Realistic Human DR

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Based on the blowthrough damage rules, a point of damage should something like 1/2" to 3/4" of an inch of flesh (with some variance for type of tissue), meaning a point of DR is 3-4 lb/sf (this is far worse than leather). The difference is likely water content.

I think when I did the analysis it was more like 1 point of damage corresponding to 1 inch of flesh (average human provides Cover DR of 10; average man has a chest depth of 10 inches), although corresponding to a bit more (most hits would probably have the target standing at an angle, and also 1 point of GURPS damage seems to correspond to more than an inch of ballistic gelatin penetration, despite the latter being meant to simulate the human body) would make more sense; corresponding to markedly less would mean the target should give more Cover DR than GURPS assumes. Of course, that means the DR has an even higher weight per area.

As for being worse than leather, I think it's also important to keep in mind that leather is made from skin, and I believe fat and muscle are much less resistant to penetration than skin is (I think I've seen estimates that you need to subtract something like an inch of penetration from most ballistic gelatin tests to account for the resistance of skin, but I could be misremembering - or simply misinformed - here), so naturally a composite of skin, muscle, and fat is going to provide less DR for a given weight and surface area than something made from treated skin alone.