Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: Blue on August 06, 2010, 01:59:00 PM
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So I was wondering, during air combat there is a lot of lead and metal being slung around. Bullets, shell casings, flak, debris, etc. etc..
Are there any reports of this stuff coming down and causing damage/casualties?
I mean think of some of the bombing raids and the amount of flak that was put up. It had to come down, and it is said that a penny dropped of the Empire State building can kill somebody if it strikes them.
I imagine flak or bullets/cannon rounds would do the same.
Any thoughts or documentation on this?
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So I was wondering, during air combat there is a lot of lead and metal being slung around. Bullets, shell casings, flak, debris, etc. etc..
Are there any reports of this stuff coming down and causing damage/casualties?
I mean think of some of the bombing raids and the amount of flak that was put up. It had to come down, and it is said that a penny dropped of the Empire State building can kill somebody if it strikes them.
I imagine flak or bullets/cannon rounds would do the same.
Any thoughts or documentation on this?
In the raid on Pearl Harbor, several civilian deaths and injuries, as well as property damage, were attributed to friendly AA fire.
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I'm sure that was a reality of war. Think of all the bullits fired at aircraft and where they had to land.
Quite a bit of damage in the surrounding sector of Pearl Harbor had damage from the AA on the ships.
**edit Beat me by that much :)
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like they said, plus a penny dropped of the empire state building or any building can't kill you. My dads cousin got KTFO by a hailstone the size of a softball, if a penny could kill you that thing should have exploded his head.
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it is said that a penny dropped of the Empire State building can kill somebody if it strikes them.
Mythbusters tested this ... BUSTED !!!
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When I was stationed in Berlin (89-92), you would hear and read news reports where construction companies were getting injuries due to unexploded ords being hit while digging or drilling. Probably damage and deaths resulted directly from shrapnel and if you did a search on the Internet you could probably find the statistics for it somewhere. :salute
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Every year at New Years some idiots fire into the air. Almost without fail at least one person gets hit by a bullet dropping to earth.
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When I was stationed in Berlin (89-92), you would hear and read news reports where construction companies were getting injuries due to unexploded ords being hit while digging or drilling. Probably damage and deaths resulted directly from shrapnel and if you did a search on the Internet you could probably find the statistics for it somewhere. :salute
19 HE bombs, 29 phosphor bombs and 119 incendiary bombs had been found and disarmed in Hamburg in 2009 alone. For Berlin as well as Hamburg it's being estimated that about 3000 unexploded bombs of all sizes are still buried in the ground.
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For Berlin as well as Hamburg it's being estimated that about 3000 unexploded bombs of all sizes are still buried in the ground.
The scary thing is some of those will be 4000lb cookies.
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Every year at New Years some idiots fire into the air. Almost without fail at least one person gets hit by a bullet dropping to earth.
best time to do a crime in Los angeles ......
in between11:45pm and 12:15 am on new years eve
It's so bad here that all the cops hide under the freeway underpasses till the shooting stops.
I think there more stupid people with guns here in LA than in all the nation.
Rock on lead flingers :rock
froger
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As I am no physicist by any stretch of the imagination, the math involved most likely eludes me; however, I think I have a very gentle grasp of the topic.
To determine the lethality of a falling object (dropped or shot from an airplane), one would first have to figure the odds of that object actually striking someone. Then you would have to factor in (assuming a hit to someone) the object's shape and mass relative to wind resistance. Every object has a "terminal velocity." Regardless of how high you start an object will eventually reach the maximum speed it can travel before its wind resistance halts the acceleration. Once its terminal velocity is reached, the object will continue to fall at the same speed regardless of how much farther it falls.
Then you have to figure the stability of the object as it falls. Bullets fly straight when shot because they spiral (like a football). However, at a certain point, their path also deteriorates and the bullet or object begins to tumble. This usually causes greater wind resistance further slowing it's free fall. And, you would also have to factor the penetrating effect of the shape of the object. A blunt object will be less likely to penetrate (especially a hard head like mine) than a sharp object. Sharper objects can be more lethal because they can penetrate into deeper tissue where a blunt object MAY only give a severe headache.
But in short, it can and does happen. A buddy of mine was actually hit from a "falling bullet" New Years Eve in Jacksonville Florida (1992). It was a .38 slug (among many that fell) entered the top of his left shoulder and penetrated down his arm and lodged against the Humerus (bone in upper arm). While it did penetrate, it was no where near the impact or damage that would have occurred had he been "shot" outright.
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Now increase the size of projectiles to say 20-30mm and add HE content :devil
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Many bigger caliber HE rounds 20mm+, or "grenades", had a self-destruct fuse that would explode the projectile after certain flight time to prevent casualties on the ground.
AFAIK for mine round of MG151/20 it was abt 900 yards.
-C+
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The scary thing is some of those will be 4000lb cookies.
no...the scary thing is that someone has to go disarm those things, after they've been there for how long now?
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I remember seeing a program about EOD work in either Belgium or France where they
blew up a trench full of unexploded ordnance from world wars 1 and 2. Apparently they do
this almost every month and the trench was a good 100 yards long!
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no...the scary thing is that someone has to go disarm those things, after they've been there for how long now?
Those poor folks in London have the same problem. I imagine Conventry and the other
cities targeted by the Blitz do as well.