People not dying

[the_blitz6794 10]

I'm having a terrible time killing just about anything. I've been using the mxm. There's way too much sway I think. There's also a lot of times when I should hit someone and nothing happens. The bullet doesn't hit next to them. It just disappears. What's going on here? Testing on teammates, I've found it takes an insane (5-6) amount of center mass shots to kill. What the hell is going on here?

[ACPL Jon 68]

"extended armor", brotha. Many people are confused, because the basic difficulty settings make no sense, like always.

Main Menu -> Options -> Game -> Difficulty -> Regular or w\e you play on -> Extended Armor.

Even tho, yes, the people in A3 are rather more resistant then in A2, call it the pseudo kevlars or whatever.

[Hellbeard 10]

You know, I've noticed it myself as well. Folks can take a ridiculous amount of bullets to the organs and brush it off. With the PDW at 500 meters I shot a guy, and saw him react to being hit, at least 10 or 15 times before he deigned to keel over and die. I know bullets hit less hard but this is ridiculous. Also with co-axial machineguns I'd regularly need to put 5 bullets at least into a guy or it's no biggie to get shot.

Excepting extreme cases, people should fall over dead with the first or second bullet to hit a "kill zone" such as center thorax. Everyone should die instantly (I think they do) when being shot in the so called "fatal T" or "deadly triangle" or whatever you call an imaginary area superimposed over the head to represent the location of the brain.

edit: There's no personal armor in the inventory. Why should it have an effect?

[afp 1]

It may be because of "extended armor" option, it was just perfect 2 months ago, enemies taking maximum 3-4 shots before getting killed then they changed it... I imagine in the future it will be the same balance between armors and penetration, if the armor evolves so the bullets.... the fairest thing to assume.

Default settings right now makes the enemies some kind of iron robots...

[bad benson 1733]

yea i noticed it too. sometimes (often;) ) i die because i stop shooting after what i think were the kill shots just out of habit. and then i get killed by the return fire. to me the main problem is that people don't get knocked over. i'm fine with people not dying instantly but just those little twitches are not enough for me to represent the so called "stopping power" of my rifle.

[kylania 567]

With the PDW at 500 meters I shot a guy, and saw him react to being hit, at least 10 or 15 times before he deigned to keel over and die. I know bullets hit less hard but this is ridiculous.

9mm at 500 meters and you're wondering why you're having trouble killing people???

[Hellbeard 10]

9mm at 500 meters and you're wondering why you're having trouble killing people???

I'm no expert but if you hit a person at 500 meters they're going to die.

[EDcase 87]

Remember they have armor.

At 500m a 9mm bullet will have almost no energy and will just be falling out of the sky.

[maturin 12]

I'm no expert but if you hit a person at 500 meters they're going to die.

You would have to be in an airplane to hit someone with 9mm pistol rounds at 500m, and the effect would be the same as dropping it on their head.

9mmx23 loses 1/5 of its force over just 50 meters. Now what happens at ten times that range?

And is extended armor really on by default?

Edited September 5, 2013 by maturin

[Smurf 12]

Not that easy with a 9mm. Also remember that you can hit the enemy's weapon, so he don't take damage. Happens pretty often.

Have no problem at all dropping tangos.

[aus_twisted 0]

I'm no expert but if you hit a person at 500 meters they're going to die.

Maybe in GTA with a hand gun lol

[mistyronin 1181]

9mm is designed for close range and not intended to kill ( thought if it hits a vital zone can do so ).

A person could even bear some shots at close range, for example some of the kids of Columbine.

In fact not even the 5,56 is intended to kill, that's why they downgrade the former 7.62. Because for an army/gov, its more expensive and hard psychologically to attend injured people and cripples than dead soldiers.

[2nd ranger 282]

i die because i stop shooting after what i think were the kill shots just out of habit. and then i get killed by the return fire. to me the main problem is that people don't get knocked over. i'm fine with people not dying instantly but just those little twitches are not enough for me to represent the so called "stopping power" of my rifle.

Yeah this is a major issue. You shoot a guy and his only reaction is to twitch. Does being injured even affect the AI's aim currently? If BIS isn't going to add some better animation (or ragdoll) for being hit, they at least need to bring back the supression effect for AI. In Arma 2 you knew that if you hit a guy and didn't kill him, his return fire at least wasn't going to to be deadly accurate, and his rate of fire would slow. At the moment it's just BANG BANG BANG BANG [twitch] BANG BANG BANG BANG

[maturin 12]

9mm is designed for close range and not intended to kill ( thought if it hits a vital zone can do so ).

A person could even bear some shots at close range, for example some of the kids of Columbine.

In fact not even the 5,56 is intended to kill, that's why they downgrade the former 7.62. Because for an army/gov, its more expensive and hard psychologically to attend injured people and cripples than dead soldiers.

Sigh... this again...

All bullets in use by military, police and hunters are intended to kill.

There's nothing specifically done to the design of 5.56 NATO and 9mm to secure a less-than-lethal result. The former was marketed for its high lethality in development. Humans are just resilient, and all weapons are dependent on chance. There is no place you can shoot a person and be confident that they won't die.

[mistyronin 1181]

All bullets in use by military, police and hunters are intended to kill.

So, all the weapon teachings in the army were lies! Such a disappointment, I'll issue a complain to my former officers...

Irony off, each bullet has its goal in the design. That doesn't mean that could or not be deadly, you could kill someone hitting him in the head with a laptop, but doesn't mean its intended to kill.

9mm are to stop people and 5,56 to get quite a bad injury, meanwhile a 7.92 or a 0.50, its almost a safe kill if it hits you.

Even the famous Taser is not intended to kill, though it can do it ( and it has done quite a lot of times ). Or the antiriot rubber bullets ( but I promise that if you use them at 10 mts aiming at the head you will kill the target ).

[maturin 12]

So, all the weapon teachings in the army were lies! Such a disappointment, I'll issue a complain to my former officers...

Maybe you should do that. I'm not going to take the opinion of unnamed Finnish army officers over what is ACTUALLY the historical record of the 5.56 NATO round in development.

The 5.56 was designed to be highly lethal and was touted as such. It's high velocity and tendency to yaw and fragment were lauded.

Now, if your officers wanted to impart that the 5.56 often can't be relied on to kill, and tends to wound instead, that is a valid opinion with a lot of evidence to back it up.

meanwhile a 7.92 or a 0.50, its almost a safe kill if it hits you.

'

Are you serious? 7.62mm make tiny unobtrusive holes in people all the damn time. At the end of the day it's a very small piece of lead and if circumstances are right, the guy walks away.

As for the .50, in most configurations this round isn't "meant" to kill people at all, but destroy vehicles. Which just goes to show how silly it is to be talking about the purpose of bullets, which are effectively the same.

Again, there's no design feature of the 9mm or 5.56mm that privileges wounding over killing. It's a bizarre idea in itself. Wounds kill. You don't have control over how serious the wound is when you're talking about something like a 5.56 round. These bullets don't 'hold anything back' to prevent lethality. There's no design tradeoff except the caliber itself.

That they have an unfortunate tendency to leave people alive is an educated opinion. That they were designed that way is a myth.

[mistyronin 1181]

Maybe you should do that. I'm not going to take the opinion of unnamed Finnish army officers over what is ACTUALLY the historical record of the 5.56 NATO round in development.

Well in fact I'm not a finnish citzen ( I can't even speak proper finnish ), though I live here due to family reasons ( my wife ). I served for years as a professional soldier in a country that its both in NATO and EU ( I've even been in international exercises ). Leaving apart my boring life.

You seem a bit confused about terms. Each kind of bullet has a function ( disable vehicles, penetrate armor, injury, stop, kill etc. ), and were designed for the maker with that idea ( you can even read the profiles in their websites ). Even in the same caliber you can find diff designs.

As I stated before, ALL can kill ( even rubber ones ), but some are specially designed for that, and others no.

If you have to kill someone at close range efficiently you would use higher calibers than the standard 9mm Parabellum.

BTW .50 and 7.92 are calibers for sniper rifles.

------------

And if you don't believe that, it would take a long technical talk, that I believe this topic is not the appropriate. But there are other forums in the net designed for that.

[Hellbeard 10]

After some loose and not too scrupulous internet research.

The velocity of the round is also affected by the length of the barrell. 5.56 is more deadly at higher speeds because it breaks up, and less effective with shorter barrels because it stays intact.

Image from article about 5.56

http://i.imgur.com/O0nAyrr.png (184 kB)

See, longer barrel = more time the projectile is being pushed from behind by the expanding gasses of the smokeless gun powder=more faster=more deadly.

The important factor is what organs take damage; where you hit.

You got your permanent tunnel, temporary tunnel because of the force of the bullet pushing tissue aside and then your hydrostatic shock because of the pressure wave moving through the body. The better the bullet transfers energy to the tissues the higher chance there is that there will be organ failure because of the hydrostatic pressure wave. It doesn't matter much, though, if the bullet or bullet fragments or bone fragments or pieces of equipment shrapnel hits a vital organ. The odds of making a hole through a person and causing them to die (or otherwise incapacitated) lie heavily between 1 and 3, 2 being a good measure.

This chart from a ballistics calculating thing I found at random suggests that the speed of the 9mm at 500 meters will be between 650 and 750 FPS.

This guy found some formula in a research paper to calculate how deep a bullet will penetrate depending on velocity:

So, 9mm FMJ at 500 meters will, give or take, make a hole in your body that's approximately 15 inches through. That's enough to get to the other side, with good conditions. If that hole goes through something in your body that you need working constantly to live, you are going to die. It might not cause damage to surrounding tissues via shock because the energy of it is low(about a third of what it had when it exited the muzzle), but you're not going to shrug it off and say "GTA LOL". The reason for that is, you need most everything in your body not to have holes in it.

These data support my general knowledge assumption that has no basis.

[gatordev 214]

As I stated before, ALL can kill ( even rubber ones ), but some are specially designed for that, and others no.

If you have to kill someone at close range efficiently you would use higher calibers than the standard 9mm Parabellum.

BTW .50 and 7.92 are calibers for sniper rifles.

------------

And if you don't believe that, it would take a long technical talk, that I believe this topic is not the appropriate. But there are other forums in the net designed for that.

What maturin is trying to say about the .50 (or other large caliber rounds) is that regardless of if they're used in a machine gun or a "sniper" rifle, they're primary use is anti-material. Yes, they can be used effectively against human targets, but the .50 is anything but precision. I've operated with the M107 a lot, and it's primary purpose wasn't about stopping people....but we were more than willing to use it against people if the ROE brought us to that point.

As for saying the 5.56 wasn't designed to kill...sorry, but I'm not buying it. It might not have been good at it initially, but that's a different matter. And the MK262 round currently issued is very effective.

[maturin 12]

If you have to kill someone at close range efficiently you would use higher calibers than the standard 9mm Parabellum.

Exactly. Less efficient. More efficient. That's miles away from 'not designed to kill.' There were simply other design imperatives that were deemed more important than maximum lethality.

BTW .50 and 7.92 are calibers for sniper rifles.

Oops, I misread 7.92 as 7.62.

But .50 usually refers to .50 BMG, which was self-evidently designed for the M2 Browning Machine Gun.

[mistyronin 1181]

Exactly. Less efficient. More efficient. That's miles away from 'not designed to kill.' There were simply other design imperatives that were deemed more important than maximum lethality.

Oops, I misread 7.92 as 7.62.

But .50 usually refers to .50 BMG, which was self-evidently designed for the M2 Browning Machine Gun.

Well matter of words then. Instead of "intended to kill", change it for "maximum lethality". :)

[the_blitz6794 10]

faster doesnt mean deadlier. a 7.62 will poke a hole right through you. a 5.56 might tumble through you, thrashing organs, no exit wound

[Hellbeard 10]

faster doesnt mean deadlier. a 7.62 will poke a hole right through you. a 5.56 might tumble through you, thrashing organs, no exit wound

Because you've completely isolated the velocity factor in this example.

Though as a rule you have a point. Faster doesn't always, all conditions being equal, mean deadlier but it generally does.

[bez 10]

Bullets are pathetically weak even with out connection to armor, I did a test, try it your self. all on default regular difficulty settings.

I placed a regular opfor rifleman in front of me and gave it no ammo and never shoot way point.

I then was standing as close as I can to this guy face and using the 5.56 ammo I had to shoot him in the face TWO times to kill him.

Not the helmet, I mean DIRECTLY IN THE FACE FROM POINT BLANK, that's two 5.56 bullets to kill him.

And his reaction to the first bullet was like, "ho you shot me? OK I will just twitch a bit, but I don't have a problem with one 5.56 from point blank in my face, please shoot me more.

Sorry but there is no excuse for this lame thing, bullets are overall weak (and it's not just the 5.56 ammo) and gun play is not satisfying this way, at all.

I am thoroughly disappointed from this, it really makes me hate playing this ArmA 3 title.

I hope ACE will come quick and fix this crap.

@the_blitz6794

5.56 ammo can also have an exit wound in a totally different location than what one would assume.

it can travel the body and exit in a 90 degree angle potentially making it more deadly then 7.62 ammo.

The whole 5.56 vs 7.62 debate is an old one, personally (as an ex combat medic) I know 5.56 are very lethal in contrary to what some people think.

But I think it dose not matter what is more deadly, bullets are overall weak in this game, any caliber.

Go shoot someone IRL life even with 9 mm and even if they won't die, they are probably now ineffective combatants.

Solders in ArmA 3 can take 5 or more 5.56 bullets from 50 meters and act like nothing happen, all this velocity and things don't matter anymore, it's a joke, period.

and to people who think 5.56 is not deadly, please have a read

http://www.futurefirepower.com/myths-about-the-nato-556-cartridge

Edited September 6, 2013 by bez

[maturin 12]

I've never seen any soldier survive bullets to their face, and I tested it this afternoon.

Blufor body armor can sometimes soak up 4 5.56 rounds, but rarely more than 2. And mostly it's 6.8 anyways.