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[John Kettler]

M Hofbauer,

It's a show out here on the Discovery Channel run by a team of FX specialists with 30+ years of experience in which they do detailed tests of various allegations and urban myths in order to test their validity or lack thereof. In the one being referenced, the tests were conducted on the San Francisco Police Department range, under the guidance and supervision of a department firearms expert. At other times, they've had the FBI present, complete with demolition experts. While now and again they screw up and make a mistake for which viewers blast them and make them revisit a topic, I saw no such error here. The suspension method was extremely sensitive to force being applied, the weight was that of a 90th percentile man, and the target was the chest. The only problem I can see is that this was not an attempt to model a combat loaded infantryman in full kit, thus no heavy pack and such.

Regards,

John Kettler

[M Hofbauer]

Originally posted by RMC:

Have you ever watched an episode of Mythbusters, Mr. Smartypants?

okay Mr I-Love-television-made-for-the-double-digit-IQ-audience,

In fact, I did; I happened to stumble over it while zapping around, so I saw it on two occasions, each a couple of minutes before moving/zapping away in disgust. I remember one of the guys looked like a bouncer/biker kinda guy, the crew all in all looked rather goofy, looked like they could feature in MTV's Pimp My Ride (that show which is about always installing chrome wheels plus several PSP2's and flatscreens no matter who the car owner is or what his individual likes are).

One apparently was about letting someone float to the ground from the air in a inflated rubber boat (Dinghi?sp?), where they plain forgot that any such large, indense object will tilt and flatter while falling through the air so the "person" (dummy" simply fell out (doh!).

the second was about some cowboy/wildwest myth, IIRC; something about shooting from the hip or weapons of the wild west...could be that I am mixing this up with some other bull**** "what-if" show... I remember they let a fat-bellied retiree who claimed to be sort of a wild west fan shoot a bit and then compared his action to an active duty police officer who did the same shooting range, they both had one go at it, this was timed and the result was to be the cobnclusive final verdict on how WildWest weapons compare to modern firearms...or somefink...

both instances were a plain insult to human intelligence. the approach was, well, *very unscientific* and very reminding of chidren TV series.

It also reminded me of that other "Bull****OrNot" series...whats it called... Unsolved Mysteries? naw, thats not it...I mean the one where they show several "mysterious"/"magic" stories/episodes and you can guess whether they are "true" or completely made up, they reveal that at the end of the show... forgot the name, but its right up the very same bull**** alley so I am sure you know the title.

whats next? Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as a reference for melee fighting? Rambo II for an illustration of the capacity of automatic weapons' magazines? The A-Team to show that nobody really gets hurt during an intense automatic weapons firefight? The Teletubbies landscape to justify the naked clean grass terrain in CM ?

or...finally... HistoryChannel "documentaries" to show "how it really was"... *cough*

puleeeze...

p.s.: I thought I had already complained to you about the degradation of the local TV program due to the influx of BBC/DiscoveryChannel "documentaries" and the like?

[Other Means]

Originally posted by Moon:

Other Means, this idea was mentioned by someone else a few days ago. The main problem is that this little abstraction works for fairly small things like a pillbox - which isn't much bigger than a tank the way it's represented int he game - but won't work for some as big as a house. In TOW, houses are HUGE when compared to the scale of the game, which is a single soldier. It simply wouldn't look right and wouldn't play right, because the abstraction does not fit the rest of the game flow.

Martin

Always the bridesmade...

I'm not sure what you mean but ok, if you say so.

What will let it down? The people in the windows not taking fire etc?

[M Hofbauer]

Originally posted by gunnersman:

Me thinks John Kettler was trying to make the same point you were.

The Mythbusters episode totaly "busts" the idea that large caliber bullets (of small arms type) will send a man flying when hit.

while apparently J. Kettler and I both agree that flipping through the air when hit from a Luger isnt exactly overly realistic ,

my point was a differennt one, maybe I didnt stress that very well, where we differ is the question whether we really want casualty simulation to be portrayed realistically in the first place.

Do we want heads to explode and brains splattered over the area ? Do we want guts hanging from open torsos, and mutilated bodies lying in pools of blood? People with their limbs torn off screaming and twisting in agony?

No, we dont want that, and we wont have that.

I'm assuming J. Kettler doesn't want that, either.

But to show a soldier going down cleanly without an ounce of blood shed, like in a John Wayne Western or 1950ies crime thriller, is just as un-realistic as showing them flipping through the air.

so his approach seems a bit hypocritical. He wants realism yet no realism regarding people being hit.

The whole thing is a game. It is a game that, while being reasonably attached to realism, in dubio has fun reigning over realism. I think this has become clear from the descriptions so far (and in itself this isnt a problem).

If 1C/BTS considers flipping over of soldiers to be a good way of showing they're hit violently and a spectacular way of pleasing the kiddie main RTS customer group expectations, then be it, I do not have any issues with that (and no, I am not being cynical, I mean it).

btw: oh, and obviously John Kettler and I disagree over the scientific value of "MythBusters"...

[M Hofbauer]

Dear John,

no sweat.

Originally posted by John Kettler:

M Hofbauer,

It's a show out here on the Discovery Channel run by a team of FX specialists with 30+ years of experience in which they do detailed tests of various allegations and urban myths in order to test their validity or lack thereof.

as outlined above, I am aware of said TV show.

In the one being referenced, the tests were conducted on the San Francisco Police Department range, under the guidance and supervision of a department firearms expert. At other times, they've had the FBI present, complete with demolition experts. While now and again they screw up and make a mistake for which viewers blast them and make them revisit a topic, I saw no such error here. The suspension method was extremely sensitive to force being applied, the weight was that of a 90th percentile man, and the target was the chest. The only problem I can see is that this was not an attempt to model a combat loaded infantryman in full kit, thus no heavy pack and such.

which would be interesting re. the probability of the bullet getting stuck in the target vs. simply passing through.

loadout above Schwerpunkt would obviously add to the probability of the subject person toppling over.

even in what little they showed and you told about, it becomes apparent that any high-powered slug has the inherent momentum to exercise a knock-over, as evidenced by the 12-gauge - only the 12-gauge shot (buick shot? or what?) has a nice tendency to neatly transfer all of its energy onto target.

while we won't agree on the "quality" or lack thereof re. MythBusters and its spinoffs, we probably both agree that "salti mortale" are not realistic - most of the time.

but here is *my* beef: just having them drop like that isnt realistic either. especially when in our melees we have full-powered rifle ammo of 3k, 4k J blasted into each others' face.

why have a beef with salti, then?

Regards,

John Kettler

Likewise, regards.

as a bonafide, let me explain to you where I read about the issue.

It was during my first year in law school when re. criminal law I read some ballistics papers, I unfortunately do not remember the name of the article or the name of the publication, well it's been quite a while ago... I also barely remember the details of the paper on ballistics effects, they used a more physics-based approach, no pictures, some formulae.

What I *do* remember much better was what was IIRC the next article that I happened to stumble while reading the former.

It was a detailed examination of an unnatural death. A handicapped person in a wheelchair had committed suicide. With a muzzle-loader handgun. As was reconstructed, he shot himself into the head with it. THREE TIMES ! A muzzle-loaded weapon ! It described in detail the effects of the first shot and how difficult it must have been to subsequently load the handgun again. Indeed for the last shot he somehow mixed up the order in which the components (powder, filler and bullet) were to be loaded into the gun, or he forgot the filler part, or somefink. I do not remember the details. but what really impressed me was the sheer determination expressed by the act of killing yourself with a muzzle-loaded blackpowder pistol that you have to reload repeatedly to kill yourself.

Oh, and the report was full of , uh, bloody details of the various (medical-pathological) effects of the subsequent shots.

regards,

M.Hofbauer

edit: cause I cant spell "target"

[ August 12, 2006, 02:11 PM: Message edited by: M Hofbauer ]

[howardb]

Originally posted by Vergeltungswaffe:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by John Kettler:

Moon,

Isn't that a Sturmpanzer IV, rather than a StuH?

Definitely a Brummbar. Shame on Moon. </font>

[PseudoSimonds]

Originally posted by howardb:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Vergeltungswaffe:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by John Kettler:

Moon,

Isn't that a Sturmpanzer IV, rather than a StuH?

Definitely a Brummbar. Shame on Moon. </font>

[John Kettler]

M Hofbauer,

While I appreciate your taking the time to reply at length, I believe the quality of the discussion would be enhanced by a) paying attention to the specifics of what I've said and not attributing to me statements I never made.

Earlier in this thread, in referring to the 12 gauge firing, I clearly specified the projectile was a deer slug, not buckshot or birdshot.

I said nothing anywhere in the thread at all about my views or lack thereof regarding the realistic depiction of terminal ballistics in the game. Based on longstanding BFC practice, though, I wouldn't expect realistic depiction of the gore. I must object, though, to your accusing me of being hypocritical regarding my supposedly insisting on wanting accurate impact modeling but being unwilling to have realistic wounding and dismemberment when I made no such statement in the first place.

As for MythBusters, I think you misunderstand. The show tests claims made by others. It doesn't matter whether the claim makes no sense on the face of it. Rather, the point is to test the feasibility of the claim, hence the raft with the dummy in it being dropped from a helicopter, special rigs while attempting to fly down from several stories up while clutching a sheet of plywood, letting pig carcasses rot in cars to test limits of cleaning and deodorizing technology, live fire tests into a pool with an ordnance gel trap to test claims of protective value of water vs. incoming bullets, etc.

As I said, sometimes they screw up badly, one of the worst of which was an investigation in which they showed, both in the lab and in a light plane cockpit, that many portable electronic devices did indeed affect aircraft flight instruments, but then when they went to test jets, they used a modern glass cockpit, digital flight controlled business jet instead of the far more common old style, pre modern electronics unhardened analog controlled jet. IMO, and from the perspective of someone who studied such matters professionally while in military aerospace, this completely queered the conclusion, which unsurprisingly was that jets had nothing to fear from portable consumer electronics. Hardly! Such aircraft are hardened, by virtue of their skin, only against such energies from outside the plane.

Likewise, the duo organized tests of the fire hazard while refueling posed by cell phones. They

got so much flak from the first one that they had to go back and redo it, but even so, they never addressed the possibilities of what might happen with a previously dropped phone with a cracked casing. Moreover, it was after proclaiming definitively that there was no possible hazard, that cell phones began exploding from battery problems!

IMO, the show is anything but brainless. I suspect it will get lots of people intrigued and curious enough to take up subjects like math and science they otherwise might not have, much in the manner that C.S.I. has changed the way jurors approach cases and prompted lots of people to consider careers in criminal forensics.

Regards,

John Kettler

[GI Jas]

Great shots. I should be done with Panzer Command by the time this comes out. Can't wait.

[ComradeP]

The "StuH that is actually not a StuH but a Sturmmpanzer IV/Brummbaer, the Russian word might however mean StuH when translated"-vehicle looks good.

The thing that bothered me was that the Panther indicated "Panther" not "Panther D/A/G/" whilst there are significant differences between the types.

[BeauCoupDinkyDau]

It's too bad we can't enter those structures.

I love the tight roads and town configs.

This game needs an editor so we can build our own scenarios!

[M Hofbauer]

Originally posted by ComradeP:

The "StuH that is actually not a StuH but a Sturmmpanzer IV/Brummbaer, the Russian word might however mean StuH when translated"-vehicle looks good.

The thing that bothered me was that the Panther indicated "Panther" not "Panther D/A/G/" whilst there are significant differences between the types.

Well than what's the difference between the Sturmpanzer IV and the Sturmmpanzer IV?

does the extra M indicate it has more oooMMMMph ?

[ComradeP]

It was a "wink" to all the "Strumm" and "Trumm" discussions.

[M Hofbauer]

Originally posted by John Kettler:

M Hofbauer,

While I appreciate your taking the time to reply at length, I believe the quality of the discussion would be enhanced by a) paying attention to the specifics of what I've said and not attributing to me statements I never made.

well I would appreciate it if you weren't dodging the issues at hand.

I wasn't attributing statements to you, I was making a point. Maybe I didnt express myself clearly enough: the point is I think there is a discrepancy between on one hand taking offense at people flipping over because it is so unrealistic (side issue: scientific value of "MythBusters" while at the same time terminal ballistics / casualty modeling won't be anywhere realistic anyhow. Like, picking out one isse, not caring about others´.

Like, if ceteris paribus for some inexplicable "gameplay" reason *g* all the WW II AFVs in ToW were to be pink with yellow dots and would be hovering through the air singing "Somewhere over the rainbow..." incessantly.... now along comes someone and, correctly, points out that the WW II AFV'S didnt have yellow dots. History channel had a feature on the Tiger and in that b/w footage there were no yellow dots.

which not only in itself, in this generality is questionable (because the statement was unspecific, it is arguable ... e.g. the german ambush scheme often had contrast color splotches which means yellowish ocre splots in the brown and green areas), but also picks out only one issue, ignoring the rest. And my take is that since we're gonna have pink hovering singing tanks anyhow, yellow spots would accompany that / fit in ´just nicely.

Well, I guess you get the idea now that I explained a bit more what I was trying to get at.

Now, I am not saying that you are against gore and flying guts in ToW, but regarding you as a respectable serious person I do assume in bonam partem that you probably do *not* want that. But you can clear that up:

Do you want gore in ToW ?

If your answer is yes, well, then you are consistent with your request regarding flip-overs, but thats about all positive that can be said about your POV.

If your answer is NO, well, then I do not understand what you are getting your feathers so ruffled about with me "putting words in your mouth" and all. Instead you could have adressed the issues at hand and spoken out clearly.

you can help clear up any uncertainties by being more precise and specific than your beloved MythBuster

namely

Earlier in this thread, in referring to the 12 gauge firing, I clearly specified the projectile was a deer slug, not buckshot or birdshot.

agreed I forgot, I was writing the reply offline and going by memory. Feather in your cap, black eye for me.

Even then, the info as such borders on pointlessness. And despite being hopelessly unspecific, it proves my point that full powered rifle projectiles do have the inherent capability, read momentum, to knock a person off its feet.

to elaborate:

you did not specify how the various projectiles (caliber? weight? velocity? shape?) ended up, most importantly, whether they passed through the target object or were absorbed.

In the case of your "12-gauge deer slug", that info is still pretty unspecific. Weight? Velocity ? Slug Type - Brenneke, Remington, Foster type? Rifled? Sabot?

ok, let me do the math for you and your MythBusters, but don't you go say I took those values out of your mouth and get all huffed up about it! It is *my* reasonable assumption necessified by a lack of such info from your post and MythBusters.

A regular 12-gauge slug is a projectile of roughly 19mm diameter, will weigh somewhere around 30 g, and will be fired at a muzzle velocity of somehwere around 400 to 500 m/s. Let's take 500m/s in the shotgun slug's favor. It will lose that speed fast enough anyhow due to its unaerodynamic shape.

I hope you agree so far.

this means it carries an initial energy of 3.75 kJ (if you agree to the above but not this then you'll have to take it up with Adam Riese).

coincidentally most WW II rifle ammo lies around that value, or above, be it the american .30-06 Springfield M2 (7.62x63), the russian7.62 Mosin M1908/30 (7.62x54) or the ubiquitous 7.92 Mauser (8x57 JS), they're all between 3 kJ to 4.5 kJ french 7.5x54 M1929C being at the lower end ), in some instances (some Mauser ammo) even up to 5 kJ.

ergo: WW II rifle projectiles carry the same, often more energy than your usual 12-gauge-slug (lighter but way faster).

(btw this all reminds me of the old 9mm Parabellum vs .45 ACP debate all too much...)

which means that your MythBusters finding that "only the 12-gauge-slug" had the capability to knock a man-sized target over, is at the least misleading, because - now I have to assume because you are withholding that critical piece of information - most other projectiles were simply too powerful in penetration capability (E per cross-section in conjunction with bullet shape) so they simply passed *through* the target.

Thats quite more to the story than saying merely "only the 12-gauge slug was able to knock the target over".

If the rifle projectiles hit a location far away enough from the Schwerpunkt and manage to transfer their inherent momentum because, for example, they hit the head with helmet (yuck), then they all will knock the object over just like the 12-gauge slug.

I said nothing anywhere in the thread at all about my views or lack thereof regarding the realistic depiction of terminal ballistics in the game. Based on longstanding BFC practice, though, I wouldn't expect realistic depiction of the gore. I must object, though, to your accusing me of being hypocritical regarding my supposedly insisting on wanting accurate impact modeling but being unwilling to have realistic wounding and dismemberment when I made no such statement in the first place.

see above. please make a clear statement.

what is it - are you for or against gory depiction of terminal ballistics? :confused:

As for MythBusters, I think you misunderstand. The show tests claims made by others.

I fully understand the idea behind "MythBusters", no misunderstanding.

The misunderstanding (of the point of my quibbling) is on your part:

It doesn't matter whether the claim makes no sense on the face of it.

it does matter because the selection alone of what stupid ideas, pseudo-myths they're "busting" alone shows the unscientific, mass-appeal Britney-Spears-IQ type of character the show has.

I don't understand how you can allude to, naw, *reference* MythBusters when you know that it's just a couple of bozos putting on a show for TV, often enough wrong, without proper scientific setup and approach (to extrapolate from the info at hand).

plus...

(ack hafta do it in two posts...crappy board code... tells me it cant let me post because the maximum number of images allowed is 8... :mad: )

[M Hofbauer]

...(cont'd)

IMO, the show is anything but brainless. I suspect it will get lots of people intrigued and curious enough to take up subjects like math and science they otherwise might not have, much in the manner that C.S.I. has changed the way jurors approach cases and prompted lots of people to consider careers in criminal forensics.

:mad:

waaah don't even get me started on CSI.

"we found this hair on the victim's dog which happens to be from a rare peruvian goat that lives in only one valley in the Anden mountains, and the clothes made from its wool are sold at only two shops in the world, one of which is in Tasmania, and the other right here in Miami, and coincidentally the shop owner doesn't take cash but only charges credit cards, and he sold the specific jacket, to which this hair must belong, only thrice..."

get real. CSI has as much to do with real everyday criminal police/sheriff's department/DA work as George Lucas' original Star wars trilogy is an accurate depiction of current NASA operations.

the problem is every idiot and his brother think they *know* anything because they learned that on TV...with MythBusters, but especially with all those court TV, CSI and lawyer TV shows all those "viewers" out there think they're experts for everything from law to medicine.

and god save us from your apocalyptic scenario that indeed a generation of TV-educated youngsters think they have to take up the respective proffessions of their favorite TV shows...

:eek:

"I saw it on television so it must be true"...

come on J. Kettler, I *know* you can do better than that

take care,

M. Hofbauer

[longbore]

Ive been in the television industry for over 10 years now. Don't dont believe what they are selling.

Along with that, my neighbor is a forensic pathologist. She says CSI is along way from the truth.

[hoolaman]

M Hofbauer,

By your own admission you never *really* watched an episode of mythbusters, but regardless of the quality of the myths they investigate, they do follow a scientific method for their experiments.

The obvious conclusion of the episode about gun recoil ("blown away" was the segment title) was that according to Newton's Third Law, for the person being shot to be blown back or knocked over, the recoil against the person firing the gun would also have to be bad enough to knock the firer over.

And, yes they also tested the theory with bulletproof vests and steel plates to ensure the maximum energy of the bullet was transferred to the target.

[M Hofbauer]

Originally posted by Hoolaman:

By your own admission you never *really* watched an episode of mythbusters

see above, I saw it sufficiently enough as long as I could endure. I didn't think I would have to see it to the closing sequence with title and credits to judge it. when a wooden shed is on fire, you don't have to let it burn to the ground to know that it will burn to the ground.

The obvious conclusion of the episode about gun recoil ("blown away" was the segment title) was that according to Newton's Third Law, for the person being shot to be blown back or knocked over, the recoil against the person firing the gun would also have to be bad enough to knock the firer over.

thats exactly the type of half-wisdom I was talking about. The conclusion is far from obvious, because it isn't even true.

Third Newtonian Principle always applies, you don't need MythBusteers to "discover" that.

However all it says is that any force of actio will result in / create a reactio with an inverse equal force.

You cannot compare the impact on the object's head with the recoil experienced by the firing person.

The force buildup, location and area are different and most importantly the firing person will brace himself and assume, well, a firing posture to absorb the recoil, thats how he absorbs the force exerted onto him without falling over.

which, btw, MythBusters themselves proved because I *assume* that in their demonstration of the "only weapon capable of knocking over the target", firing the 12-gauge, the firer did not fall over onto his back?

[THE Sabot]

****My own, limited experience in shooting human beings with automatic weapons, ranges 100-800m, 7.62mm and .50 cal. : Most of the time, the target dropped immediately to the ground, as if unplugged from a power source. No dancing, flailing, hopping, ect.

****BTW, will there be flaming crewmembers jumping from burning tanks?...'cause that does happen.

[Max Wünsche]

Yeh!.... I remember that newsreel footage of a Panther hit in the streets of Koln (Cologne) flames gush out of the comanders cuppola, I mean its like a pressure cooker...

After the flames settle a crewmember actually gets out... albeit - hairless and I am guess burnt like a lobster!

I think i remember seeing another one of a soldier thrown clear of the turret when his tank was hit... he lost a leg in the process...!

[whaco]

Originally posted by THE Sabot:

****My own, limited experience in shooting human beings with automatic weapons, ranges 100-800m, 7.62mm and .50 cal. : Most of the time, the target dropped immediately to the ground, as if unplugged from a power source. No dancing, flailing, hopping, ect.

****BTW, will there be flaming crewmembers jumping from burning tanks?...'cause that does happen.

That's the kind of humour I like . BTW Lawrence how is Riverbravo since Katrina?

[THE Sabot]

****Does he not post here?...Sadly, Ive lost contact with him. I think he's in Arkansas.

[WindyCity]

He’s good ,

Stops in a Matrix now and again.

PS: last I heard he was still in Arkansas

[gunnersman]

M Hofbauer,

I dont think your reply was long enough...could you give it another try.

[Thomm]

Too late to the show, but:

Great screenshots!

If the environment works as displayed (I am thinking , e.g., in terms of protection offered to the PaK by that broken stone wall) then this will truly be a step forward!

Best regards,

Thomm