RE: [HoE] Some Thoughts on Ammo

[John Phelps <pbguru@concentric.net>]

On 9/15/98 18:38, Damon Harper (nomad74@hotmail.com) was rumored to have 
uttered

>>I don't know for certain if the tumbling of the 5.56 round is military
>>myth or not but I suspect it's entirely possible for such a light 
>bullet
>>to tumble after impact.  As an aside in the AK-74, rumor had it that 
>the
>>bullet had traces of arsenic (sp?) or cyanide.  

The "tumbling" is a military myth.  I read a detailed study where the 
testers fired several different types of ammunition at stacks of 
ballistic gel (which mimics the composition and density of human flesh), 
and took high speed pictures of the impacts.

All bullets flip over once in the human body - the wound track through 
the body shows a tear the length of the bullet, and the bullet comes out 
of the body backwards.  Hydrostatic shock does most of the damage, and 
the resiliency (sp?) of the human body creates a "rebound" effect to 
close the wounds back down to smaller holes.

I heard the same rumor about the AK-74 (which uses 5.45 mm ammunition), 
it was started by the Afghan rebels.  If it did have some kind of poison, 
it would probably not be effective in such small doses.  I'll see if I 
can find more about this if anyone is interested.

>  IIRC, the AK-47 uses 7.62mm as well.  The same as the M-14 and the 
>M-60 machine gun.

The AK-47 uses 7.62mm S ammo - the S is for "short".  It was a special 
Russian round, and is not compatible with 7.62 NATO ammunition.  The 
AK-74 is the newer rifle, and uses a 5.45mm round.  The lighter round 
allows more to be carried by the grunts, and provides better recoil 
control (the same reasons the US switched to 5.56mm).


So, this is my first post to the list.  :)   I just purchased Hell on 
Earth last week, and I think some of the folks locally are interested in 
trying it out.  We like post-holocaust games, and this one has some 
interesting twists.  I don't know much about Deadlands itself, but I'm 
learning about that one too.

Not sure what you folks use for intro, so I'll skip it, feel free to ask 
questions.  :)

Happy gaming!

John

************************************************************************
John Phelps       ****  preferred address - pbguru at concentric dot net

Impossible missions?  Hah, nothing is impossible given enough plastique!
Murphy's Law of Combat # 66:
        The enemy is never watching until you make a mistake.