DayZ Gun Awareness Part 1: Realistic Damage Tables Based on Ballistic Trauma

[bazbake 456]

This is a two part series in two parts. In this first part, I offer for consideration an alternative system for calculating weapon damage that relies on modern ballistics science as documented by military medics and the scientific community instead of the myth which Martin L. Fackler, M.D. calls the "Kinetic Energy Fallacy."

I believe that bullet damage could use some reevaluation so that we get real-world performance. It is hard to react authentically in a setting where guns don't do what they are supposed to do, so I went ahead and did some rough numbers using what I know of ballistic trauma to get more accurate comparisons between weapons.

EDIT: Seems I wasn't clear enough. Bullets almost exclusively kill you by making holes through permanent cavitation. So damage should be tied to the size of the hole the bullet leaves in you. What follows is an explanation of why this is and some calculations to show what damage would be closer to authenticity.

EDIT 2: TL;DR IN ADVANCE

Arma II's weapon damage tables were made up off the top of someone's head and make no sense. According to this SCIENCE you can borrow, it should be based on wound channel size instead of kinetic energy or magic. Oh, look, MATHS and how I got them (--and pictures if you can't read--)!

And fragmenting rounds are complicated. Fuck that for now.

For starters...

Stretch from temporary cavity tissue displacement can disrupt blood vessels at some distance from the projectile path, just as they can be disrupted by blunt trauma ... but in practice this happens only very rarely. Data from the Vietnam conflict show that the great majority of torso and extremity wounds were attributable to the damage due to the permanent cavity alone.

--Martin L. Fackler, M.D.

So says one of the pioneers of ballistic gel. To elaborate...

A review of 1400 rifle wounds from Vietnam (the Wound Data and Munitions Effectiveness Team study) found no cases of bones being broken or major vessels being torn that were not penetrated by the bullet, bullet fragments or secondary missiles ... In only two cases, an organ that was not hit (but was within a few centimeters of the projectile path) suffered some disruption. In the vast majority of gunshot wounds, all tissue injured significantly, has been crushed by the intact bullet, bullet fragments or secondary missiles.

--Christina-Athanasia Alexandropoulou, Elias Panagiotopoulos -- Page 230

Shockwaves don't hurt, temporary cavitation almost never wounds, and permanent cavitation is what makes the big holes that kill people. And with contrary protests hopefully out of the way, the most accurate way to calculate weapon damage tables is to take bullet performance as measured by wound channels through the width of the human body at its widest, 35 centimeters, and figure out the volume of permanent cavitation instead of the current mistakes based on the "Kinetic Energy Fallacy."

I took four representative calibers: 7.62mm NATO, 9mm NATO ball, 12 Gauge Shotgun Slug, and .45 ACP. All chosen because they represent the most drastic departures from expected stopping power in the Arma II Engine and because they were really easy. The numbers are approximate (wound tracks aren't perfectly smooth), and the blacked out area is where the wound channel exits the human body. The bullet doesn't matter once it leaves, so no point confusing yourself over it.

Results

7.62mm NATO round = ~26ml.

Although technically possessing a 7.8mm diameter, I'll stick with the negligibly smaller description because I don't care and you won't care when I'm done.

Clearly the most complicated calculation. The 7.62mm round enters the body and tumbles at 16cm, then makes a wound track similar to a triangular prism in the shape of the bullet's profile with a height of 2.3 cm. The bullet exits the body before finishing its tumble creating an exit wound about twice the width of its entrance wound.

To calculate this, I crafted a cylinder with a base the diameter of the bullet for the entry channel, a triangular prism with the height and base of the bullet for the tumbling channel, and a transitional volumetric shape (aka fucked up weird thing) using an average of the rough areas of the cylinder and prism times the length of the section of wound channel to connect them.

By adding these volumes together you get an approximate volume of the wound channel. Note from the picture that I overestimate the wound channel volume in order to square the edges and allow for some inaccuracies in using an isosceles triangle instead of the oblong bullet shape. For convenience, I imposed the triangle on the shape of the bullet below to show the conformity.

9mm NATO ball = ~22ml.

This was a simple calculation. Although the bullet yaws in the wound, it does so very briefly and at a less than 90 degree angle, so I noted it without attempting to calculate the small difference.

.45 ACP(11.4mm) = ~36ml

Also simple. Base area times height times length of wound track. A hole punched straight through.

12 Gauge Shotgun Shell = ~201ml

Two cylinders for an easy approximation (although a segmented cone would also be useful, although not much different). One with a base diameter of 1.76cm until it rapidly expands at 4cm of depth to another with a diameter of 2.8 cm. Combining the two gives a pretty good idea of the wound channel's volume.

EDIT: There's two big fat typos you will notice below...clearly in the first red box it should be 190.79 as listed previously. Also, the larger section of wound channel is clearly not 4cm. It's 31 cm. All other calculations are the same.

So we see that 9mm ball ammo should do damage quite similar to tumbling 7.62mm NATO ammo. But non-deforming .45 ACP ammo should do damage about 44% higher than that.

If 7.62mm NATO does 2200 damage, a Makarov PM or M9 should do ~2000 damage, Full Metal Jacketed .45 ACP ammo should do ~3200 damage, and a 12 Gauge Shotgun Slug should do ~17000 damage. Or a one-shot kill.

Firearms to which this applies

7.62mm NATO (2200 damage): FN FAL, M14, M240, Mk48 Mod 0, DMR, M24

9mm NATO ball/9x18mm parabellum (2000 damage): G17, Makarov, M9, PDW, Bizon, MP5

Note: This changes dramatically if the 9mm ammo uses hollow points.

.45 ACP (3200 damage): M1911, Revolver

Note: This changes dramatically if the 9mm ammo uses hollow points.

12 Gauge Slug (17,000 damage): Remington, M1014, Double Barrel Shotgun

This is, of course, assuming that the 7.62mm NATO round has realistically calculated damage already. If not, then you would have to scale these damage tables with it. Nonetheless, it's clear that the shotguns and pistols are currently underpowered compared to the 7.62mm NATO rounds when it comes to soft targets.

Other Rounds Not Calculated

I didn't address rounds that fragment, since that requires a different series of calculations for volume (and I'm not completely sure which ammo type is being used by which...NATO ammo is obvious. But for other tumbling rounds you can use the basic calculations for 7.62mm NATO ammo at up to 35cm to get a quick idea of how much damage they should do based on the degree of yaw and how long they pass sideways through the wound.

7.62mm x 39 (AKM) -- a slightly shorter yawing wound.

http://www.firearmst...47 762x39mm.jpg

Also, you have a vague idea of the performance of the AK-74 round.

5.45mm x 39 (AK-74) -- greater tumbling with 50% smaller wound channel.

http://www.firearmst...K-74 545x39.jpg

Anyway, there are bound to be some rough pieces there. I just wanted to offer an alternative look that uses realistic damage based on current ballistic trauma taken from the scientific community. Since some rare weapons will be depowered somewhat if this is implemented, loot spawns will probably have to be adjusted as well if something similar to this is implemented.

On to part 2...

Edited August 24, 2012 by BazBake

[Quaby 93]

Being an expert on ballistics, you would be familiar with the term, "overkill". This is the level of detail that would be in a medical sim, not a zombie apocalypse sim. The game is not meant to be realistic in every way,mostly because it can't. This amount of detail would be very difficult to program,and seeing how buggy DayZ is anyway, this could get weird....

Also...

This is a forum, not a course on ballistics. Keep it a bit shorter and simpler and a helluva lot more people will read it.

[L0G!N (DayZ) 149]

As i explained recently in the Full medical thread, unfortunatly the way the computer deals with 'hits' is a lot simpler by setup. I am not sure if you are familiar with MineCraft, but if you are you should take the image of the MineCraft character and superimpose it over basically any FPS character. The minecraft model now represents 'HitBoxes' of the FPS (or in our case DayZ) character. The computer simply calculates if this box has been hit by a bullit and substracts the damage linked to the calliber from your total health.

Why is this important! Because you only tell half of the story here, (it may well turn up in part2) and that is that the organs you hit play a part too... But to make these organs represented in the Hitbox model, you need to increase the amount of boxes that can be hit. This in turn increases the amount of calculations the computer has to make once the bullit is fired. This puts more and more strain on the game, and for what purpose, in the end all that realy needs to happen is determain a hit and set the concequences for it. Possibly with some sort of 'chance' (rolldice) linked to it for some added effects, say: if the arm is hit, there is a 50% chance the bone is broken, and a 5% chance an artery is hit, and 45% chance of 'just a fleshwound'

So while i applaud your effort in adding in true balistic information, you should also be aware of the technology of what is possible in a computergame, what that does to how 'heavy' this game becomes, and whether all the effort of putting it in actually changes the end result in such a way that it changes the experience. This mainly because in the end, the result will still be: if hit -> currentHP - caliberdamage = newHP -> newHP = currentHP.

So your best bet realy, is to just produce a list of suggested more realistic 'Caliberdamage' numbers, from the factual data of research ... that would be fairly easy to implement, as it's just changing some numbers to better reflect reality ;) (and yes you could do this 'per' hitbox)... actually integrating these calculations into the game itself, and having them calculated for everyhitbox aswell, that sort of defeats the purpose of using that RAM/CPU time, if you could do the calculations prior and just have them as fixed numbers in a list, that the computer just has to subtract based on a simple 'if/then' loop. Even with my minor programming knowledge i could write the basics for that (obviously leaving out working details):

If {GunFired = true} then {location_fired=X,Y & direction_fired=spriteX,Y}

checkcaliber_range; (big if>then table, checking the gun shot and taking the range from it)

checkrange; (checks if a target is in range, else MISS <- no further action needed)

checkhit; (checks if the shot came even close to any target in range, with one large box around it, IF yes: Possible hit, else MISS <- no further action needed)

check_hitbox: if {check_hit = true} then {complicated formula to calculate which hitbox was actually hit if any}

if {check_hitbox = headbox} then { new_HP = current_HP - Max_HP }

if {check_hitbox = bodybox} then { new_HP = current_HP - caliber_damage_body }

if {check_hitbox = armbox} then { new_HP = current_HP - caliber_damage_arm & collateral_arm}

etc.

collateral_arm; rolldice(50% brokenarm, 5% arterybleed, 45% = nothing)

etc. for other collateral damages...

current_HP = new_HP; (feeds into the current_HP display, and any results from it)

else check_hitbox = false; (seeing the innitial hit was first checked with a larger surface just to reduce all the calculations incase this shot wasn't actually hitting anything, now each individual box would be checked in the Check_Hitbox complicated formula, if this results in no hitbox actually being hit, there should be a miss)

One may be able to extend the armboxes to front&back or side, where a sideshot may also result in a bodyshot, based upon some caliber, and perhaps a chance on collateral damage. So sure, the whole penetration view of looking at gunshots may change some things about how a certain caliber results in a certain number, but adding the actual calculations to the game, well what does that add ?

[Malorcus 2]

I applaud you on the amount of research that went into calculations of tumbling, which I feel is the most commonly ignored issue regarding firearms wounds in games. However I would like to point out that bullets (especially lower velocity ones) do not always exit the body, resulting in far more energy being transferred to the target. To take into account whether a bullet produces an exit wound there would have to be an energy calculation unique to each gun (due to barrel length differences and, obviously, ammo types) which relies on distance to target. Depending on the gun/ammo used, the impact energy can change dramatically at different distances.

This would cause an interesting dynamic whereby certain ammo, such as 762 nato, would have optimal damage zones: the distance between where the bullet would stop passing completely through the body and where the velocity slows enough to not generate enough tumbling/penetration.

The only thing that really needs to be calculated in this case is distance to target with specific damage values and bleeding chance assigned to each distance range for each gun.

Granted, angle of impact would make a significant difference due to the body being "thicker" or "thinner" but I fear that is probably far too much to ask.

[Kyus Jin 1]

Being an expert on ballistics, you would be familiar with the term, "overkill". This is the level of detail that would be in a medical sim, not a zombie apocalypse sim. The game is not meant to be realistic in every way,mostly because it can't. This amount of detail would be very difficult to program,and seeing how buggy DayZ is anyway, this could get weird....

Also...

This is a forum, not a course on ballistics. Keep it a bit shorter and simpler and a helluva lot more people will read it.

He is not an expert on ballistics just a too much time on his hands. And FYI the 7.62 NATO is a devastating round putting the blood damage value 2200 makes you a retard. Yeah they showed us the same ballistics charts in Scout Sniper school the only thing you can really truly account for in ballistics is what happens from the moment you fire the round till the round hits the target, after that your charts are full of shit. Ballistic gel and whatever methods they try using today don't add up to real life. you want to know what a bullet does when it hits a person you have to shot them. and studies from Vietnam are not going to cut it. Here is why Vietnam used a 5.56 in most the guns except the M60 and they had different loads compared to today's rounds. So don't pull up Vietnam ballistic studies and call it modern ballistics cause its not its apples and oranges. Now we use a wide range of more refined ammo to the point were we have maximized the effectiveness we can get out of the 5.56, and 7.62, we are talking hollow points and boat-tails combined with maximized gain for barrle length and twists. Fact 5.56 NATO will kill you dead just the same as a 7.62x39 however a 7.62x39 will leave and exit hole the size of an orange 5.56 the size of a golf ball depending on the range and most the time people being shot by 5.56 don't even know they are being shot, hits them like a needle. Takes their body a while to realize whats happening mean while they carry on business as usual till shock and organ failure kick in. See cause the 5.56 NATO stabilizes for much further then the 7.62x39 that means its not tumbling in the air like the 7.62x39 does. Great for hitting paper and vermin 5.56 is really small like a needle and since its stable meaning its not tumbling and super sonic for greater range it has great penetrating power but no real kick. Bottom line you get hit with either round your probably going to die however 7.62 does way more damage then the 5.56 to soft tissue that's a fact. You can shoot ballistic gel all day long I know for a fact what these rounds do to people. And to say the damage for a 7.62x51 (7.62 NATO) would only do 2200 blood you are on drugs buddy that's a one hit kill almost every time. And FYI shock-wave does kill concussive force is very deadly other wise they never would have made an NE rocket, Also there are a ton of after action reports where people have been killed by shock-wave i.e. over pressure. So yeah I don't like you.

[bazbake 456]

@Quaby

Not that complex. Bigger holes = more damage. If you can calculate the size of a hole in a human being, you can find the authentic damage a weapon will do. Everything else is to defend my point and preempt people pulling out the meaningless "temporary cavitation," "shockwave," and "kinetic energy" mythology.

@LOG!N

I might not have been clear. I just want to fix the damage tables so they reflect reality. I'm not proposing a new system. Big fat holes from permanent cavitation cause 99.85% of bullet trauma, so the volume of a wound channel is the most authentic basis for bullet damage. Anything else is a completely different discussion.

@Malorcus

This was calculated based on effective range. You can see the optimal velocity on the wound channel charts in the top right corner. As an aside, I believe weapons in this game already have effective ranges coded in, so that's not an issue. Assigning the right damage to the right bullets is the issue.

Extra status effects could be added. But I feel that's a discussion for a different thread.

[bazbake 456]

Big block of facepalm

"tl;dr Fuck science. The 7.62 NATO round is ah-MAAAAAAY-zing and OP is stupid."

Got it.

Edited August 23, 2012 by BazBake

[Kyus Jin 1]

"tl;dr Fuck science. The 7.62 NATO round is ah-MAAAAAAY-zing and OP is stupid."

Got it.

So tell me again what you think the 7.62 NATO damage should be?

[bazbake 456]

Like I said, I don't care as long as all of the other damage in relation to it is appropriate. If the shotgun is doing 6000 damage, then the 7.62 round shouldn't do more than 800. If the .45 is doing 1300, then the 7.62 should be doing less than a thousand.

[dev0 19]

Like I said, I don't care as long as all of the other damage in relation to it is appropriate. If the shotgun is doing 6000 damage, then the 7.62 round shouldn't do more than 800. If the .45 is doing 1300, then the 7.62 should be doing less than a thousand.

While I like the idea to better balance out the weapon damage to a more realistic degree, I don't think your scientific data is really at the current state of ballistic sciences. At least the wikipedia article on waepon stopping power references a shitload of current and up-to-date scientific research papers that provide evidence that for example force in the form of a shockwave and temporary cavitation can in fact result in damage in the nervous system.

Besides that it also states that the stopping power from most gunshots, no matter which caliber, are almost entirely psychological in nature. If you're not shot dead or unconscious by a direct hit in your central nervous system, you are most likely only partially or not disabled at all, if you exclude psychological or pain effects. Most gunshot wounds will not kill you fast or even instantly. You will bleed out however, if they are not treated accordingly. Which organs are hit (heart, liver, lung, etc) is far more important regarding bleeding out, than the calibre of the weapon is however. If the bullet does not hit any bones or instantly kills you or knocks you inconcious by hitting you CNS, the wound alone will most likely not disable you, at least not if you can overcome the psychological effects like fear and pain by training or intoxication.

After reading only this one wikipedia article I am pretty sure that stopping power and lethality of a gunshot wound is much more complex than only taking it's permanent caviation into consideration.

Edited August 23, 2012 by dev0

[Kyus Jin 1]

Like I said, I don't care as long as all of the other damage in relation to it is appropriate. If the shotgun is doing 6000 damage, then the 7.62 round shouldn't do more than 800. If the .45 is doing 1300, then the 7.62 should be doing less than a thousand.

So let me get this straight you want take a round that kills people in one hit and make it take over 10 rounds to kill a player and call that a more realistic damage? OMG your talking about a more realistic damage table the the current damage of a 7.62 NATO should be over 10000 blood. Like I don't understand what world you live in bro, 7.62x 51 kills people in one hit in real life. So realistically it should be one shot one kill. Why else do you think it used in a sniper rifle. Its not a round used so a sniper can be like oh I shot them let me shoot them 10 more times. You are a retard. Over pressure is stupid really now I know you have no clue what your talking about not even a little bit. Just a tool trying to understand a subject without having any real world experience in it. Don't post anything else cause you annoying stupid. I have a better idea you let me shot you with my .308 and we can use that as an example of why your stupid. We can record it an use it to give the game an actual realistic damage table to work from, and we can rid the world of another waste of flesh that should have been killed at birth.

[dev0 19]

7.62x 51 kills people in one hit in real life

Actually, it will most likely not kill them instantly. Only leave them with a blood pissing hole in their belly. Even when shot from a bolt action sniper rifle. Considering this I believe the ~2k damage for a STANAG round is well balanced, if it leaves a bleeding wound that kills the player within a few minutes if not treated.

PS: But maybe the bleeding debuff should have more negative effects, that a bleeding player is hardly able to keep fighting. Maybe morphium could be used to reduce the negative effects of a bleeding wound temporarly. Bandaging should take longer.

Edited August 23, 2012 by dev0

[miket 92]

I don't think you're considering velocity when deciding on these new damage values.

Just because two weapons have similiar calibre doesn't mean they'll do the same damage.

Would you rather get hit by someone with an .50 cal M2 at 100 m or someone with a 0.50 AE at 100 m? I know which one I'd rather get hit by.

Consider things like the .223 (5.56x45 mm NATO) vs the .22 round. Its not the extra 0.003 of an inch that does the extra damage - its the fact that its muzzle velocity is nearly 3 times faster.

[bazbake 456]

@KyusJin + MykeMichail

I understand that this is what you want to believe. But it's not true. Go ahead and read the citations, you won't be less wrong if you refuse to look at them.

@dev0

Thanks. I clicked on your link. It's not really a "shitload."

Some speculation states that nerve bundles can be damaged by temporary cavitation, creating a stun effect, but this has not been confirmed.

So that's a no on the temporary cavitation.

One exception to this is when a very powerful temporary cavity intersects with the spine. In this case, the resulting blunt trauma can slam the vertebrae together hard enough to either sever the spinal cord, or damage it enough to knock out, stun, or paralyze the target.

While the bullet did not directly contact the spine, and the wound incurred was not ultimately fatal, the temporary cavitation was sufficient to render SA McNeill paralyzed for several hours.

So it once paralyzed someone for several hours when it made their vertebrae slam together and this means it is conceivable at some point in the future that someone might possibly be paralyzed by a temporary cavitation to the spine.

Most of your sources can't be accessed, but I did find one article that collects several of them together and seeks to prove they are believable. Courtney and Courtney, 2007.

Bullets producing larger pressure waves caused incapacitation, whereas a load producing smaller pressure waves did not.

And this is their definition of "incapacitation."

The test subject was determined to be incapacitated if it failed to run a distance of 20 feet in one minute.

So racoons can be slowed down by ballistic shockwaves...about half the time. The only way to reliably incapacitate, in fact, to actually harm the racoons was with .308 V-MAX rounds. V-MAX rounds are literally exploding bullets. Even then, it took a day for some of them to finally succumb. And then they didn't even dissect the racoons to see what actually killed them...the force of the shockwave or a heartattack from being shot at.

Sample size of 1400 people says that 99.85% of lasting ballistic trauma to humans is permanent cavitation. Bringing up one instance of temporary trauma or a study of "incapacitation" doesn't change that. Incapacitation isn't damage. You can incapacitate someone with a taser or bottle of vodka.

Edited August 23, 2012 by BazBake

[dev0 19]

I was more referring to this part:

Several scientific papers reveal ballistic pressure wave effects on wounding and incapacitation, including central nervous system injuries from hits to the thorax and extremities.^[4][5][6][7] These papers document remote wounding effects for both rifle and pistol levels of energy transfer.

Regardless, the actual problem with weapon damage is, that the trauma usually does not kill the victim directly, but secondary effects, caused by the trauma, like shock, organ failure or blood loss. These secondary effects should receive care, not the initial penetration damage.

[Kyus Jin 1]

@KyusJin + MykeMichail

I understand that this is what you want to believe. But it's not true. Go ahead and read the citations, you won't be less wrong if you refuse to look at them.

@dev0

Thanks. I clicked on your link. It's not really a "shitload."

So that's a no on the temporary cavitation.

So it once paralyzed someone for several hours when it made their vertebrae slam together and this means it is conceivable at some point in the future that someone might possibly be paralyzed by a temporary cavitation to the spine.

Most of your sources can't be accessed, but I did find one article that collects several of them together and seeks to prove they are believable. Courtney and Courtney, 2007.

And this is their definition of "incapacitation."

So racoons can be slowed down by ballistic shockwaves...about half the time. The only way to reliably incapacitate, in fact, to actually harm the racoons was with .308 V-MAX rounds. V-MAX rounds are literally exploding bullets. Even then, it took a day for some of them to finally succumb. And then they didn't even dissect the racoons to see what actually killed them...the force of the shockwave or a heartattack from being shot at.

Sample size of 1400 people says that 99.85% of lasting ballistic trauma to humans is permanent cavitation. Bringing up one instance of temporary trauma or a study of "incapacitation" doesn't change that. Incapacitation isn't damage. You can incapacitate someone with a taser or bottle of vodka.

Dude Just stop posting bro your beyond dumb dude your trying to makes scene out of something you know nothing about. I know what a .308 does to a person its not a matter of wanting to believe. 5 years as a Marine Scout Sniper with 3 deployments to Iraq including the push on Fallujah. And another 5 years being a DDM for PMC's around the world. So as much as I love someone with no experience trying to tell people what rounds do to people just stop cause your so off base that I am sure you are trolling no one can be this stupid. Or we can settle this like I suggested I shoot you with my .308 we record it and in the 60 seconds you remain alive after getting hit and you can tell the camera if you still think the rounds damage should be.

[Spart248 80]

I don't even understand the point of this idea. Yea, it is cool and all, but I am sure an extraordinary amount of work would have to go into making all of these particular specifications a reality in Dayz. I do applaude you for doing your homework (that is, if it is correct, which some people seem to doubt). The fact is, something this intense and specific is not of priority and probably won't ever be of priority. People jsut don't care enough for this detailed kind of ballistic physics in games.

Now don't get me wrong, that does not, in any way, mean that people are simpletons and just want "shoot then die" mechanics of shooting. In depth shooting physics and ballistics are very important to nearly everyone, including myself, but they are not that important. The fact is, think about what people would want. If we get to the point where hitboxes are well defined and hitting seperate areas of the body have different effects (and obviously more, just giving you the idea), do you really think people will care much more about having Rocket spend his time on microscopic bullet physics rather than something like dogs or bug and glitch fixes? No, of course not.

Now I am sure Rocket wants this kind of specific, ultra-realistic mechanic, and the players too (including me), the fact is that it may just not happen. I am no coder, but I can certainly imagine that this would require a gargantuan amount of work and time. Other features could be added, things could be fixed for far less time and effort and far more benefit. I do like the idea of enhancing bullet mechanics and physics and I am sure everyone else does too. But unfortunately I am not sure how plausible it is to work out.

[xximrtwoixx 104]

OP you have posted like 10 of these topics about snipers/rifles. Everytime citing this one document, and you abandon them as soon as people who actually know what they are talking about start posting (hunters/soldiers).

I agree shotguns/handguns are nerfed, its because their numbers are set against shooting people wearing body armour, they don't have enough speed to overcome armour so they do lower damage.

Also I believe your OP had a typo where you said the 7.62x51 did 2200 damage, it actually does 8k damage the 5.56 does 2200 damage. Unless you want the 7.62x51 to do 2200... Then I'm with the other guy...

You fail to recagnize the two points below when you say that velocity has no effect on damage, and that ballistic gel is the end all be all of testing...

1. People/animals are filled with bones, when a supersonic round hits a bone the bone breaks/explodes these fragments become wounding agents, the round deforms/breaks and thus acts as a wounding agent beyond its measurable size.

2. Temporary cavitation can exceed the volume of a given target, this can occur when two wound channels intersect, or just because the target is to small to contain the temporary cavity. This means things rip apart/explode, its why small game is destroyed by supersonic rounds, even a little .17HMR will wreck small game.

This is why Kyus Jin is right, testing will never accuratley portray damage the only way to really see what happens is to shoot something. Go out hunting, go get a .22 LR and shoot a squirrel or rabbit, then use a .22 Mag and you will see that faster does equal better.

[Kyus Jin 1]

Actually, it will most likely not kill them instantly. Only leave them with a blood pissing hole in their belly. Even when shot from a bolt action sniper rifle. Considering this I believe the ~2k damage for a STANAG round is well balanced, if it leaves a bleeding wound that kills the player within a few minutes if not treated.

PS: But maybe the bleeding debuff should have more negative effects, that a bleeding player is hardly able to keep fighting. Maybe morphium could be used to reduce the negative effects of a bleeding wound temporarly. Bandaging should take longer.

I never said you would be dead right away if fact I remember suggesting the damage should be 10k. I have never seen a person walk away from being hit by a .308. This game everyone keeps talking about it being more realistic yet people get shot with a .308 and are still running business as usual. That's not realistic, realistically a .308 from a sniper rifle will drop you. A hit to the pelvis, chest, head or spine your not going anywhere not always but more like 90% of the time. Yet in the game it can take up to 3 rounds to kill a player with a sniper rifle that's not realistic. And this guy BazBake wow just consider for a minute what he is suggesting. He wants a .308 to do less then 1k blood damage and in his ass backwards head that's realistic. But in real life you shot someone once with a .308 they are down most the time and will be dead in the next 2 minutes. I am not talking about hitting the anywhere I am talking about a a Hydraulic shot to the upper chest hitting the heart, spine, major arteries, or lungs. If we had it BazBake's way we would need to shoot a person over 12 times WTF dude if you did that to a person in real life there would be nothing left but goop and is extremely unrealistic. I have never even heard of someone having to be shot more then 2 times with a .308 I am sure its happened but its extremely rare. I like the idea of a diminished capacity, like the player gets hit and can't walk or run maybe stumble and falls from time to time. I will say this the current damage values are not realistic sniper rifles are more powerful then what they are currently at, the .45 is far more powerful them what their currently set at and the AKM should be more powerful.

[Quaby 93]

He is not an expert on ballistics just a too much time on his hands. And FYI the 7.62 NATO is a devastating round putting the blood damage value 2200 makes you a retard. Yeah they showed us the same ballistics charts in Scout Sniper school the only thing you can really truly account for in ballistics is what happens from the moment you fire the round till the round hits the target, after that your charts are full of shit. Ballistic gel and whatever methods they try using today don't add up to real life. you want to know what a bullet does when it hits a person you have to shot them. and studies from Vietnam are not going to cut it. Here is why Vietnam used a 5.56 in most the guns except the M60 and they had different loads compared to today's rounds. So don't pull up Vietnam ballistic studies and call it modern ballistics cause its not its apples and oranges. Now we use a wide range of more refined ammo to the point were we have maximized the effectiveness we can get out of the 5.56, and 7.62, we are talking hollow points and boat-tails combined with maximized gain for barrle length and twists. Fact 5.56 NATO will kill you dead just the same as a 7.62x39 however a 7.62x39 will leave and exit hole the size of an orange 5.56 the size of a golf ball depending on the range and most the time people being shot by 5.56 don't even know they are being shot, hits them like a needle. Takes their body a while to realize whats happening mean while they carry on business as usual till shock and organ failure kick in. See cause the 5.56 NATO stabilizes for much further then the 7.62x39 that means its not tumbling in the air like the 7.62x39 does. Great for hitting paper and vermin 5.56 is really small like a needle and since its stable meaning its not tumbling and super sonic for greater range it has great penetrating power but no real kick. Bottom line you get hit with either round your probably going to die however 7.62 does way more damage then the 5.56 to soft tissue that's a fact. You can shoot ballistic gel all day long I know for a fact what these rounds do to people. And to say the damage for a 7.62x51 (7.62 NATO) would only do 2200 blood you are on drugs buddy that's a one hit kill almost every time. And FYI shock-wave does kill concussive force is very deadly other wise they never would have made an NE rocket, Also there are a ton of after action reports where people have been killed by shock-wave i.e. over pressure. So yeah I don't like you.

I am confused. I didn't say anything regarding the nitpicky details, just said i thought it was a bit over the top, and I get a double dose of flamethrower. WHAAAAT? ;)

[Quaby 93]

Dude Just stop posting bro your beyond dumb dude your trying to makes scene out of something you know nothing about. I know what a .308 does to a person its not a matter of wanting to believe. 5 years as a Marine Scout Sniper with 3 deployments to Iraq including the push on Fallujah. And another 5 years being a DDM for PMC's around the world. So as much as I love someone with no experience trying to tell people what rounds do to people just stop cause your so off base that I am sure you are trolling no one can be this stupid. Or we can settle this like I suggested I shoot you with my .308 we record it and in the 60 seconds you remain alive after getting hit and you can tell the camera if you still think the rounds damage should be.

*condescending soldier who thinks anyone who isn't a soldier is the scum of the earth and makes himself or herself feel better by calling people stupid*

I know several marines. And they are fun to be around, and they do not play the, "I IZ A BAD@SS" card all over the internet. Mostly because they are POLITE. Maybe it's just the infantry, because all the people I know flew or were tankers. Also, your grammar made me want to shoot myself. If you are going to call someone stupid, make sure you have absolutely no grammar errors, and certainly not as many as you have 0.0.

I'm just praying that you aren't just another twelve-year-old who is pretending to be a sniper, because if you are actually not lying, you really aren't showing it. Try to understand how common your type of story is on the internet, and you will know where I am coming from. COD made every kid want to be a sniper. SO hard to distinguish between kids and actually marines.....

[bazbake 456]

It's hard not to get long-winded when you reply to multiple people. I'll try to keep it brief and remind people that we're talking about BULLET DAMAGE TABLES, not inventing completely new systems of calculating health loss.

@dev0

Several scientific papers reveal ballistic pressure wave effects on wounding and incapacitation, including central nervous system injuries from hits to the thorax and extremities.^[4][5][6][7] These papers document remote wounding effects for both rifle and pistol levels of energy transfer.

There's no link to the sources for me to read. And "wounding effects" is really vague. Do they mean headaches or general pain? What we know from government records is that 99.85% of bullet trauma in Vietnam was caused by permanent cavitation alone. You seem very focused on the last 0.15%, which is not where I would focus resources when developing a simulation.

Regardless, the actual problem with weapon damage is, that the trauma usually does not kill the victim directly, but secondary effects, caused by the trauma, like shock, organ failure or blood loss.

Barring possible infection, you just described blood loss through permanent cavitation four times (I hope you meant "circulatory shock" and not emotional trauma).

@Spart248

It's not complex, it's just authentic. The complexity is how I arrived at the authenticity. But it's just weapon damage tables. Nothing would change except which bullets do which damage. Everything else would be exactly the same.

@xXIMrTwoIXx

OP you have posted like 10 of these topics about snipers/rifles. Everytime citing this one document?"

I believe you mean two documents this time. And lots of pictures. Honest mistake, I hope.

and you abandon them as soon as people who actually know what they are talking about start posting (hunters/soldiers).

I only abandon posts when the majority become, "I didn't read what you wrote, and I'm proud of that" or "You may or may not have addressed this already, but I'm going to go ahead and call you ignorant while talking about something you handily debunked and thoroughly dismissed in the first line of your post because...I'm not really sure why I'm here." Although Kyus Jin's hilarious, "I hate you, you suck, and I want to shoot you in the face" is becoming an all-time favorite. Now that's dedication.

Oh, right, bones. Well, your first mistake is talking about bone fragments like they're a given and then hanging your hat on it. 70% of the body has no bones in it. And even if a bullet hits one, even a high velocity bullet, you can't predict how far the fragments will travel, in which direction, or even how many fragments will be created in the first place. In other words, you want to form damage tables based on something you can't predict. I want to form damage tables on something that is easily predictable -- wound channels. Why is your system more logical than mine?

Unless your argument is that there is no argument. It's quite possible you're arguing that making it up as you go along is better than establishing damage tables based on actual bullet performance. But...why would anyone want to do that?

Also, MrTwo, temporary cavitation lasts 3 milliseconds at most, human tissue has the elasticity of rubber, and non-expanding rifle rounds achieve high temporary cavitation at depth...which means they would actually do less damage in the parts of the body you're thinking of because they would pop right through.

Edited August 24, 2012 by BazBake

[Ronburgundy 5]

Came in expecting an Open University course on Ballistic Trauma

Left fucking confused

[bazbake 456]

Came in expecting an Open University course on Ballistic Trauma

Left fucking confused

tl;dr Arma II's weapon damage tables were made up off the top of someone's head and are completely inauthentic. A far more accurate way would be to base it on the size of the holes the bullets leave. Science, science, science. Math, math, math. There you go.

[Malorcus 2]

I'm going to have to agree with some of the other posters here and mention that while cavitation may be the deciding factor in a flesh would where no organ, major blood vessel, or bone is hit, most places on the body do not fall into this category. Any hit to the upper torso, center leg, inner thigh, neck, head, center arm would cause tremendous damage from a bullet that meets a threshold of mass times velocity.

Gut shots are the only place i can think of where your cavitation theory would largely apply, and in that case there is tremendous pain associated with the wound and a high chance of bleeding out.

Edited August 24, 2012 by Malorcus