11-15-2018, 06:08 PM | #1 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Buffalo, New York
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Reality testing bullets on a pine tree
Hello Folks,
I'm guessing that the range firing bullets from rifles into a tree capable (barely) of providing cover for a man standing sideways adjacent to the tree - was about 15 feet. Firing his bullets from .22 caliber on up to a .50 caliber, the shooter presenting the video asks "Which bullets would you expect to be able to penetrate the tree and hit "Bill" (the ballistics Geletin torso). Pretty cool video if you ask me. Best of all, you get an idea of how much stopping power a tree has when it comes to certain bullets. Not going to spoil it for you, but at a guess, assuming a 2' diameter tree, GURPS CAMPAIGNS page 559 gives a cover DR of .5 to 1 per inch of wood. Based on that, DR should be between 12 to 24. Watch the youtube video titled Shooting THROUGH trees! PUBG in real life. Either search on that, or go HERE to view the video. :) |
11-16-2018, 03:25 AM | #2 |
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: Ronneby, Sweden
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Re: Reality testing bullets on a pine tree
Interesting video, love how enthusiastic the guy is. :)
Also notable for trees as cover, the penetrating bullets deflected a lot. I guess because trees are not all that uniform inside depending on how good different years was (i.e. ring density)? |
11-16-2018, 10:37 AM | #3 |
Hero of Democracy
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: far from the ocean
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Re: Reality testing bullets on a pine tree
I'd still rather have a tree between me and the .50 cal than no tree!
The intermediate riffles should be doing 5d to 7d in gurps, or just over 20 points of damage. High Tech doesn't actually list many .50 caliber riffles, but the TL8 .50 cal it does list does about twice that. I think the results agree mostly with the rules, though the tree is a little tougher or the bullets a little weaker. The deflection on the bullets is crazy, I agree, and they won't be very aerodynamic afterwards. I'm not surprised at how well the tree worked as a backstop. I was taught to make backstops from cardboard boxes stuffed with densely packed newspaper, and that's very similar to a tree. We but those in front of hills and were a lot more careful when shooting the big stuff, but I'm not surprised at the tree's star performance at all. Wood is a lot tougher than flesh.
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11-16-2018, 06:47 PM | #4 |
Join Date: Feb 2016
Location: Melbourne, Australia (also known as zone Brisbane)
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Re: Reality testing bullets on a pine tree
That was pretty cool, we are not allowed to do that in Australia (fire a 0.5 calibre).
When I was in the army we could fire 5.56 and 7.62 rounds through logs that size but they were dried out, which seems to make a big difference!
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11-16-2018, 06:52 PM | #5 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Buffalo, New York
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Re: Reality testing bullets on a pine tree
Good to know - dried trees seem to offer less Cover DR. Now if only we could find someone on the internet to test this out empirically. ;)
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11-16-2018, 07:03 PM | #6 |
Join Date: Feb 2016
Location: Melbourne, Australia (also known as zone Brisbane)
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Re: Reality testing bullets on a pine tree
The 5.56 rounds would normally exit at weird angles, the 7.62 rounds would more or less go straight through.
The rule of thumb for the Australian infantry was if you could wrap your arms around the trunk of a tree then don’t rely on it offering enough cover.
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The stick you just can't throw away. |
11-16-2018, 08:23 PM | #7 |
Join Date: Jul 2014
Location: New Zealand.
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Re: Reality testing bullets on a pine tree
Hide behind a buloke maybe
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Waiting for inspiration to strike...... And spending too much time thinking about farming for RPGs Contributor to Citadel at Nordvörn |
11-17-2018, 12:24 AM | #8 |
Join Date: Aug 2018
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Re: Reality testing bullets on a pine tree
If any of these bullets penetrated more DR than their damage suggests they were capable of, perhaps they had Armor Divisors? Those do apply to cover DR.
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