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Old 08-29-2016, 03:06 PM   #46
fredtheobviouspseudonym
 
Join Date: May 2007
Default Re: Actual Impaling Question

Quote:
Originally Posted by Rupert View Post
3e had that, mostly, and it had some odd effects. For example, this means that a 7.62x51mm NATO APHC bullet doing 7d pi- would only ever do 10 x 0.5 = 5HP damage to a 10-HP target.
I may have misunderstood this rule but I always applied the AP damage modifier before limiting the damage done to the victim by blow-through. So a 7d 7.62 NATO AP round would do to an unarmored target an average of 7 x 3.5 or 24.5 points of damage, halved to 12.25 (call it 12) which still nicely disables most humans.


Quote:

Back in 3e my rules was 'damage is capped at HP, injury at HP or HP x wound modifier, whichever is higher' to avoid this. It still makes .45 ACP ball noticeably more effective than 9x19mm ball rather than slightly, which is a bit annoying.
Anecdotally, it is. While the 9mm Parabellum has more energy, the .45, with its bigger bullet, tends to dump more of its energy into the victim, er, target. Certainly seems to have more stopping power.
Quote:
12.7 x 99mm and up will literally tear a human torso apart with just single shots in ways impossible for a Human to survive .
[From Mr. Frost, p. 2]
GURPS WW II tried to address this by saying that the blow-through rules did NOT apply to 12.7x99 rounds -- created the odd situation where a .50 cal. Vickers MG round would do fairly standard damage while the 12.7x99, w. same diameter bullet and about 30 percent more energy, would do c. 4 times the damage.

There is at least one real case -- on Tarawa in Nov. 1943, a USN fighter aircraft accidentally strafed a Marine platoon in a friendly fire incident. The gyrenes had hit the dirt but one man was hit and the 12.7x99 round went through the body diagonally from (IIRC) right shoulder to left hip, exiting thereon.

The unfortunate fellow did not explode or die on the spot but did bleed to death in from 1-2 minutes despite the best efforts of a corpsman. So that's probably a pretty good description of what happens.

Last edited by fredtheobviouspseudonym; 08-29-2016 at 03:12 PM.
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