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Old 03-17-2018, 12:32 AM   #31
VonKatzen
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Join Date: Mar 2018
Default Re: Increasing lethality

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tom H. View Post
Hey, thanks for all that info VonKatzen. I'm not well researched in this area.
I am both a gun nerd and extremely skeptical, so I always have a lot to say on the subject - some of which may even be true!
Quote:
Hans-Christian Vortisch liked to dispel myths in his GURPS Tactical Shooting, pg. 7.
Most guns are potentially lethal, though tiny rounds like a .32ACP or .22LR have pretty poor odds of putting down a healthy adult, even with fairly good shot placement. Part of the problem is just how d6s work....
Real small arms should have a very small chance of doing almost insignificant damage, a pretty good chance of doing moderate damage, a smaller chance of giving a fatal wound, and a very small chance of killing someone instantly. How likely each category is in relative terms would depend on the exact caliber and barrel length (bigger bullets penetrate better and leave a bigger hole, longer barrels can deliver more acceleration to the bullet) with shot placement being by far the most important determinant of lethality.

In most cases a sword or axe wound is far worse than a pistol or rifle wound. The major difference is that a pistol or rifle can blow right through someone, and thus has a somewhat higher chance of destroying organs or major blood vessels than a glancing blow from a melee weapon. Overall, small arms should do less damage overall than medieval melee weapons but when they critical should do really horrific amounts of damage. But criticals should be less common than in GURPS. You can see how factoring all this into any reasonable dice-roll system would be problematic. A table with multiple rolls and result look ups would be more realistic, but also a pain in the butt. Even most video games (where the math is no problem and hit locations are determined by actual bullet arcs) they don't bother with this stuff - in Rainbow Six 3 the bullet either bounces off your armor, slows you down, or kills you instantly. This isn't particularly realistic, but it's probably as much as most players can be bothered with.

Last edited by VonKatzen; 03-17-2018 at 12:36 AM.
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