Do bodies on the ground provide any cover or protection?

[Tashtego]

This AI commanded 101st trooper positioned himself behind these dead soldiers and kept up a steady stream of fire for several minutes during a rather hot fire fight. While the rest of his squad was either killed or took off, he held his position behind the dead. Thus the above question.

[agusto]

I dont know it for sure how the game treats this matter, but i seriously doubt that IRL a human body would provide any cover from a direct hit of a 7,92x57 mm or similar round at distances below several hundered meters. Maybe if you pile up 3-4 bodys and place them in a way that the enemy fire has to pass through all of them that is sufficient, but a single one? never...

EDIT:

I think since the human body consists to 70% of water, the cover it provides is compareable to snow. If i rember correctly, a 4+ meter thick snowwall is required to provide reliable cover from rifle fire.

[Doug Williams]

I very much doubt it.

[womble]

I dont know it for sure how the game treats this matter, but i seriously doubt that IRL a human body would provide any cover from a direct hit of a 7,92x57 mm or similar round at distances below several hundered meters. Maybe if you pile up 3-4 bodys and place them in a way that the enemy fire has to pass through all of them that is sufficient, but a single one? never...

Not cover, no, but concealment, maybe. Add the fact that the MG gunner has a reason for surviving in the first place (maybe he's found a minor declivity to work from) when the rest of his team/squad is so much cooling protoplasm, and perhaps you're getting somewhere

I think since the human body consists to 70% of water, the cover it provides is compareable to snow. If i rember correctly, a 4+ meter thick snowwall is required to provide reliable cover from rifle fire.

The human body is rather denser than snow. Unless it's the kind of snow that moves slowly past in a giant wall: the compacted snow of a glacier. But that's more often called "ice".

[c3k]

Typically, snow is regarded as being 1/10 the density of water. Add in the odd molecule of salt, calcium, undigested Spam, uniform, that "Dear John" letter in the breast pocket, and ammo clips, and I'd suggest that a very rough man:snow ratio would 1:20. So, 1 body, supine, approximately 16" from left to right (arms out of the way) would be about 26' 8" of snow equivalency. (Loose, granular, not packed, nor icy.)

[sburke]

snow grogs? Or is that ugly bags of mostly water vs snow grogs?

[agusto]

Typically, snow is regarded as being 1/10 the density of water. Add in the odd molecule of salt, calcium, undigested Spam, uniform, that "Dear John" letter in the breast pocket, and ammo clips, and I'd suggest that a very rough man:snow ratio would 1:20. So, 1 body, supine, approximately 16" from left to right (arms out of the way) would be about 26' 8" of snow equivalency. (Loose, granular, not packed, nor icy.)

Alright, sounds credible. I didnt think too much when writing that snow has an equal density like water. So how many human bodys do you think one would need to pile up to provide good cover? Wouldnt that be a case for Mythbusters?

[Seedorf81]

AFIK there are many accounts of soldiers who, being under severe small arms fire, used dead comrades/adversaries as cover. They couldn't have told those stories if the corpses gave no protection at all. Or were the survivors just very, very, lucky?

And talking about Mythbusters, they showed that the amount of water that can stop a bullet is surprisingly small. Wasn't it a Barrett .50 bullet that was useless beyond 50 cm (20 inches) of water? So 70% "human humidity" of let's say 70 kg average bodyweight has to give some protection, I would think.

[sburke]

talk about a morbid thread.....

[JonS]

AFIK there are many accounts of soldiers who, being under severe small arms fire, used dead comrades/adversaries as cover. They couldn't have told those stories if the corpses gave no protection at all. Or were the survivors just very, very, lucky?

It's called 'survivor bias'. You don't hear from all the guys who tried to hide behind a body but found it wasn't all that bulletproof, because they died.

Incidentally - I don't think hiding behind a bunch of bodies would provide much concealment. It'd be like trying to hide behind the only tree in an otherwise featureless field.

[LukeFF]

There was a thread posted here not too long ago about a German sniper who used the bodies of his comrades to soak up bullets that the Russians were shooting at him:

http://www.battlefront.com/community/showpost.php?p=1415329&postcount=26

From their positions the Soviets were sweeping the foreground with small arms and light machine gun fire, pinning me down with no hope of escape. The corpses of my two former colleagues were now useful as a bullet trap. while the sergeant's thigh made an excellent rest for my rifle barrel. While the remainder of the platoon gave me supporting fire from the background, my hour had now come. The Soviet positions consisted of two light MG nests at either end of a long trench. I had the inestimable advantage of facing an enemy who seemed to have no idea how dangerous a sniper could be even the distance of a football field away. Through the rifle scope I concentrated on the nearer nest, which was about 100 meters off. They knew where I was, of course, and while MG-fire spattered into the two cadavers, with my first two carefully aimed rounds I exploded the heads of the MG-gunner and his belt-feeder. There seems to be no activity in the other nest, leaving the field clear for me to finish the rest of them at leisure.

[$Pec5]

Regardless of the usefulness of bodies as cover, that's a pretty sweet screenshot, Tashtego

[agusto]

I have an interesting anecdote on the cover bodys provide:

My uncle hunts wild boars and once he told me he hit 2 with a single shot. The bullet went straight through the first one and became lodged in the second one. He found the second one first and wondered why he couldnt find an exit hole, so he kept searching and later discovered the other one.

Seedorf81,

I just looked up the Mythbusters episode. The experiment was done at super close range, no wonder the high velocity rounds exploded when they hit the water. At several hundered meters the probably bullets wouldnt explode.

[Seedorf81]

It's called 'survivor bias'. You don't hear from all the guys who tried to hide behind a body but found it wasn't all that bulletproof, because they died.

Incidentally - I don't think hiding behind a bunch of bodies would provide much concealment. It'd be like trying to hide behind the only tree in an otherwise featureless field.

Yeah, I realise that when under fire your psyche tells you that hiding behind ANYTHING is better than being totally exposed.

But with this survivorship bias theory I have my doubts; it's always subjective. Can we not say the same about armour? That we never hear from all the guys that tried to hide behind armour, but found out that it wasn't all that bulletproof, because they died?

[Seedorf81]

I have an interesting anecdote on the cover bodys provide:

My uncle hunts wild boars and once he told me he hit 2 with a single shot. The bullet went straight through the first one and became lodged in the second one. He found the second one first and wondered why he couldnt find an exit hole, so he kept searching and later discovered the other one.

Seedorf81,

I just looked up the Mythbusters episode. The experiment was done at super close range, no wonder the high velocity rounds exploded when they hit the water. At several hundered meters the probably bullets wouldnt explode.

Well, "probably" ain't no good enough for me!:cool:

[JonS]

But with this survivorship bias theory I have my doubts; it's always subjective. Can we not say the same about armour? That we never hear from all the guys that tried to hide behind armour, but found out that it wasn't all that bulletproof, because they died?

Possibly. That's the thing - until you investigate it, properly, you can't know whether what you're seeing is the result of survivor bias, or a useful effect.

If 1 person hides behind a body, and survives, he'll tell you that hiding behind bodies is a good idea.

If 100 people hide behind a body, and 99 die ... you'll still only hear from the single survivor, who'll still tell you that hiding behind bodies is a good idea. Because, for him, it was a good idea. It was a terrible idea for everyone else though.

At the population level, though, or deciding whether you should hide behind a body, it makes a quite significant difference whether there was originally 1 or 100 hiders.

[The Steppenwulf]

The human body will very rarely prevent a round fired at effective range from passing through it. However, it is possible that the pre-impact course of the bullet could be diverted as a result of impacting a body - that depends on the area of the body that is hit and whether the round strikes bone - a morbid consideration I know.

Additionally, an overlooked factor in this discussion is that combatants could be wearing thick clothing, rucksacks or webbing which can also contibute to velocity reduction of a bullet and/or change its course. Moreover, equipment carried in webbing and rucksacks; billy cans, magazines, utensils, entrenching tools and helmets for instance, are all perfectly capable of deflecting a direct round. Consequently it seems natural, in circumstances of poor cover, that using a cadaver for protection is at least better than nothing at all.

I think it's also worthwhile considering that it's not just the direct round that the combatant is attempting to avoid being struck by; shrapnel, bullet ricochet and other indirect flying fragments will possess less penetrative capabilites than a direct round but carry an improportional threat to the level of personal exposure. Thus, in this type of circumstance, even the lowest degree of protection can prove effective against the degree of anatomical damage inflicted.

Notwhithstanding the points raised above, I'd be willing to accept (as womble has indicated) that in reality the concealment factor rather than cover may have the greatest effect on survival odds in this kind of combat situation however difficult that is to quantify.

[Rocky Balboa]

Theoretically the code should work the same. If bullet deflection or pass through is modeled on live soldiers I would expect the same treatment with dead bodies as well. All other factors being equal, a prone dead body = prone live body.

Even when abstracted, if 4 prone dead bodies and 1 prone live body exists in an AS receiving area fire then there should be a chance that some rounds would strike the prone dead bodies.

[Seedorf81]

I just emailed the Mythbusters with the question if they can (want to) look into this myth: "Can a dead soldiers body provide cover for his buddy?"

Looks unlikely that they will, but one never knows..

[mjkerner]

Has anyone consulted Chuck Norris yet about this? I think his subjective observations about bullets hitting his body could shed some light.

[Broadsword56]

If a comrade's body, a dead cow, etc, is all the cover you've got, of course you'll use it.

But that doesn't mean it's actually useful cover -- watch those YouTube videos of WWII weapons effects training films that have been linked to so often on this forum. You'll see small arms rounds easily penetrating brick walls. I can't imagine flesh and bone would fare any better.

[MikeyD]

I'm reminded of an anecdote about a big firefight in Vietnam. With his squad wiped out and surrounded by the enemy one of young soldier was 'playing dead' when a NVA machinegunner set up a firing position on the bodies of his dead comrades. The gun was so close he could feel the heat coming off the barrel and see the machinegunner's hands trembling. That young soldier survived the war and went on to become a prestigious White House correspondent.

[JonS]

playing dead != using your mates as sandbags

[Rocky Balboa]

I’m really not sure why the big discussion on this. If the game tracks the flight of each round as we have been told and we know that live prone soldiers can be hit then it makes sense that prone dead soldiers could also be hit. The only question that remains to be answered is if rounds will pass through human bodies, it should make no difference if the bodies are live or dead.

[womble]

...we know that live prone soldiers can be hit then it makes sense that prone dead soldiers could also be hit...

For a certain value of "sense", yes. But we don't know what value Charles and Phil settled on for that parameter. It may be that dead bodies being counted as cover throws up issues the like of which we wot not of, so they don't. I don't think I've noticed dead bodies counting as cover, even in the killing field that happened a couple of games back that had most of a company mowed down on it (so there were plenty of opportunities for bullet-stoppage to occur - admitted, I may just not have seen it when it did happen, but IIRC, I was watching quite closely and "carcass sandbags" would have been remarkable, I think).