Bullets: Overpenetration, Tumbling, Traveling

[(E)]

Originally Posted by acrosome

And you would do more damage with a 9mm... That's my point, not the distance. Don't get obsessive about a single throw-away line, E. No slight was meant about your marksmanship. :)

No offense taken, I was just noting it wasn't that close in case there was an issue with the physics involved. (Point blank on a mobile animal is harder anyway, especially with a rifle)

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by acrosome

... Just as I would with a 9mm, which would do more damage and not "just over-penetrate." I'm with Tomsdad on this. ....

cheers

TD

Originally Posted by (E)

No offense taken, I was just noting it wasn't that close in case there was an issue with the physics involved. (Point blank on a mobile animal is harder anyway, especially with a rifle)

I think the fact that your firing this out of a rifle is also a factor, (the situation being discussed here is a .22 pistol).


If you don't mind me asking what are you using and what rounds? I ask because as I mentioned above the .22 round has a long history and comes in wide variety.

[(E)]

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

If you don't mind me asking what are you using and what rounds? I ask because as I mentioned above the .22 round has a long history and comes in wide variety.

Many different rifles over the years starting with a single shot TOZ-17 with a long barrel. Most recently though a Rossi break action .22* with a fairly short barrel firing 36 grain Winchester 1280 fps, hollow point. Though I have used the cheaper 32 grain federal loose box .22LR before

*youth maybe, not sure off the top of my head, same layout as a pomba, a very small and light rifle.

For the record professional home kill operators in my neck of the woods favour .22 mag. Though there is one guy who uses 7.62 russian because it is cheaper than .22 mag.

[FF_Ninja]

It's really good to see this kind of discourse. Really gives us prospective DMs a good variety of perspectives with which to flesh out our understanding.

One clarification I wanted to make. My original example of the close-ranged headshot with a silenced .22LR is actually one chosen carefully. The KGB would use suppressed .22s to selectively and quietly eliminate specific targets and threats, including (but not limited to) assassination targets and guard dogs. The concept - proven or disproved - is that a .22LR, when suppressed, is barely audible and easy to hide in any sort of background noise; moreover, the shot only has enough power to penetrate one side of the skull but not the other, leading the remainder of the round's energy to travel or tumble inside the skull, which leads to shock, internal bleeding, and severe brain damage (and inevitably death).

Back when I was in the Army, we saw the same general principle of overpen in the field. A clean through-and-through shot was pretty much the best case scenario: the round had little time and room to tumble (if it tumbled at all, usually a clean shot implies the round tunneled through and kept going) and didn't catch on a bone, travel, then lodge somewhere.

At close range in the original example, a higher velocity round would be capable of doing just that. Yes, it would most definitely kill a target, and yes, executions were often handled with higher caliber rounds, but the specific combination of limited penetration, internal damage, and ease of suppression made the .22LR the round of choice for clean and silent kills and assassinations.

The 4x modifier once a round bypasses the first 2 DR of the skull well-represent the severe damage a bullet causes to the brain, including that from the aforementioned hydro-static shock. Unless you shoot someone directly through (or opposite of) the eye socket, though, there's two layers of DR to get through - front and back. If the round doesn't have the power to consistently punch through both sides of the skull, then the remainder of the round's energy conceivably has to go somewhere.

As a GM, I might rule that a close-range shot to the head which inflicted more than twice the skull's DR would enter one side and leave out the opposite. Under that, though, you'd have a round lodged in the brain (though not until it had the chance to do a little sight-seeing). How much impact that "sight-seeing" would have in the game system, I don't know.

Incidentally, a lot of these situations would never see the light of day on a the tabletop, but as GURPS arguably prides itself with being effectively the most realistic tabletop simulation, these questions pop up!

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by FF_Ninja

The concept - proven or disproved - is that a .22LR, when suppressed, is barely audible and easy to hide in any sort of background noise; moreover, the shot only has enough power to penetrate one side of the skull but not the other, leading the remainder of the round's energy to travel or tumble inside the skull, which leads to shock, internal bleeding, and severe brain damage (and inevitably death).

I think it's more likely to simply stop at the back of the skull than to bounce around like some gory pinball. Also, the brain is something of a special case where hydrostatic shock actually can do more damage (the brain doesn't have anywhere to go, so the temporary cavity causes it to get crushed inside the skull), and as higher-powered rounds see more extensive temporary cavities, it follows that they are going to do more injury. There may be some threshold where a little bit more power allows the round to exit the skull and actually decreases wounding due to alleviating pressure or something similar, but if it exists it's probably going to be so narrow as to be functionally ignorable.
The reason the silenced .22 was used was simply that it was a stealthy method that was at or above the minimum threshold of "This typically works," with a side benefit of "Wow these rounds are cheap."

Originally Posted by FF_Ninja

Back when I was in the Army, we saw the same general principle of overpen in the field. A clean through-and-through shot was pretty much the best case scenario: the round had little time and room to tumble (if it tumbled at all, usually a clean shot implies the round tunneled through and kept going) and didn't catch on a bone, travel, then lodge somewhere.

A clean through-and-through shot would probably be represented in GURPS by a low dice roll on damage. As I understand it, higher energy rounds are more likely to tumble and fragment than low energy ones, and often tumbling (and similar) is more a function of distance and density than time.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by FF_Ninja

The concept - proven or disproved - is that a .22LR, when suppressed, is barely audible and easy to hide in any sort of background noise;

Basically true. The unsuppressed round itself is very low energy and doesn't contain that much powder. The subsonic loads don't have the downstream "crack" from a supersonic bullet. I imagine these are very, very quiet.

moreover, the shot only has enough power to penetrate one side of the skull but not the other,

Likely true, because it's a low energy, low mass, low momentum round that is basically lead with a copper wash even in the "jacketed" version (not a real jacket). It will deform and be less likely to exit, but no guarantees, esp since the skull is designed against external trauma.

leading the remainder of the round's energy to travel or tumble inside the skull, which leads to shock, internal bleeding, and severe brain damage (and inevitably death).

Brain injuries and especially brain bleeding are bad news in general. If the initial passage isn't instantly fatal or disabling, any residual bleeding likely will be. People have survived some remarkable trauma to the skull and brain, though, so no guarantees.

the specific combination of limited penetration, internal damage, and ease of suppression made the .22LR the round of choice for clean and silent kills and assassinations.

Which is a pretty specialized case, of course. The key being more-or-less contact application here. You set the base of the gun on the head, and make a Telegraphic All-Out Attack for +8 against a -7 target and just attack at Guns +1, which is pretty good. Real people don't game-mechanic, of course, but the overall message applies. Place muzzle on base of skull or template, pull trigger, depart area. Odds are target is down and either dead or dying.

The 4x modifier once a round bypasses the first 2 DR of the skull well-represent the severe damage a bullet causes to the brain, including that from the aforementioned hydro-static shock.

Gah. 'Temporary cavity' for this one. Even if hydrostatic shock is a real thing, the precise application of the term is for remote injuries, not proximal ones.

the remainder of the round's energy conceivably has to go somewhere.

There are lots of ways to harmlessly dissipate energy in a medium, so this is a bit of a red herring for damage. Moving things around and having them return to their original place undamaged and undisplaced is a great way to spend energy to no lethal purpose.

That being said, a bullet to the brain is on the list of ways that can actually drop (kill) someone right the heck now, do not pass go, do not collect $200. This stands in sharp contrast to nearly every other trauma mechanism, which can be instantly incapacitating for many reasons, but not instantly deadly.

[weby]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

Basically true. The unsuppressed round itself is very low energy and doesn't contain that much powder. The subsonic loads don't have the downstream "crack" from a supersonic bullet. I imagine these are very, very quiet.

They are.

I live in a house on the edge of small forest type park on a quiet street and yet none of the neighbors have even reacted to my crow hunts in the 20+ years I have been living here. Basically the crows are pests that want to eat all the berries in my bushes despite the nets, to keep that to minimum I shoot a few crows every summer. I use a .22 single shot pistol with subsonic ammunition and a baffle type suppressor. The sound volume is really low, I do not think anyone who is not listening to such would hear it on say a busy street downtown.

[HANS]

.22-calibre pistols and to a lesser extent, .22 rifles, have been used a LONG time for assassination purposes. The reason, however, is not that the round is particularily effective, but rather that sound suppressors for large calibre pistols did not work well until well into the 1980s. In other words, the .22s used by the OSS, SOE, CIA, SEALs, mafia etc were selected purely on basis of suitable firing platforms, not because anyone thought -- Heh, we need to use the least powerful round available, that will reliably kill people! Also, .22 pistols were practically the only ones that worked reliably on semiautomatic, ensuring several shots, which you do need. Professional killers never put just one round into the brain, but three or four. Because, well, the .22 CAN kill you, but it's not known for reliably doing that.
The KGB and the Chinese, now, they didn't use the .22 at all, for all that we know, instead they acquired special-purpose designs in larger calibres (many of them derringers) or used poison pellets in air guns.

Cheers

HANS

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by FF_Ninja

It's really good to see this kind of discourse. Really gives us prospective DMs a good variety of perspectives with which to flesh out our understanding.

Cheers, I hope it's been helpful!

Originally Posted by FF_Ninja

One clarification I wanted to make. My original example of the close-ranged headshot with a silenced .22LR is actually one chosen carefully. The KGB would use suppressed .22s to selectively and quietly eliminate specific targets and threats, including (but not limited to) assassination targets and guard dogs. The concept - proven or disproved - is that a .22LR, when suppressed, is barely audible and easy to hide in any sort of background noise; moreover, the shot only has enough power to penetrate one side of the skull but not the other, leading the remainder of the round's energy to travel or tumble inside the skull, which leads to shock, internal bleeding, and severe brain damage (and inevitably death).

Back when I was in the Army, we saw the same general principle of overpen in the field. A clean through-and-through shot was pretty much the best case scenario: the round had little time and room to tumble (if it tumbled at all, usually a clean shot implies the round tunneled through and kept going) and didn't catch on a bone, travel, then lodge somewhere.

At close range in the original example, a higher velocity round would be capable of doing just that. Yes, it would most definitely kill a target, and yes, executions were often handled with higher caliber rounds, but the specific combination of limited penetration, internal damage, and ease of suppression made the .22LR the round of choice for clean and silent kills and assassinations.

The 4x modifier once a round bypasses the first 2 DR of the skull well-represent the severe damage a bullet causes to the brain, including that from the aforementioned hydro-static shock. Unless you shoot someone directly through (or opposite of) the eye socket, though, there's two layers of DR to get through - front and back. If the round doesn't have the power to consistently punch through both sides of the skull, then the remainder of the round's energy conceivably has to go somewhere.

As a GM, I might rule that a close-range shot to the head which inflicted more than twice the skull's DR would enter one side and leave out the opposite. Under that, though, you'd have a round lodged in the brain (though not until it had the chance to do a little sight-seeing). How much impact that "sight-seeing" would have in the game system, I don't know.

Incidentally, a lot of these situations would never see the light of day on a the tabletop, but as GURPS arguably prides itself with being effectively the most realistic tabletop simulation, these questions pop up!

Right I think the overall point to make here is .22 suppressed gives you advantages in sound suppression, and the general realities of a bullet getting past your skull pretty much makes up for the lower energy of the round and it's usual terminal ballistics. That lower energy being a large part of it is suitability to be suppressed.

It's a trade off, you can also fire it from some pretty odd platforms (see various weird and wonderful Cold war / OSS created close range stealthy assassination devices. But it is a trade off, you need very careful shot placement to make the trade off work, there is no special benefit the .22 bring to brain hits*.

Of course as was mentioned earlier, extra bullets make a less certain thing more certain (both in real life and GURPS).



EDIT: basically what HANS just said!



Just quickly I wouldn't put what is in effect an over penetration rule in place with skull hits.

As any bullet that can penetrate 2x 2DR sides of a skull is basically any bullet that can do 4 damage. (leaving aside AD's).

The point is due to the nature of the brain and how sensitive we are to damage to it, those higher energy wounds going through and through are still transferring enough energy to really ruin your day.




Now it's true people have survived massive brain trauma (Robert Lawrence has to be the prime example, sniper removed 43% of his brain in the Falklands). But the precise nature of the damage and the ability to survive is so specific here I really think in system terms this is the province of critical success roles, luck advantage etc, rather than being baked into the general expectations of the damage resolution system.


That said while it would be an extremely unlikely result that you could just about recreate this in GURPS if say the 7.62 was over half range and/or the sniper rolled extremely poorly on his damage, Lawrence got critical success on his bleeding roll. Truly an exceptional combination of unlikely game results, but let's face it was an exceptional result!

(you can't even argue for a 'grazing rule' to help as the bullet went in through the back of his head and exited at his hairline above his eye).


Ultimately we often get note worthy due to extreme results news stories in these kind of threads ala "it's a miracle they lived" kind of way. I don't think they are very useful in discussing a general expectation of a system, Personally I think a system where those extreme result are possible if not likely is fine, I don't look to set my expectation of average system result by them.
Especially as the system has more tangential way to replicate such lucky and extreme results, the basic wound system being their to provide results that are generally expected.


Sorry this last has wandered a bit off topic, but IME such news stories taken out of context are a bit of a pitfall of these threads.



*although you could argue at pi- it sees a 8x increase in damage under the rules which is proportionally higher than that seen with larger rounds, but the larger rounds will still be doing more damage in total.

[Phoenix_Dragon]

While a .22LR can be deadly, the idea that it's more deadly than more powerful rounds is laughable. The stories of a .22 bouncing around in the skull are much more myth than reality. You might luck out and have it deflect off part of the skull and travel in a different path, or scrape along the inside of the skull, but you're much more likely to leave a thin little .22-inch hole straight through to where the bullet stopped dead against the bone on the opposite side.

Meanwhile, a more powerful round will cause much more reliable damage. A simple 9mm travelling straight through will pass through a volume almost three times larger than the .22, without the concerns of being stopped by the skull, not to mention leaving a much larger hole (And possibly even two) exposing the inside of the cranium.

Do that with the .308 you mention, and the result will be not a .308 hole clean through the head, but instead a good portion of the brain and skull departing from the owner. Look up JFK if you really need a graphic visual of what a high-power rifle does to the human head.

.22LR's "advantage" wasn't that it was particularly lethal, but that it's so low-powered that it's easy to suppress, with a weapon that's very small.