Still, let us say that the straight shooter reaches a speed of 50 m/s. The KE is 100 J. Greater than the lobbed shot at 200g, but by 10 J. Same point remains about the power of the lobbed shot.

Thearos wrote on Nov 19^th, 2013 at 7:16pm:


The answer is simple. It's PURPLE because aliens don't wear hats on the roof when playing strip poker.

No, Masia., I didn't take it as a correction, just reminding myself of what you wrote (because it looked like I was ignoring your post).

What I wanted to say with all my posts: lobbing heavier stones a bit more slowly is a useful skill and a legitimate way of slinging. It can allow for good accuracy. You should not feel that it's somehow not "real" slinging or a betrayal of the nature of the weapon, because it generates good power.

On figures, I took as a baseline for the straight shooter 48 m/s and 80 g stone. The lobber's power I dialled down to 75% of that, to 36 m/s, and gave him a big smasher of a stone. This setup is quite realistic, I think, and the lobber generates a lot of power, and figures for momentum might be even more in his favour. I insisted on this because the results were surprising even to me.

But you could also choose to have both shooters using the same stone, and the wangler going at 57 m/s (dropping to e.g. 53 m/s on impact) and the lobber going at 32 m/s (dropping to 28 m/s on impact). The whanger gets KE= 140J, the lobber 39J. But all that say is that if you shoot fast, you get more energy into the shot-- which no one contests.

Ok so all these formulas..... Yuck!
Let's talk trauma. I bet a speeding glande makes a much different wound than lobbing a fist sized stone. The question is, which one is more fatal? Against armor? Without armor?
Let's say one is just as accurate as the other

Long version: (Sorry, I can't really make this not seem technical without taking too many details out and making my description wrong.) According to scattering theory in particle mechanics, the momentum-transfer cross section describes the radiation resulting from a collision -including particle radiation and the deflection of particles in the material of the target. Depending on how elastic of a material the target is it can absorb different amounts of kinetic energy before shattering or tearing and may even return to its original shape, but that deformation is a kind of wound itself in a living target. The deformation and the type of injury caused is irrelevant, though. The important thing is that more momentum means more damage to a living target in almost every instance. The damage is caused by a force -and therefore energy- but using the kinetic energy of the projectile to model impact force neglects the fact that elastic collisions do not conserve energy and that every collision is elastic to some degree. There are a few instances where a very larger cross sectional area, an impact at a very acute angle relative to the target, or a collision that occurs over a longer period of time will affect the momentum transfer, but they don't apply to us. A projectile's momentum at the time of impact is the best way to quantify the damage caused by a projectile without actually trying to calculate the damage. And I don't want to try that, it's doctorate level mathematics.



Keep in mind, dead is dead and "more dead" is still just dead. The math doesn't say whether a small, fast projectile will break the skin or whether a large, heavy one will cause internal bleeding. This only models straight tissue damage.

English_Marauder wrote on Nov 20^th, 2013 at 8:34pm:

I challenge you to shoot a deer with a fast and straight .17 Hornet and another with an arcing .45-70 government. You'll come around to my way of thinking.

Jaegoor, who lobs, killed a deer with his slinging technique-- lobbing heavy stones.