In his With a Machine Gun to Cambrai George Coppard gives the following list for penetration by a .303 bullet:

clay 60 inches
earth 40
loose sand 30
sandbags 18
oak 38
dry turf, 80.

Does anyone know if he is correct?

Cheers,
Nathan

Don't know if it is correct or not but there is also a set of figures given in the Field Service Pocket Book in the section on trenches and field works which may be useful for comparison.

Don't see any reason to doubt George. He does, after all, have the tee-shirt! Squirrel is, however, correct but the Field Service Pocket Book goes into things even more finely:

Steel plate, best.........................................7/16"
Steel plate, ordinary mild, or wrought iron....3/4"
Shingle......................................................6"
Coal, hard..................................................6"
Brickwork, cement mortar............................9"
Brickwork, lime mortar.................................14"
Chalk.........................................................15"
Sand, between boards or in sandbags............18"
Sand, loose..................................................30"
Hard wood, e.g. oak......................................38"
Earth, free from stones (unrammed)..............40"
Soft wood, e.g. fir.........................................58"
Clay............................................................60"
Dry turf or peat............................................80"

Failing that - duck!

Cheers,

Ian

I would have thought myself relatively safe behind 3' of solid oak..

How many ducks would it take to stop a bullet then?

Figures seem to fit; I recall seeing an infantry section (in the early 70s) chop down a fairly mature fir tree with a GPMG. It was done as an object lesson in choosing cover from fire.

With reference to the "brickwork lime mortar 14 inches".

Wouldn't that be a 13 1/2 inch wall?

Or did they have different size bricks in those days?

All these figures for "shingle" and "dry peat" are all very well, but what's the figure for "human"?

It is a serious (ish) question

John

The Field Service Pocket Book (1914) is silent on the subject of the human body as a material for field engineering.

Ian

Ian

Any guesses?

The question in my mind was how many men (if more than one) might a single bullet kill, having passed through the first body, etc.

John

It would depend on the range and how close the men were together.

I am sure one of the Lee Enfield experts would be able to tell us.

Hi John,

A musician, I'm afraid, not an armourer or ballistics expert: so not even a wild guess from me. (Better keep silent and have people think you are a fool than speak and have them know you are!)

You can bet your boots that someone will rise to the bait.

Cheers,

Ian

Yes, here I am, duty fool!

Human body mostly made of water, so, unless round strikes sinew or bone, it could go through a lot of men ..... just imagine a bullet through muddy water!

But human beings have rather a lot more in them than muddy water. A bullet passing through flesh will lose some of its velocity although the likelihood is that it might be abe to pass through a few people but eventually resistance would stop it.
JGM

from a Google:

Within single human body cells water content ranges between 70 and
85%. The percent water in the entire body by weight varies with age, sex,
and physical conditioning. Heart and lung contain the most water, about
80%. Fat (about 20%) and bone (about 43%) are among the
lowest. Therefore, the total body is an average of all organs, blood, and
extracellular fluids. Several physiology texts place average young men at
60% water, and young women at 50% water, the difference due to relatively
more fat in females. Thus, a 70 kg young man has about 42 kg (or 42
liters) or water. With age fat increases and muscle decreases, so that in
old age the body may contain only 45% water. Infants, by contrast, average
73% or more.

It takes very little to deflect the path of a bullet within the human body, particularly within the trunk.

In fact water stops a bullet very effectively. Think of all the tests you have seen on television where they are going to match the marks on a bullet from a criminal's gun with that of the bullet in at a murder; they fire it into a tank of water.

I have seen a test by some maniacs here on TV in the USA called Mythbusters where they tested the "myth" in movies that the heroe gets away from the bad guys firing weapons by diving under water. The surprise result was that it worked. The bullet from a 303 rifle was stopped in about 18", provided that there was any kind of an angle of entry. When the angle was a fairly exact 90 degrees it went to about 24".

None of the figures in previous postings state at what range the penetrations were tested. Does that mean, I wonder, that a bullet travels at the same velocity at point blank range as it does at 500 yards?

Regds

Thanks.
NMG

John.

The most graphic answer to this that I can give is...5.

(headshots with a Mauser Kar. 98 at point blank range into a row of adult males standing in single file almost touching each other - no details on a body shot).

Please don't ask me my source of this information - he is still alive and now enjoys a , well deserved, peaceable existance.

dave

Err, thanks mate. I think.

No, I'll not ask any more. I would not wish to upset this chap.

John

I'll explain all on Tuesday if you wish, so long as it stays out of public view.He had no qualms in describing what he's seen and done to interested parties, but I don't wish to give him any extra undeserving grief by posting details on this forum (which I know can be pretty blinkered at times).

Dave.

Not 'alf.

And, yes, of course I'll keep me gob shut. Need you ask?

John

Seriously interesting thread - I am staggered at the figure of over 3 foot of solid oak tree !!!
Anyway what would I know
Glyn

Yes they did, the length and the width of the common brick has remained fairly constant over the centuries, but the depth has varied from about two inches (about 50 mm) or smaller in earlier times to about two-and-one-half inches (about 65 mm) in more recent times. Of course that would make any difference to the penetration, the width being about the same size.

This is an an interesting article on the affect of AK47 rounds.

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/usr/wbardwel/..._aw_report2.txt

Penetration would depend on the distance, what is the optimum range for a SMLE? (not maximum range).

I can remember in the mid 80's a RUC officer being hit from a fair distance by several 9mm rounds from a SMG which just penetrated his overcoat.

Mick

Beats me after reading all these statistics, how the soldier’s bible, princess Mary's Christmas tin, etc, I have often read about, seemed on occasions to stop a bullet.

John.

As has been said, even an overcoat might stop a bullet if it was fired from far enough away!

Ian

Ian, could you tell me what is far enough away ...I haven't got a clue.....Although I think have read somewhere that men could be killed up to a mile away from where the shot was fired.

John.

I refer you to post #13

However, the trusty Field Service Pocket Book does say that the maximum range may be taken as about 3,700 yards.

Ian

Ive seen a gimpy cut through breeze blocks - scary stuff

Ian

Hello

Off on a slight tangent

Any one seen Mythbusters on SKY (discovery ?)

They had an episode where they fired various calibre rifles into water - I think the penetration was very poor - the 50 calibre was ineffective after 3 feet ....

Ian

So just over two miles, the killing range should be easily one mile then???....Like you Ian, I am no ballistics expert.

John.

Out of interest when would a helmet stop a bullet? I am thinking quite a distance away from the guns.
JGM

Hello

I think the helmet was to stop shrapnel etc..... and to boil water in....

Ian

Er.. seems even senior officers don't always read the previous posts.
See my earlier submission.
Regards

That sounds like it should start "I say, I say, I say..."

When it hit at an angle? I doubt a perpendicular hit would be stopped at any normal range, but that was why the Brodie was such a flat pan shape, to increase the likelihood that any strike would be at a flat angle.

Think tank armour.

Regarding human bodies and water and such, as has been mentioned, there is plenty of non-watery stuff to deflect a bullet, start it tumbling and lose most of its penetrative ability. Since the function of a bullet is to transmit as much energy as possible into the target, this is a "good thing", though it makes issues of "penetration" a bit meaningless.

To reiterate in more gruesome tones: A bullet that punches a neat hole in you and exits while retaining some of its energy increases the chances of simple surgery saving your life. A bullet that penetrates, starts to tumble and stays in you has transferred all its energy (with all that entails for damage to neighbouring organs) will probably require more surgery to fix - to pick out the fragments if nothing else. Whether that results in more immediate fatalities (from worse wounds) or more resources tied up in caring for those severe wounds, it a win-win situation for the shooter.

It's related to the trend towards smaller calibre ammo. There are several reasons (cost, weight etc) but one is definitely that a small calibre round does a better job of transferring its energy to the target.

The link I posted earlier on this thread doesnt seem to have been read by many, lovely explanation of penetration by full metal jacketed rounds....kill rates of AK47 compared to shotguns. Although some of the casulaties were chidren so body disruption patterns might be different.

Mick

No.

Finding a formula to calculate this took up a great deal of my time as a schoolboy, and eventually (much later) I just bought a computer program on the internet.


FYI, the Textbook of Small Arms 1929 gives the remaining velocity at 500 yards for the MkVII bullet (174 grains or 11.34 grams, 2440fps at the muzzle) as 1500fps; at 1000 yards, 1000fps; at 1500yd, 800fps; at 2000 yards, 600fps. There are complicated laws regulating all of this, the important factor being that the rate of loss of velocity is directly proportional to the velocity times some constant. The nature of that constant changes with the shape of the bullet (blunt versus round-nosed versus various degrees of pointy-ness) and changes drastically below the speed of sound.

Note the almost 1000fps velocity loss in the first 500 yards, the 500fps lost down to just under the speed of sound (around 1100fps under standard sea level conditions), and the mere 200fps lost in each of the last two 500 yard steps to the magic 2000 yard mark. At 2500 yards, the figure is 430fps; at 3000, 300fps, showing that the loss rate of velocity continues to fall off with reducing speed. At 300fps, the bullet will still yield a nasty wound; at 430fps, it is carrying enough energy to penetrate into the body and to kill with a lucky shot. Nobody wants to risk this.

The .303 MkVII round had a feature which had the effect of enhancing its energy delivery to the target; the tip of the bullet was filled with a low-density material (by design, aluminium, though substitutes were tried). On striking the target, the back end (where the centre of gravity was) would try to become the front end, encouraging the bullet to tumble and thereby to slow down and dump more energy into the target. This does not eliminate the possibility of pass-through.

While not germane to WW1 discussions, the MkVIII boat-tailed bullet, which came along later, had many of its advantages in the subsonic realm, altering the value of that velocity-loss multiplier and extending its range hugely, while in WW2, firing tests to determine damage done to aircraft at LONG range were performed at very SHORT range (to ensure hits and not waste valuable trials time) with cartridges that had to be deliberately underloaded to produce a lower striking velocity.

So............let me get this right. If I stand 500 yards away it wont hurt?

Ian

Oops - - sorry -- I know who the other viewer is now..great program

At risk of stating the obvious, the force Justin describes, but didn't label unless I missed it, is usually called 'drag' - Wikipedia has some quite good articles on it for the uninitiated (they are a bit technical, though). It changes with the square of the velocity (ie double the speed = 4 times the drag), hence the massively larger "velocity-loss multiplier" at higher fps.

Coefficent of drag is determined mainly by the shape of the bullet, and pointed/round-nosed bullets will have differing characteristics at different speeds (esp depending on supersonic/subsonic velocities). The boat tail design of the Mark VIII reduces wake turbulence, and therefore drag, and is particularly important at subsonic velocities, extending the range without requiring an increase in muzzle velocity.

That Mark VII sounds nasty - almost a dum-dum bullet by stealth. Were any concerns voiced about whether it was suitable ammo for gentlemen to shoot each other, or only to be used on "fuzzie-wuzzies"?

I was told by someone who should know, that a sub machine gun bullet fired from a distance of 6 feet to 10 feet would not pass through a blanket held up losely in front of someone.

I would assume a SMG round would be the 9mm para, 6 to 10 feet is about 2-4 meters (give or take a few cm's), average smg effective range 25-50 meters (depending on the calibre)

Thats really doesnt make sense, a 9mm round can go throught a car door so a blanket would be no problem,

most pistol shooting ranges are 25m (could be yards) in the US (i think) and have paper targets, if a 9mm round can go through the paper target @ 25 meters a blanket at 2-4 meters should be easy.

i would recomend that he doesnt try this theory of his without proper armour, and a paramedic on standby

Cheers
Garron

I have heard about this one as well, the blanket is suspended from a line but not fixed at the bottom, allegedly. The bloke who told me about it said it was part of a demonstration at the SASC at Warminster.

The Oak quoted would be fresh. Seriously aged Oak turns to a material similar to iron eg you can't even hammer a nail into it!

Helmets do not stop bullets. My father (WWII) had one go through his helmet and out again. Fortunately not low down enough to hit him. Unlike in the films, his helmet stayed on but he may have had it strapped on as he was a glider pilot. It was however painful to remove the helmet after as the rough edges of the in hole caught on his hair.

He could aslo have testified to the way bullets go through human flesh and the awful mess they make on exit!

Loose blankets have been demonstrated to be defensive as have curtains. They are the best defence against being cut to ribbons when the windows are shattered by a bomb. They absorb the impact of glass and most of it falls in a heap adjacent the window.

Doug

so a bullet can go through a a iron car but not a blanket thats suspended on a wire, thats some what confusing and hard to comprehend.

still really I wouldnt want to test that,

Garron

No sort of ballistics expert, but I can understand where this is coming from. Thin sheet steel on a car is fixed - it has no give. A loose blanet might absorb the force of a bullet - the looseness is the key. I do not put myself forward for testing this theory!

Ian

I've only just come across this thread. This is reminiscent of a scene in Schindler's list where the SS is clearing the ghetto. I certainly agree that if your source was responsible for acts like that, he'd do well to keep quiet about it.

Chris C

Chris.

I didn't mention ghettos, nor did I mention that he had taken part in any of the acts of the type depicted in Schindler's List. He had witnessed such scenes, agreed, (as have many others) and has referred to events that might be regarded by some (by many) as attrocities but which, to him at the time were the accepted normality of his situation (and also pretty normal to his enemy too).

This man has suffered enormously in his life which is why I mention that he lives a "well deserved" peaceable existence nowadays. He doesn't have long left unfortunately. Some may say he will then finally pay in full for his actions (though i believe he has already done that tenfold), but I think that he will be truly happy again for the first time since 1941 when he rejoins his loved ones, all of whom he never saw again after that year.

He keeps quiet about his experiences to most because of the instant condemnation that he has recieved from many people. By your post, I think that you thought that way too?


Dave

Yes Dave I do. I believe that to waste sympathy on the perpetrators of atrocities - no matter which side they were on is to demean the memory of the victim.

That's my opinion, matter closed so far as I am concerned.

Chris C