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Old 09-25-2017, 08:16 PM   #1
David Johnston2
 
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Default Walls

How many dice of damage would it take to shoot through an exterior house wall into someone's head with a decent chance of killing them? What about an apartment wall?
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Old 09-25-2017, 08:48 PM   #2
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Default Re: Walls

It depends on the wall. An interior drystone wall probably has DR1. A brick or concrete exterior wall could have DR30+, while a timber exterior wall probably has DR2, at best.

It also depends where on the head you hit. A person's skull has DR2, and any penetrating damage is multiplied by x4. A hit to the eye with a bullet means no DR and the same damage multiplier. A hit to the face means no DR, but the damage multiplier is that of the attack (pi, pi+, etc.).

Thus at the low end we have an attack through an interior wall into the eye - DR1, needing 20 points of damage to force a death check (and thus 4 points of penetrating damage). This requires 1d+2 damage, and a .22 long rifle bullet fired from a rifle is sufficient.

At the high end we have a shot through a DR32 (4" thick) brick wall to the face, requiring ~52 points of damage if it's a pi attack, and thus 15d pi. As that's beyond a normal full-bore rifle (pi), let's look at pi+: 32 + 20 / 1.5 = 46 points -> 13d. Not much lower, so we'll check pi++: 32 + 20 / 2 = 42 -> 12d. Realistically you need an anti-tank rifle if you're shooting through that wall, or armour-piercing ammo and a skull/brain hit (7d(2) pi- for a 7.62x51mm APHC round gives ~30 points of damage if you hit the skull through that wall).

In conclusion - brick and concrete exterior walls are quite good cover. Interior walls are not.
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Old 09-25-2017, 08:49 PM   #3
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Default Re: Walls

What's the exterior wall made of*? And the interior walls?


Personally I'd call each 1/2 of sheetrock (wallboard) 1 DR and 2 HP, most interior wall are 2 layers (1 inch) of sheetrock (two separate layers, one of each side). Better built homes (more noise proofed) will be 4 layers, however this is 2 separate layers of 2 on each side of the wall, so 2 DR 4 HP and then another 2 DR 4 HP.

The walls between different units in an apartment building should also be 4 layers often times with a mesh screen between (chicken wire) which should add a separate 2/0 DR 4/0 HP (the second number is versus pi).

Each layer of sheetrock is 30 minutes fire rated**, so versus fire it has a lot more DR.



* Basic Set recommends 6 DR exterior walls for modern buildings, which if made of empty cinder block almost*** sounds right. If it's properly filled with concrete however (which it should be! And reinforced to boot!) that's 6 inches of concrete... which I would treat as brick for blow through purposes only, so DR 16 HP 16.

** Which with only 1 layer drops to mere minutes at seams. This is also why better built homes use multiple layers on each side of a wall, they overlap the seams better to give a greater heat and fire insulation.

*** I was popping cinder blocks with a .38 as a kid, so... maybe 6 DR is a leetle high for a 'void' cinder block construction house. And it feels weak for a solid 6-7 inches of reinforced concrete and block , which is what I'd call a 'modern middle class home'.
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Old 09-25-2017, 08:50 PM   #4
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A timber weather board house might have a DR of 3 (one inch of good timber, insulation and then gib board) and a one in ten chance of hitting something harder on the way through. Most of the time the harder material might add a D6 to the DR but there is a slim chance a piece of heavy steel might be in the way.
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Last edited by (E); 09-25-2017 at 08:54 PM.
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Old 09-25-2017, 09:00 PM   #5
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Default Re: Walls

Note, that sheetrock (wallboard, drystone, etc), though stone, should not be treated as Homogeneous or Amorphous.
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Old 09-25-2017, 09:04 PM   #6
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But it is homogenous. It just has cruddy HP for its weight (and probably HT).
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Old 09-25-2017, 09:11 PM   #7
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Default Re: Walls

When I lived in Houston, the gangs had a thing for shooting into each other's houses at knee height, figuring they'd get the kids (as happened once in a while). They'd use AK-47s. So an AK-47 does enough damage to kill through the wall of a house. I don't suppose those walls had more than about DR 10.
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Old 09-26-2017, 03:40 PM   #8
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Default Re: Walls

The series mythbusters had an episode devoted to shooting through walls, a 9mm fired from a pistol went through only fractionally slowed.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth...s_(2015_season) episode; supernatural shooters.
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Old 09-26-2017, 04:29 PM   #9
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Default Re: Walls

Standard modern house exterior wall here would be brick veneer. That would be a brick, 0.5" chipboard/beaverboard, 9" fiberglass batting, 0.5" drywall.

Standard old house exterior wall would be "double brick". Two bricks (three for the ground floor), ~3" of crappy insulation, 0.5" wood lath, ~0.5" of horse hair and plaster.

Used to be different, but every apartment/condo built since the early 70's, units are separated by at least 4" of reinforced concrete.
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Old 09-26-2017, 04:42 PM   #10
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Purple Haze View Post
Used to be different, but every apartment/condo built since the early 70's, units are separated by at least 4" of reinforced concrete.
I'll accept that. My first hand knowledge of apartments comes being a repair man (in the 90's) to several communities built back in the 40-50's.
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