The Elusive Stopping Power "Formula" and ArmA 3

[rye1 21]

MANY wound ballistics experts write off KE as a wounding mechanism because it ISN'T. You're not understanding--you are thinking this is a science discussion on KE? It's about WOUND BALLISTICS.

The data comes from tests against ballistic gel and animals who have the closest tissue type to humans... pigs.

You don't add to this conversation, you just took it off course with your KE crap that wouldn't contribute to this game. Come back with some wound ballistics research in you and I'll give you a clap--for contributing.

Edited December 23, 2011 by Rye

[pathetic_berserker 4]

NP, keep your clap

[Tom1 10]

Why are we arguing?

Seriously everyone is all worried and upset about whether or not energy transfer and KE and tumble and yaw make bullets more or less effective and play a role in terminal ballistics. The thing is in the end you are all trying to replicate what different ammunition does to people.

The thing is what certain rounds do to people is already written down, drawn up, photographed and is readilly avaliable for you all to see. Why worry about the science behind how it all works when the sciency side of this will have no impact in arma, to get your desired results in arma you only need to know what rounds actually do to people.

The matter is being over complicated, stop trying to reintroduce the wheel guys, I too find it interesting to know and learn about how different factors such as bullet design, energy transfer ect all play a part in terminal ballistics, but at the end of the day all relivent information you need in right infront of your noses.

2 options:

1. "This bullet transfers this much energy to this section of the body at this speed at this angle of pitch and yaw and this creates a hole in this section of the body aprox this wide and severs this many arteries causing bleeding at this rate..."

2. "There is an article showing and explaining to us what the bullet does and the severity of the wound."

2 is the better option because the first is not only too complicated, time consuming and also not inviting enough for BIS to look into but that kind of information is hardly relevent to a game designed to simulate "military conflicts and tactics", OFP, ArmA, Arma2, OA and Arma 3 are not, have not and will not be "crazy german terminal ballistics scientist shooting different sections of pigs/POWS and refering to them as pigs to please geneva convetion with different levels of protection [armour] and different amounts of adrenaline at different distances with different ammunition over and over again to get a mean result for each type of ammunition and publish in articles for the military's and occasionally civilian population's veiwing pleasure" simulator.

Sometimes it is best to just make educated guesses and have faith in german doctor scientists who know more about the topic than you ever will and use what they have already provided.

Not much information is given on body armour but here is an easy solution to everyone's problems:

M80 7.62x51mm NATO ball round is fired at level III body armour and it takes 2-6 rounds to penetrate the armour on average from ranges of 50 metres all the way to the round's effective range depending on many factors, one being the velocity of the round on impact, another being the spacing of the rounds etc. So on average it takes 4 rounds to break and penetrate the armour. Good enough for game terms.

The M855a1 5.56x45mm ball round is the US Army's new round of choice with exceptional improvements, over the shitty m855 round. One being the newer round not being dependent on the angle of yaw on impact with a target (i.e. chance) to determain whether or not it fragments. Its only real 'fragmentation dependancy' is how fast the round was travelling at the time of impact to determain how well (if at all) the round fragments (works fine within 300 metres (650m/s on impact is the average speed of the round at 300 metres)). This means the round has much better and much more consistent results compared to the unreliable m855 that everyone complained about.

The other improvement this round has is its penetratiove abilities, said to be noticibly better compared to not only the older m855 round but also the larger m80 7.62 round that on average requires 4 rounds in effective range to penetrate level III armour. After a little educated guess you can say that the m855a1 may take on average 3 rounds to break and penetrate the armour. Good enough for arma and the best part is that took me 5 minutes. Compare that to weeks of research and sciency equations where you still only have a hypothesis, no real world proof and the simple method suddenly seems more awesome.

If the suggestion for improved wounds and ballistics in arma 3 is overly complicated it will not appeal to BIS to even bother.

Here is an example of how similar ideas could be 'sold' to BIS:

"Arma 3 should have better wounding and ballistic simulation. Using what we already know from existing real world tests and making educated guesses about what we dont know [body armour for instance] we can greatly increase the realism in how combat plays out ingame with both the AI and players, without the use of over complicated formulas that only slow down the game by telling us what we already know...

More realistic wounds will make combat more realistic because the idea of wounding rather than outright killing enemy combatants has become popular in the last 30 or so years with real militaries because a wounded man still needs to be cared for and has the potential to slow down a group of enemy combatants far more effectivly than a dead man. And this could easilly be replicated with just a few AI modifications and would greatly improve the realism of the game and change the way many players think about teamwork."

[rye1 21]

Well without starting a flamefest. I was simple saying energy is related to the concept, yes, but not a defining factor, and I have named those factors; therefore logic says don't implement that. No one is worried or upset. ;)

[Spartan0536 188]

Here are the 6 factors that determine how much wounding is caused by bullets.....

1. Mass

2. Density

3. Design

4. Velocity

5. Yawing

6. Transfer of Energy

[-Gews- 1]

The number one factor is "how much damage does the bullet do?" Well, the bullet does zero damage until it hits something, so to properly simulate how much damage a bullet does to something, you need to have a properly simulated target!

OFP, ArmA 1, and ArmA 2 did not take into account vital organs, body armor, etc, etc, etc, etc, all the factors of the "target". You could kill someone by shooting their toes, and people could take multiple handgun rounds to the chest, 7.62mm sniper rifles suddenly went from one-shot kill to two-shot kill after 900m, etc, tons of problems.

Before a "stopping power formula", we need a properly simulated human body.

[-Coulum- 35]

Even if every major artery and organ were to be modeled and it was possible to determine the exact size of each wound channel and the blood loss rate and damage to organs etc you still wouldn't have an accurate stopping power model - Because a large part of whether a target drops or not is based on the psychological reaction of that target. One person might take a 9mm to the shoulder and immediately flop to the ground while another might take several fatal 5.56 to the gut but still be able to return fire until he bleeds out (along time). Of course the latter are probably rare but stopping power is not something you can formulate based on terminal ballistics alone. A good portion of it is psychological, and really the best way to represent that in game is more randomness.

[progamer 14]

Even if every major artery and organ were to be modeled and it was possible to determine the exact size of each wound channel and the blood loss rate and damage to organs etc you still wouldn't have an accurate stopping power model - Because a large part of whether a target drops or not is based on the psychological reaction of that target. One person might take a 9mm to the shoulder and immediately flop to the ground while another might take several fatal 5.56 to the gut but still be able to return fire until he bleeds out (along time). Of course the latter are probably rare but stopping power is not something you can formulate based on terminal ballistics alone. A good portion of it is psychological, and really the best way to represent that in game is more randomness.

All we need is support more a more realistic model of the human body. Then mods like ACE 3 would be able to give us the medical system we want.

[-Coulum- 35]

Yes more detailed hitzone would be great and I really am looking forward to what ace is going to come up with as well as CMS - or even better if CMS was integrated into ACE.

But even detailed hitzones can only go so far when concerning instant stopping power. For example, If a guy gets his liver shredded by a bullet (pretty much fatal in long term) is that going to stop him from emptying his last clip any more than a shot to the lung or to the gut. I mean its not like he is going to check in the heat of battle "is this going to eventually be fatal - oh yep it is, time to drop dead". Neither wound is immediately going to force incapacitation so really it basically down to how serious the guy perceives the wound to be and how willing he is to keep on fighting. And that is all psychological.

That being said it would be awesome to have proper modelling of broken bones, severed arteries, lung punctures, heart shots etc. And of course the head and upper spine are vital to have modeled.

Ah its nice to dream

[maffa 29]

if i dont remember bad, the choice on 5.56 back at the end of WWII was that the bullet was smaller and tumbled a lot, so that once inside the human body its wounds would be lacerating (it was said, in fact, that they were or are considered borderly inhuman). From a psychological standpoint that woud be enough to stop a drafted soldier -someone who didnt demand to be there and certainly didnt need much push to give up, the type of enemy you would expect in a post WWII scenario- but the trick may be not that successful against highly motivated individuals, such as professional or indoctrinated or drugged enemies.

So the problem here lies in the fact that the definition of "stopping power" doesnt reside in a quality of the bullet, but in the mind of the person who has to be stopped.

In game terms all these distinction dont make sense, though, since in A3 you are fine or you are dead, no steps in between and no wounding system worth mentioning. I dont even know if there is one in a to do-list, honestly.

Edited November 12, 2013 by Maffa

[maturin 12]

Here are the 6 factors that determine how much wounding is caused by bullets.....

1. Mass

2. Density

3. Design

4. Velocity

5. Yawing

6. Transfer of Energy

Number 6 doesn't exist. It is derived from other factors of bullet design. A hollowpoint will transfer all its energy because it opens up on impact and slows down much faster due to increased surface area. Or 5.45mm stopping because it yawed and experienced more friction (and made a longer would channel). But that has nothing to do with transfer of energy, which is just a misleading, guru-esque label.

From high school physics, energy does work. A hollowpoint 'works' by shredding more of your flesh and killing you faster. Any energy acting on you beyond that is mostly a waste. How much kinetic energy a bullet has to begin with does not predict how lethal it will be, beyond the very barest rule of thumb. 7.62x39mm is capable of penciling through soft lung tissue and leaving you walking wounded, when 9mm hollowpoint would be fatal. You have to look at the terminal ballistics.

[maffa 29]

probably the only right way to make it somehow right would be scripting a wounding system for each and every bullet and caliber, including barrel lenght and hitting range. This, unless we accept also the idea of personal armours, or we should include those in the formula...

[EDcase 87]

Sorry but all this arguing and this whole thread is pointless...

1. BIS are NOT going to change major game mechanics for ARMA3. Its just too late for that.

2. Almost everyone is complaining about poor fps and you are now talking about adding 'simulation' of wound ballistics?!?!?!? LOL, forget it.

For any game bullet damage must be reduced to the minimum computation.

Caliber, velocity, armor, hit point... Thats about it for variables

Edited November 12, 2013 by EDcase

[xendance 3]

Sorry but all this arguing and this whole thread is pointless...

1. BIS are NOT going to change major game mechanics for ARMA3. Its just too late for that.

2. Almost everyone is complaining about poor fps and you are now talking about adding 'simulation' of wound ballistics?!?!?!? LOL, forget it.

For any game bullet damage must be reduced to the minimum computation.

Caliber, velocity, armor, hit point... Thats about it for variables

You probably noticed that this thread was just resurrected from the year 2011 :P

[-Coulum- 35]

So the problem here lies in the fact that the definition of "stopping power" doesnt reside in a quality of the bullet, but in the mind of the person who has to be stopped.

Yeah to a certain degree that's exactly right. First thing is shot placement after that the will of the fighter is whats important. Of course a fighter is going to be alot less willing if he has a bigger hole in him but there is no guarantee he will go down immediately.

In your example of a drafted soldier - yes many would call it quits from the slightest injury in most scenarios - but imagine CQB where giving up doesn't mean the enemy is necessarily going to stop shooting you - adrenaline is powerful stuff and when cornered i am sure that even drafted soldiers wouldn't be unable to keep squeezing the trigger after taking some hits, even "long term fatal" ones.

[EDcase 87]

You probably noticed that this thread was just resurrected from the year 2011 :P

Yes, and it should have been left to bleed out and die...