[UA] Unknown Skills

[Judson Lester]

On Monday, March 10, 2003, at 02:30 PM, Rayburn, Russell E. wrote:
>
> The diameter of this crush cavity is, at least, the diameter of the 
> shaft of
> the projectile.  Now I'm not enough of a geek to know the diameter of 
> the
> average arrow / crossbow bolt off the top of my head, but 1/4" (6.35mm)
> seems reasonable.  This compares with the 5.56mm round of the M-16.
> Admittedly, the 5.56mm has a much higher velocity, yet both 
> projectiles can
> penetrate a human torso.

Do I not recall correctly that the crush cavity is the tissue damaged 
and destroyed around the permanent wound channel?  Isn't it, then, 
necessarily larger than the diameter of the projectile (unless the 
projectile is traveling extremely fast, or is very hot or something 
like that, so as to obliterate tissue without tearing it from adjoining 
tissue and so deforming it)?  I can see the argument that the firearm 
round has a larger crush cavity because it relies on kinetic energy to 
penetrate rather than length - there's an ancient physics chestnut that 
demonstrates that projectiles can only enter a body (in the physics 
"block of stuff" sense) up to twice their length before slowing to a 
stop.

>
> In short (yeah, I know... too late), I'd give crossbows and bows fire 
> arm
> damage, but would impose significant negative shifts (say ... -20% or 
> -30%)
> to any target farther than 30 meters.
>

Actually, why not just give them a damage cap equal to the Body of the 
archer?  (...times rounds to cock in the case of a crossbow - so a 
heavy crossbow that takes a 4 rounds to wind back would have a cap of 
Body x 4.)



_______________________________________________
UA mailing list
UA at lists.uchicago.edu
http://lists.uchicago.edu/mailman/listinfo/ua