the 
> movie suggested Orcs were rather penetrable by the arrows and swords of 
> the humans.

Orcs were mutated Elves, basically, and their skin certainly wasn't 
tougher than, say, Pig skin.  A machine gun would make short work of an Orc.

By the way, "Goblins" in The Hobbit were actually the same as Orcs in 
the later books.  I don't know why the terms changed, but perhaps it's 
regional.  Some of them also rode Wargs (giant intelligent wolves), 
which means they had some semblance of cavalry :-)  I *think* that made 
it into the movies at some point, but it was kind of a footnote.

> BTW, machine guns do have some impressive penetration. I had to learn 
> the numbers while I was in the military by forgot them. My basic 
> recollection is that the numbers rendered pretty much all improvised 
> cover (wood, brick, thin steel sheet) useless. In a demonstration, a 
> skilled shooter emptied an AKM clip into a car from 25m. It looked very 
> bad afterwards; the trick was that he knew how to sweep such that many 
> bullets hit the car at an angle.

I've seen a couple shows on bullet penetration through material, and the 
results were pretty interesting.  MythBusters tested the "dive under 
water to avoid bullets" myth and discovered that the bullets from 
modern, high-velocity weapons fragmented before penetrating more than a 
few feet into the water (partially because bullets are designed to 
fragment in the body, thus doing more damage), confirming that as a 
viable escape tactic.  Older weapons like Muskets had much better 
penetration, both from the slower velocity and the round, solid 
ammunition, but still no more than perhaps seven feet.

Another show was more "scientific" and tested bullet penetration through 
wood, stone, walls, and jugs of water.  Military weapons went through 
the wood and such like it wasn't even there, and even did quite well 
against stone.

The wall test was interesting because they spaced their simulated walls 
a few feet apart, and the bullets would only penetrate two or three 
walls before disappearing.  What would happen is that they'd begin to 
tumble upon hitting the first wall, and the direction change would be so 
severe from hitting successive walls at different angles that they'd 
leave the test area completely.  The warning there was that if you fire 
a weapon in a house the bullet could quite easily go through a wall or 
two downstairs, change direction and come up through the floor upstairs, 
potentially hitting an unexpected target.

And as with MythBusters, nothing penetrated more than a few jugs of 
water before coming to a halt.  It was far and away the best barrier 
they could find for high-velocity weapons.