Yet another topic about guns balance.

[CHOSENMARINE 43]

Sorry CHOSENMARINE, but no. It's total muzzle energy, so:

http://www.chuckhawk...ction_field.htm

We aren't talking about shotguns...

Really they're called shot but who wants to be a D-bag...

Based on the damage values and the fact that SD bullets are silenced IG even in non SD gun I think most values in the arma engine come from the bullets and have nothing to do with the weapon that is being used. I imagine its the same way for ARMAIII also as it seems like a fundemental basis for code that would not be changed.

This inherently messes things up for different weapon platforms that are designed to get more out of a given round, especially if a better ammo system were incorporated, ie break down magazines of the same bullets to fill others. This would not allow a dev to have different "bullets" that are IRL the same but different IG because of the platform they are going into. IE a 9mm for MP5 that does 1500 damage compared to the 9mm in an M9 that does 900 damage.

I would rather have a realistic ammo system that allows me to scavenge ammo and gives value to weapons with common ammo rather than exacting damage across weapon platforms.

Also my opinion IRL is that if you don't/can't shoot a deer with it then you really don't want to use it to shoot people. 7.62x51 just cuz 6.8 would be to hard to find after shtf.

then according to many armies around the world, 5.56x45 is perfect for deer hunting! LOL

But seriously, if we're talking about pistols and rifles, it's bullet.

[bazbake 456]

Sorry CHOSENMARINE, but no. It's total muzzle energy, so:

http://www.chuckhawk...ction_field.htm

Chuck Hawks seems to love rifles but hate math. He never once mentions the muzzle energy of the shotgun or mass of any of the projectiles he's hypothesizing about and wants us to take it on faith that merely having a denser projectile should make a weapon more dangerous. Except, while we do have to divide the muzzle energy by the 9 projectiles, he conveniently leaves out that the muzzle energy has to be high enough to make those 9 projectiles as fast out of the gate as the .45 bullet.

So, shooting a 00 shotgun shell into an animal is the equivalent of shooting it with 9 rounds from a .38 or .357. Each one of those pellets is moving at the speed of that .45 round. And while they don't have the same penetration potential, they may still go right through one side of the animal and out the other at effective range wrecking total house along the way.

Rifles are great for penetration and distance. Shotguns are good for sheer trauma.

Anyway, here you go.

Edited August 4, 2012 by BazBake

[asgkatz 0]

Kinetic energy is a poor measure of effectiveness. Compare KE= 1/2m*v^2 to momentum P=mv. Significantly different weighting of the variables, but regardless inertia and momentum are going to be extremely important because the impulse of energy is important, how long the energy is delivered over. A small high velocity round may do a lot of damage on impact but compared to a heavier slower round the delivery of KE is going to drop much more quickly. If you hit a large bone maybe, for example, the small fast round may do a lot of damage to the bone, but might fail to penetrate it and cause further damage. The heavier round might damage the bone less, but is more likely to continue through and continue its trail of damage.

[schrapple 119]

The physics of bullet don't really work in real world applications, especially considering that we are killing a make believe creature. There are to many variables to apply a formula straight to bullet damage. All they can do is try to balance gun damage as they see fit.

[bazbake 456]

The physics of bullet don't really work in real world applications, especially considering that we are killing a make believe creature. There are to many variables to apply a formula straight to bullet damage. All they can do is try to balance gun damage as they see fit.

We're not killing make believe creatures. We're killing crazy people. And not crazy people. And boars and rabbits and goats.

At the very least we can look at the type of damage that different guns do to the human body, do some observations on stopping power, and realize that the weapon tables we have are completely ass backwards and Arma II's developers are doing their best to make a bad situation worse....

Anyway, it's pretty easy to look at ballistic studies on different weapons and realize that some weapons do X damage and some weapons do Y damage and reversing the two is just wrong.

As the FBI's quantico conference on ballistics in 1987 said it best:

"The amount of energy deposited in the body by a bullet is approximately equivalent to being hit with a baseball. Tissue damage is the only physical link to incapacitation within the desired time frame, i.e., instantaneously."

AND

"Kinetic energy does not wound. Temporary cavity does not wound. The much discussed "shock" of bullet impact is a fable and "knock down" power is a myth. The critical element is penetration. The bullet must pass through the large, blood bearing organs and be of sufficient diameter to promote rapid bleeding. Penetration less than 12 inches is too little, and, in the words of two of the participants in the 1987 Wound Ballistics Workshop, "too little penetration will get you killed." Given desirable and reliable penetration, the only way to increase bullet effectiveness is to increase the severity of the wound by increasing the size of hole made by the bullet. Any bullet which will not penetrate through vital organs from less than optimal angles is not acceptable. Of those that will penetrate, the edge is always with the bigger bullet."

If a bullet can kill you, a bigger bullet will kill you better. Shotguns > .50 sniper > .45 handgun > 9mm handgun > Lee Enfield/CZ550 > 7.62 > 5.56. Bullet damage needs to be rearranged to reflect the realities of bullet trauma and stopping power and not the myths of the magical sideways rifle round and and the exaggerated dynamics of bullet fragmentation.

Anyway, more on tissue damage from bullest here.

Edited August 12, 2012 by BazBake

[xximrtwoixx 104]

Good post but I think that speed does add signifcantly to tissue damage. I do agree that a bigger round is usually always better, but when it comes to rounds there can be fundemental differences that one must consider. For instance JHP rounds will do much more tissue damage than FMJ ammo. A little JHP round like .17hmr will make such a mess of a squirrel that you only harvest half of it, but if you shot it with a .22 short/LR JHP or FMJ your getting alot more meat, even though your using alot bigger round. The .17 round breaks/expands before it even penetrates the skin, it will expand shooting pop cans, and thats why its so devastating because it is 1. fast and 2. it expands/breaks to deliver more damge than its given size.

JHP loses out to FMJ for battlefield effectiveness IMO, shooting through things is very usefull and so are small groups, and if your opponents are wearing armor/heavy clothes FMJ wins there too.

Also I do think there is such a thing as knockdown power, when you shoot an animal with a slug compared to a center fire round you see knock down power in action. I've threw and threw coyotes with .223, .308, 6.8, 6.5, .45 colt, .45 and with slugs. When you hit one with the .308 or slug they go down almost instantly and don't get up, other rounds and you'll be out looking for em. Usually have to run FMJ because of the foilage but when the corn goes down we can get out the bolts and run JHP then it doesn't matter as much on the round.

[schrapple 119]

We're not killing make believe creatures. We're killing crazy people. And not crazy people. And boars and rabbits and goats.

At the very least we can look at the type of damage that different guns do to the human body, do some observations on stopping power, and realize that the weapon tables we have are completely ass backwards and Arma II's developers are doing their best to make a bad situation worse....

Anyway, it's pretty easy to look at ballistic studies on different weapons and realize that some weapons do X damage and some weapons do Y damage and reversing the two is just wrong.

As the FBI's quantico conference on ballistics in 1987 said it best:

"The amount of energy deposited in the body by a bullet is approximately equivalent to being hit with a baseball. Tissue damage is the only physical link to incapacitation within the desired time frame, i.e., instantaneously."

AND

"Kinetic energy does not wound. Temporary cavity does not wound. The much discussed "shock" of bullet impact is a fable and "knock down" power is a myth. The critical element is penetration. The bullet must pass through the large, blood bearing organs and be of sufficient diameter to promote rapid bleeding. Penetration less than 12 inches is too little, and, in the words of two of the participants in the 1987 Wound Ballistics Workshop, "too little penetration will get you killed." Given desirable and reliable penetration, the only way to increase bullet effectiveness is to increase the severity of the wound by increasing the size of hole made by the bullet. Any bullet which will not penetrate through vital organs from less than optimal angles is not acceptable. Of those that will penetrate, the edge is always with the bigger bullet."

If a bullet can kill you, a bigger bullet will kill you better. Shotguns > .50 sniper > .45 handgun > 9mm handgun > Lee Enfield/CZ550 > 7.62 > 5.56. Bullet damage needs to be rearranged to reflect the realities of bullet trauma and stopping power and not the myths of the magical sideways rifle round and and the exaggerated dynamics of bullet fragmentation.

Anyway, more on tissue damage from bullest here.

Where not killing make believe creatures??? Did you find a study about the effects of bullet damage on zombies while you were goggling?

Bullet damage is bullet damage, yes. But if you shot me in the hand with a .50 cal and I shot you in the brain stem with a 9MM who is going to receive the most harm? What if you shot me in the back through my back pack with a 7.62MM and hit engine parts I have in there and I shot you in the face with a 9MM, who will come off second best? As I said there are far to many variables to calculate precise amounts of weapon damage, so they change things to create balance in the game. If you got a problem with the balance that's fine but don't try and pull the realism card on it because realism in a game just isn't realistic.

[xximrtwoixx 104]

Where not killing make believe creatures??? Did you find a study about the effects of bullet damage on zombies while you were goggling?

Bullet damage is bullet damage, yes. But if you shot me in the hand with a .50 cal and I shot you in the brain stem with a 9MM who is going to receive the most harm? What if you shot me in the back through my back pack with a 7.62MM and hit engine parts I have in there and I shot you in the face with a 9MM, who will come off second best? As I said there are far to many variables to calculate precise amounts of weapon damage, so they change things to create balance in the game. If you got a problem with the balance that's fine but don't try and pull the realism card on it because realism in a game just isn't realistic.

The zombies are simply infected people that are actually still alive, rocket has discussed this at length, take a look.

I pretty much agree with that its really just values assigned, but I do not think things should be "balanced" they should be assigned values that will do the best job of representing that bullet authentically in game. I don't think this is the case now though mostly for shot guns. They are devastating to deer that can survive being struck by a car at 60MPH. Yet you need to shoot a player IG I think 4 times with one inside peak range, its BS.

Also .50 to hand would likley mean you have no hand, and in a setting where you aren't getting sterile good medical treatment it would likley be a death sentance.

[schrapple 119]

The zombies are simply infected people that are actually still alive, rocket has discussed this at length, take a look.

I pretty much agree with that its really just values assigned, but I do not think things should be "balanced" they should be assigned values that will do the best job of representing that bullet authentically in game. I don't think this is the case now though mostly for shot guns. They are devastating to deer that can survive being struck by a car at 60MPH. Yet you need to shoot a player IG I think 4 times with one inside peak range, its BS.

Also .50 to hand would likley mean you have no hand, and in a setting where you aren't getting sterile good medical treatment it would likely be a death sentence.

There is literally almost nothing authentically represented in this or any other game for that matter. Your example of zombies being infected people that are still alive is a good one, if that is the case then they should be as hard to kill as a survivor. You can't sprint for an infinite amount of time without getting tired, you don't die if you don't eat every 40 minutes, you need sleep, you can drink from a tap without a water bottle, you can crawl up a single step, you can't see yourself in the third person, you don't instantly gain blood from eating cooked meat, you could stab a zombie with a hunting knife, morphine doesn't fix broken bones. The list is literally infinite. Everything has to be represented by a value that makes the game work and guns are no exception, to blindly apply "real world" damage to a weapon based on the momentum of it's round regardless of the effect it had on the games balance would be suicide for a game and it could end up unplayable. But simply the real world has to be interrupted and adjusted in games, "realism" has to be sacrificed.

And the question wasn't would I die if I was shot in the hand with a .50 cal, it was which of us would receive the most harm and instant death from a bullet to your brain stem massively outweighs an amputation of the hand and any possible subsequent illness or impairment.

[wolfstriked 143]

For me the AK family should be same damage wise as the M16.I searched many forums in past and most posters agreed that 5.45 is equal to 5.56.For game play reasons I would make them equal also as many people like AK's and many like M16 family.

[bazbake 456]

@xXI Mr Two IXx

A .50 caliber rifle round to the hand wouldn't destroy your hand, to be fair. Technically, it would just pass right through your hand without deforming at all making a wound about half an inch across. It would obviously hurt like a bitch, though, and maybe the shockwave would be really, really painful but extremity wounds caused by rifle rounds are the most resistent to temporary cavitation and most of the damage would be gone.

Like the FBI ballistics study says, it's big bullets that penetrate deeply that cause wounds. Everything else is just conjecture and mythmaking to move product.

Good post but I think that speed does add signifcantly to tissue damage.

According to the FBI conference on ballistic studies and ballistic scientists around the world? No. Temporary cavitation is the "wound" caused by shockwaves, however temporary cavitation is called temporary cavitation for a reason. All of the tissue snaps right back into place once the bullet passes. Like the HJR paper said, there's very little evidence of temporary cavitation causing a wound and even if a bullet hits bone, it's the shards breaking off from the bone that cause the extra damage from a high-velocity projectile, not the shockwave. If you want permanent cavitation you need a slower bullet with a larger caliber.

Physics!

I do agree that a bigger round is usually always better, but when it comes to rounds there can be fundemental differences that one must consider. For instance JHP rounds will do much more tissue damage than FMJ ammo. A little JHP round like .17hmr will make such a mess of a squirrel that you only harvest half of it, but if you shot it with a .22 short/LR JHP or FMJ your getting alot more meat, even though your using alot bigger round. The .17 round breaks/expands before it even penetrates the skin, it will expand shooting pop cans, and thats why its so devastating because it is 1. fast and 2. it expands/breaks to deliver more damge than its given size.

Expanding/fragmenting bullets don't penetrate as deeply because as soon as the bullet breaks it expends its energy. But with two bullets designed to reach lethality on a specific target, the one which expands will do more damage than the one that doesn't.

A .17 round that breaks before it penetrates the skin loses all its energy outside of the skin. A few centimeters of human skin is as dense as several inches of muscle, so what you're talking about is a nuisance round with shallow penetration. If a bullet can't penetrate to about 12 inches, it's unlikely to seriously harm you. Think of it this way...you have a firecracker...if the firecracker goes off in the palm of your hand, it burns your palm. If you close your hand around it, your fingers blow off. It's the same with fragmenting rounds. If a fragmenting round breaks before it enters the body, it's salt shot -- an annoyance. If it breaks inside the body, it's a tiny explosion.

But, this also lessens its penetration. So fragmenting rifle rounds do less damage against body armor. Which is why very few rifle rounds today actually do this. (in particular, none of the bullets that exists in DayZ). Instead, some of them yaw, which is when a bullet turns sideways in the wound. Problem is, a bullet has to remain sideways to do the additional damage, and the bullets designed to yaw either don't really yaw predictably (such as the 5.56mm) or flip over and pass out the other side creating only one or two small wider cavities within the body (like the 7.62mm). The yawing potential of rifle rounds, as the HJR study states, is often exaggerated and not a reliable measure of rifle damage. Bullet size, however, is a reliable predictor of damage.

JHP loses out to FMJ for battlefield effectiveness IMO, shooting through things is very usefull and so are small groups, and if your opponents are wearing armor/heavy clothes FMJ wins there too.

This is true in a world with body armor. Or maybe against bears or other large beasts where penetration depth is difficult to reach for a mankilling round. Against unarmored humans or against unarmored areas on armored humans, the JHP round is more dangerous than the metal jacketed round of similar caliber.

Also I do think there is such a thing as knockdown power

No there's not. At least, not with firearms. You're thinking of stopping power, which is how much fast a subject is incapacitated by pain or loss of oxygen to the brain. The thing is, two people of equal size can have two completely different pain resistances (women supposedly have much higher pain tolerance than men, for example). So the only reliable measure would be loss of oxygen to the brain by way of blood loss. Which means big holes in soft bodies for the blood to pour out. Bigger hole the better.

Edited August 12, 2012 by BazBake

[arma2eraseditself 22]

2 things. ^(this guys) is right as hell. It is not about KE it is about Energy Transfer. A round with a MASSIVE amount of KE (.338 Lapua Mag) that strikes, penetrates and travels through its target (ie a Man @ 100M) retaining 60-75% of its KE is not as effective as say a lighter rounds (say 5.56x45mm) striking a man @ 200M and going end over end, fragmenting and stopping dead inside the body delivering ALL its energy.

In hunting you have to select the proper round for the proper target. a Light fast round is good for small game like a deer. Its speed helps retain accuracy at short range (It switches to less efficient at long range but thats another topic). That light round that penetrates say to the heart of a deer is perfect. but If you take that same round and shoot say a moose its another story. The lighter (thinner) FMJ of the round deforms too soon and the KE is delivered too close too the surface resulting in a superficial wound that doesnt strike vitals.

A heavier bullet w a thicker jacket is required to do ideal penetration and energy transfer to that larger target. The thicker FMJ does not deform as quickly and helps to penetrate deeper before slowing and delivering most of its energy deeper.

Its all about round selection IRL that being said there are over-penetration issues when it comes to automatic rifles and close quarters.

ONTOP of all of that........................

there is a thing called game balance. A pistol needs to be relatively useful or it will not be used ever. An automatic rifle landing 3-5 rounds at point blank MASSIVELY outbalances... you see this in all sorts of games (and it basically makes it so there is diversity in weapon selection; i mean if all guns were litterally just ballistically entered then no one would use anything but 5.56mm or 7.62mm or .50 calibre

[xximrtwoixx 104]

There is literally almost nothing authentically represented in this or any other game for that matter. Your example of zombies being infected people that are still alive is a good one, if that is the case then they should be as hard to kill as a survivor. You can't sprint for an infinite amount of time without getting tired, you don't die if you don't eat every 40 minutes, you need sleep, you can drink from a tap without a water bottle, you can crawl up a single step, you can't see yourself in the third person, you don't instantly gain blood from eating cooked meat, you could stab a zombie with a hunting knife, morphine doesn't fix broken bones. The list is literally infinite. Everything has to be represented by a value that makes the game work and guns are no exception, to blindly apply "real world" damage to a weapon based on the momentum of it's round regardless of the effect it had on the games balance would be suicide for a game and it could end up unplayable. But simply the real world has to be interrupted and adjusted in games, "realism" has to be sacrificed.

And the question wasn't would I die if I was shot in the hand with a .50 cal, it was which of us would receive the most harm and instant death from a bullet to your brain stem massively outweighs an amputation of the hand and any possible subsequent illness or impairment.

I think your complaining more about realism than authenticity, when I say authentic damage I mean 7.62x51>7.62x39>5.56>5.45x39. I think the shot gun slug is screwed in the current damage values but most of the others do represent "authentic" values ie individual guns/rounds do not do more damage because they are more rare or to increase their utility.

Would you enjoy a mechanic that limited your ability to navigate the map? People complain about relinking with their friends now if they were forced to walk and not run it would take hours to get somewhere IG, for what the current offering of DayZ is many of these other features were not necessary. But I agree the mechanics need to be further developed in standalone and I'm sure they will be.

2 things. ^(this guys) is right as hell. It is not about KE it is about Energy Transfer. A round with a MASSIVE amount of KE (.338 Lapua Mag) that strikes, penetrates and travels through its target (ie a Man @ 100M) retaining 60-75% of its KE is not as effective as say a lighter rounds (say 5.56x45mm) striking a man @ 200M and going end over end, fragmenting and stopping dead inside the body delivering ALL its energy.

Its all about round selection IRL that being said there are over-penetration issues when it comes to automatic rifles and close quarters.

ONTOP of all of that........................

there is a thing called game balance. A pistol needs to be relatively useful or it will not be used ever. An automatic rifle landing 3-5 rounds at point blank MASSIVELY outbalances... you see this in all sorts of games (and it basically makes it so there is diversity in weapon selection; i mean if all guns were litterally just ballistically entered then no one would use anything but 5.56mm or 7.62mm or .50 calibre

1. I hope your type of game balance is never implemented, the balance to automatic rifles isn't that other weapons have increased damage, its as military/police rifles their ammunition wouldn't be as common as sporting rifles add to this that everyone wants them and the ammo supply is very limited. This is "authentic" in that it represents scarcity/economics while retaining some semblance of authenticity in the lethality or lack there of in weapon systems. A pistol is only used to obtain a better gun, either kill and take an enemies or defend until you fix your own. You don't hunt with pistol round outside of .357 for a reason.

2. Your right that it is about round selection and different rounds have different jobs that they will excel at. This doesn't automatically mean that .338 @ 100m is any less deadly than a 5.56 @ 100m though, it just means that .338 is more deadly at >500 m than 100m. It will still mash through bone and flesh at 100m. The choice to run a smaller round is hardly ever due to lessened lethality, it is mainly because a larger round is not needed for a given task. I could go out and shoot a deer @ 100 yards with .50 BMG but I would just be limiting the harvest and opening myself up to liability. This is why slug guns or buckshot are used over rifles in many cases, because it is as effective as you need to be without being overly destructive. This goes for the military also, a soldier can carry many more 5.56 rounds than .50 rounds, also the weapon systems themselves can be lighter/smaller this is why "assualt rifle" cartridges exist they try to be as effective as needed while giving other benefits. This is the balance that needs to be implemented not damage, encumbrance should be used to limit the utility of certain weapon systems as this would remain "authentic".

Also "small & Light" rounds are not used to harvest deer, most places won't let you run 5.56 while deer hunting.

A .50 caliber rifle round to the hand wouldn't destroy your hand, to be fair. Technically, it would just pass right through your hand without deforming at all making a wound about half an inch across. It would obviously hurt like a bitch, though, and maybe the shockwave would be really, really painful but extremity wounds caused by rifle rounds are the most resistent to temporary cavitation and most of the damage would be gone.

Like the FBI ballistics study says, it's big bullets that penetrate deeply that cause wounds. Everything else is just conjecture and mythmaking to move product.

According to the FBI conference on ballistic studies and ballistic scientists around the world? No. Temporary cavitation is the "wound" caused by shockwaves, however temporary cavitation is called temporary cavitation for a reason. All of the tissue snaps right back into place once the bullet passes. Like the HJR paper said, there's very little evidence of temporary cavitation causing a wound and even if a bullet hits bone, it's the shards breaking off from the bone that cause the extra damage from a high-velocity projectile, not the shockwave. If you want permanent cavitation you need a slower bullet with a larger caliber.

This is pure "bench" ballistics, go get a gun and shoot an animal.

All people and animals are bags of meat filled with liquid surrounding a solid internal support structure. Some bags of meat are made of tougher components than others, the human body is not that impresive a bag of meat.

Even FMJ rounds "expand" due to contact with bone or tissue resitance, thin bullets usually break while wider diameter bullets deform or expand. JHP rounds increase this effect through design and thus expand beyond their given dimensions more readily, they will often still pass through a body though. Expansion and to a degree fragmentation of bone/bullet in turn make the bullet's functional dimensions greater than its standard given dimensions.

Temporary cavitation often becomes a permenent wound when the cavitation exceeds the dimensions of the meat bag it is passing through, this is why bullets that fragement leave devestating exit wounds, because each fragment leaves a cavity that meets with other cavities and when this occurs they no longer "snap" back into place. This is also why exit wounds are always larger than entry wounds, because one the bullet has deformed when passing through the body and two upon exit the cavitation exceeds the dimensions that the meat bag can withstand thus tearing a larger hole in it.

A .17 round that breaks before it penetrates the skin loses all its energy outside of the skin. A few centimeters of human skin is as dense as several inches of muscle, so what you're talking about is a nuisance round with shallow penetration. If a bullet can't penetrate to about 12 inches, it's unlikely to seriously harm you. Think of it this way...you have a firecracker...if the firecracker goes off in the palm of your hand, it burns your palm. If you close your hand around it, your fingers blow off. It's the same with fragmenting rounds. If a fragmenting round breaks before it enters the body, it's salt shot -- an annoyance. If it breaks inside the body, it's a tiny explosion.

But, this also lessens its penetration. So fragmenting rifle rounds do less damage against body armor. Which is why very few rifle rounds today actually do this. (in particular, none of the bullets that exists in DayZ). Instead, some of them yaw, which is when a bullet turns sideways in the wound. Problem is, a bullet has to remain sideways to do the additional damage, and the bullets designed to yaw either don't really yaw predictably (such as the 5.56mm) or flip over and pass out the other side creating only one or two small wider cavities within the body (like the 7.62mm). The yawing potential of rifle rounds, as the HJR study states, is often exaggerated and not a reliable measure of rifle damage. Bullet size, however, is a reliable predictor of damage.

.17 HMR could be lethal just as 22 LR could be lethal to a person but I understand it is to underpowered and small of a round to shoot something the size of a person. It will pass through a squirel though and leave an exit wound that IMO is to large to make the round usefull for anything but headshots. Even then you get a bloody bag becaues they only have half their head.

This was used as an example of how a faster yet smaller bullet will leave a more devastating wound than a larger slower bullet.

I agree that yaw and dependence on yaw is flawed and exagerated, its why I have an ar10 not an ar15.

This is true in a world with body armor. Or maybe against bears or other large beasts where penetration depth is difficult to reach for a mankilling round. Against unarmored humans or against unarmored areas on armored humans, the JHP round is more dangerous than the metal jacketed round of similar caliber.

I didn't only mean penetration on your target, but also penetration through objects that your target may use as concealment/cover. FMJ and heavier bullets win out here as they are less effected by passing through objects and in military terms most of your targets are going to be utilizing cover and concealment.

No there's not. At least, not with firearms. You're thinking of stopping power, which is how much fast a subject is incapacitated by pain or loss of oxygen to the brain. The thing is, two people of equal size can have two completely different pain resistances (women supposedly have much higher pain tolerance than men, for example). So the only reliable measure would be loss of oxygen to the brain by way of blood loss. Which means big holes in soft bodies for the blood to pour out. Bigger hole the better.

I think you should also include damage to the nervous system (shock) and damage to organs, both as smaller meat bags filled with blood and some (lungs) being essential to obtaining oxygen for the brain. This is why placement is more important than bullet caliber.

Stopping power/knockdown power to me is the same thing I guess, I shoot it, it goes down and doesn't get up. Also the energy expended on a target does knock them down/stagger them, and is largley dependent on the effective diameter of a round or engry transfered. Speed equals energy, more is conveyed with a round that expands but even FMJ will expand when you shoot something solid, and speed also contributes to aiding in expansion as it provides more energy to combat resistence.

Mostly I'm saying you can't throw speed out the window, yes I agree slugs should do more damage but buckshot should do more than slugs if your in close enough range. But in either case a .50 which is nearly the size of a slug will do more damage because it is faster.