[SGVLUG] hp tech support! - take this!!!

[Dustin Laurence]

On Wed, Jul 11, 2007 at 05:04:18PM -0700, Michael Proctor-Smith wrote:
> 
> Risking the the reeducation squad and the epa I have to say from
> personal experiance that for "spectacular display of dismantlement",
> throwing a printer off a multi-story building on to pavement is a way
> better show then shooting one.

There's still nothing better than a nice blackpowder charge though.

> ...Plus I don't have much experiance with
> soft targets, but I have used millary hollow-points (wierd in that
> they where hollow point riffle ammo with a steel cores, but again they
> were of soviet design). They did make bigger holes but still just
> holes in the metal and wood object that we were shooting at.

That's all bullets are supposed to do--make holes in things that need
to have holes put in them. :-)

That said, if said object in need of holes is a soft target the exit
wound can be quite large.  That's why nobody uses military rounds for
hunting; they're far too likely to wound an animal and let it run off
bleeding from a puncture wound, because the puncture is small.
Mushrooming bullets kill by shock, because the hole *isn't* small.  Part
(only part) of the reason muzzleloader calibers run so large is that
balls don't really expand well, so the bullet already needs to be large
for maximum shock.  (The other reason is the atrocious sectional density
of spheres, of course.)

THis is related to a small theory of mine that I've never seen verified,
but I'm convinced of it nevertheless.  "Rules of war" rarely are obeyed
unless they don't inconvenience the war too much.  "Humane bullets" that
don't expand are more convenient for military purposes than it seems,
because killing a soldier in an army that cares for it's wounded is
rather inefficient.  It creates one casualty.  *Wounding* a soldier not
only creates the same casualty, it consumes considerable resources in
evacuation and medical treatment.  So "humane bullets" are not so much
of a sacrifice after all, *if the opponent has sufficiently high
standards of casualty care*.

One way to test this is to find out where the Russians wanted to use the
"poison bullet"--I seem to recall it was in Afganistan against irregular
troops who did *not* have to support medical or evacuation resources.
(For those that don't know, the Russians managed to design a bullet that
was unstable enough to tumble on contact with a soft target, and a
bullet ploughing sideways has much of the effect of an expanded bullet
without having to expand.)  Also I wonder who else has tried this.
Widely deploying unstable bullets for use against a regular Western army
(which has a high casualty care burden) would more or less disprove the
hypothesis.

Dustin

-- 
    "Intolerance?  The *truth* is intolerant." -- le Faux

The small binary attachment on every message I send is my PGP digital
signature, not a virus.  If you don't know what that is, you can ignore it.
If you do, my keyserver is pgp.mit.edu.
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