At 0:30 you have an almost identical animation to the one which made the OP start this topic.



I surrendered over the editing which makes it really hard to see any quality of the death animations.

That's not true. In a combat situations, you have a target that is swimming in adrenaline. If the bullet goes straight through soft tissue, the person very well might just keep moving forward. That's why gun manufacturers spend a lot of time developing bullets that hit a person and don't come out the other side, and are often advertised for their "stopping power". Large caliber rounds, hollow point rounds, soft point rounds, and tumbling rounds all create stopping power.

The military isn't allowed to use rounds that flatten when they hit flesh though, based on the Hague Convention. So hollow and soft point are out. Large caliber rounds weigh and cost more, so militaries avoid using them as well. So if a soldier is using a type of ammo that doesn't tumble, they have a very high chance to go right through without the person noticing. Especially since most soldiers use a form of armor piercing ammunition, penetrating even easier.

The force you experience from a bullet depends on its weight, velocity, distance between start and end point and the hitting angle.(There are some other factors, but they don't have as much effect as the ones I mentioned) If you get hit from a bullet that flies in a straight line with average speed and weight you'll get hit by a lot of force. (Studying for exam mechanics atm, we calculated it). You won't spin like in the movies though, but not moving at all is simply impossible.

That's only if the bullet stops in someone. If a bullet passes through someone, most of the energy is still in the bullet.

That does make sense, too bad I can't calculate it ^^

In the end, if a bullet managed to convert all of its energy into blunt force, it would never exceed the force of the recoil on the shooter. But bullets are not nearly so perfect at energy transfer, and they are not intended to be. Bullets are meant to make wounds, not push people back. Having over penetration can do more damage (causing people to bleed out) but has less stopping power.

weight+ acceleration = force
weight plus gravity = Force( not like in star wars, tho) measured in N

I agree. Even if some is in the heat of battle they might not shift their body but they would still put a hand to the wound. That standing still and not moving is only in movies and video games. Anyway the gif that the OP posted is not a .22 it looks like an assault rifle and I assure you anyone would go down. The character moves a little when shot but this is a video game after all.

Why do so many people claim to know what happens when a bullet hits someone. The term "only in movies" has been said half a dozen times in this thread already, its as if most of the members here have seen more than one person get gunned down.

The only reason I know is from talking with my dad, who did police patrols for a while, and he has told me that if their bullets go through a person, the person isn't going to stop, sometimes they don't even react.

The 5.56 assault round has a really bad habit of going straight through people without a problem, because its such a high velocity round. So the argument above that 'assault rifles don't have that problem' is completely wrong.

And hollow points, FMJs, and straight brass are all going to transfer force differently depending on body armor caliber and grain.

Is there something wrong with people agreeing with someone else? In this example the character is no more than 10 meters away shooting a assault rifle and he does move. Again this is a video game after all.

No, i dont mind you agreeing with anyone, or even disagreeing with me, but it just seems like people think they know what it looks like when people get shot, and I'm just wondering how. If it weren't for my dad, I would have no clue what happens in real life when someone gets shot. If you're just guessing, its odd to see so much confidence in your post. "I assure you anyone would go down"

I know what it looks like from watching tons of video footage and "Faces of Death" films. I also know what the aftermath can look like firsthand. I used to do cleanups with my pops when I was a teenager, and in that time, I cleaned up 2 suicides - A shotgun blast to the head in a bedroom, and some guy that blew his brains out in the tub with a pistol.

Cleaning up little pieces of brain and skull and scrapping chunks of meat off of walls, pays really well.

How about 20 years in military, several in combat
been there, seen it, done it

Hmm, I guess we can take your word on it then, huh.

I don't know what that guy is talking about shadowcat. We don't have to take his word on it. If a bullet can only move something the same weight as it then how come I've sent heavy steel panels cart wheeling around in the dirt from a small 9mm round. If a person is strapped to something they won't move. If you hit dead center mass they might not move much from a high velocity round. But hit someone with a glancing blow with a hollow point and it'll spin them around a little.

His description of why was a little off, but the fact is, he was a soldier for 20 years and saw it on the battlefield. You can make all the scientific explanations you want, but they only have meaning if they match real world observations.

Nail's statement was "A bullet can only move something around it's own weight." is somewhat true, but its more of a tendency. Think of a newton's cradle, you pull two weights back, and when they strike, two weights are pushed off on the opposite side. This is only true when there is something of equal weight that can accept the force though. When you shoot a metal target, the bullet is stopped, but the energy has to go somewhere. Some of the energy is put into deforming the bullet, some is turned into heat from pressure and friction, and the rest goes into pushing the target back.

A more accurate description is that the bullet cant push more on the target than the recoil puts on the shooter, but that's just in a perfect world, in the real world, the actual force on the target is much smaller than recoil, which isn't a very big push in the first place for most firearms.

But soft targets aren't as good at transferring energy, you still have the energy loss from deforming the bullet as well as heat, but a lot of the energy is put into tearing a hole. Think of preparing meat with a knife, you need to put a decent amount of force to make each cut, and that's with a razor sharp blade. The target has to provide an equal amount of resistance to tear the hole, but most of that is provided by momentum, even stationary momentum is enough. If the target moves after being shot, it is a reaction to pain, or involuntary muscle contractions, but these are lessened by adrenaline while on a battlefield.

But anyway, all of this was mostly for jessalon who seems interested in the physics behind it. When it comes down to it we have an experienced soldier who says that people do not visibly recoil when shot, at least not from the force of the bullets.

P.S. Jessalon, you mentioned that HP ammo is able to transfer more energy to the target, due to the bullet flattening out, creating more blunt force. That is true, but military organizations do not use HP ammo, as bullets designed to flatten or fragment were considered inhumane at the Hague Conventions.

I was speaking from experience with FMJ military rounds and I'm pretty sure you couldn't move a 175 pound steel panel with any 9mm round, if you're talking about steel spin targets, a stiff breeze will move them just as easy. Remember soft targets behave differently than hard, a FMJ will expend little energy passing through a person but lose all of it on armor. A couple of years ago "MythBusters" did a show about this very subject, even a 12 guage slug couldn't move a body.


If anyone has gone deer hunting, you know shooting the animal doesn't flip the deer around, they just drop (unless you miss)



my statement about bullet weight was an over simplification, but Newton's second and third laws still apply

No I have a semi auto MP5 and a Glock 17. And I was using old pieces of cut steel taken from car doors and such and hang them up by leather strands. But some I dig into the dirt and I've knocked those over. Also I think the spin factor of a human being would more so be determined by personal reaction. (Pulling away) I wasn't trying to tell you you're wrong. I was saying people react to getting hit. It might be more psychological then physical but there's a reaction. The ammunition i use is purposely really so I can be sure I hit the target from a distance as smaller arms tend to be less accurate. HP will smack the plates and some of the soft point ammunitions will sometimes stick to the plate.

Sorry if I sounded like a jerk Nail and thanks for serving our country.

I do believe there's a reaction. You don't just run like nothing happened when you get shot. You flinch. You at least blink.

I thought I remembered Nail mentioning on the SD forums, that he is Canadian.

Nevermind then.

Anyone who's a soldier for 20 years is a BAMF.

Most of the time, you're right. People clutch at wounds, cringe from pain, or even just subconsciously lean away whenever struck by an object. But when adrenaline is pumping, its not nearly as guaranteed as people seem to think. There's also the chance that soldiers have enough armor to shrug off being shot. Take a look at footage of the North Hollywood Armed Robbery and you will see a pair of men with enough armor that they don't flinch when being hit by pistols, and even shotgun slugs.

P.S. The Canadian military has some of the best snipers and sharpshooters in the world, and they helped the US military in the middle east to great effect. They don't have as large of a military as other countries, but there is no question that they are well trained and well equipped.

20 years is pretty crazy.

I absolutely agree, people react to being shot, but the movement is not caused by the bullet pushing them, the reaction is to pain/shock.


Yepper, I'm Canadian and damn proud of it.

"Canadian? I think they give you a slingshot and a stick. "


never had a slingshot, but I have a real good stick

BAMF, maybe, REMF, never



btw, I just turned 60