Grrl Power #1301 – This looks like a job for the Riviera Kid!
There was a time in the era of competitive Quake 3 when I was young enough to have ridiculous reflexes and a DSL line giving me a sub-fifty ping. (Do you younguns still know what ping is? Everyone has broadband these days, and ping doesn’t really come up unless you insist on playing on a server on another continent for some reason.) Anyway, my favorite weapon in the game was the railgun. Hitscan for life, baby! The best thing about the combination of hitscan, young person reflexes, and minimal ping was that anytime anyone jumped in Quake 3, they had a predictable trajectory until they landed again. Granted, a jump in Q3 only took you off the ground for like 3/4 of a second, but it was enough. PEW! Or more like a PWEWP! sound.
My point with this is, Peggy waited till the RPG was at the top of that arc, rebounding from the bump in the terrain as the guy tried to bring it back on target. Basically it was in the most predictable spot it would ever be and moving the least it would ever be. I did google “will a grenade explode if you shoot it.” I mean, it seems obvious, but I wanted to not rely on every movie ever where someone shoots a grenade. The answer was “maybe?” Basically you have to ignite the explosives in the grenade, and just putting a hole in it or shattering it doesn’t guarantee anything. Maybe there’s a spark, but probably not. But if you hit the stuff inside the grenade that makes the grenade explode, then the grenade will probably explode. Again, it’s not a guarantee. I didn’t find any hard numbers, but I came away with the impression it was like a 40-ish percent chance, and maybe higher if the pin has been pulled and chemical things are starting to happen inside the grenade. I also stumbled into the “can you shoot a grenade out of the air” and the answer was basically, sure, if you’re a good shot. The issue is what happens if you do that. With a bullet, it’s likely to explode, if it’s a live grenade, if you hit it with some buckshot, it’s less likely to explode. Not that it won’t, just there’s less chance the exterior gets shredded and something ignites on the inside. Also, the chance of actually knocking it back exactly into to the lap of the person who threw it is best left to the movies. Like, in the history of warfare since hand grenades have existed, it’s probably happened at least once, but, yeah. Don’t count on it.
RPGs are basically the same as grenades, except they have propellant. That and launching them is what arms them. Though hopefully there’s like a one second delay after you fire so you don’t do something like accidentally shoot the hood of your truck when it hits a bump and you blow your everything. I assume “better” RPGs do that, and old school RPG7 doesn’t have a lot checkboxes that would help them pass and OSHA inspection.
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Good times.
So did your round, on exiting the RPG, also take out the fellow holding it?
Maybe, but if a grenade is going off a foot or two from your face, the bullet may be overkill. Or, indeed, a mercy?
Depends on how it goes. Adam from the Youtube channel Ballistic High-Speed recently had an RPG-7 he was firing explode on him as he pulled the trigger, and while he had some serious injuries, they were ultimately survivable and don’t appear to have maimed him in any significant sense. Of course, it was actually the propellant and not the payload that exploded on him, the RPG-7 failed in a way a stock one wouldn’t have but that was actually advantageous to minimizing injury (basically, it failed where it was destroyed to demilitarize it and then rebuilt to make it functional again, and this essentially served as a vent to get rid of some of the overpressure rather than making the whole apparatus into an improvised grenade), and he was wearing protection (plates, helmet, eyepro, etc). He also likely got much better and faster medical care than would be available to the fellow trying to shoot Peggy.
Whether or not Peggy’s shot could make the RPG round explode, I think we can all agree that hitting it before/at its launch would totally destroy/ disable the round, probably the launcher, and possibly the dude as well.
BTW DaveB, close only counts in horseshoes, hand grenades, and nuclear warfare.
W 48. Been there, played with that.
GE Mark 12, three at a time.
Been there
FAR counts in nuclear warfare…
Well, sure I know what a “ping” is … a) a command line tool originating from unixoid OSes (but ported to most others in the meantime) and b) a moniker for the ICMP ECHO REQUEST packets it sends out, things a network admin like myself uses every so often. And the result it yields is a measurement called the Round Trip Time (RTT). Only the gamer-ing young’uns call *that* “the ping” …
PING is an acronym, stands for Packet Internet Groper. Yes, I said “Groper”. We were *not* PC back then.
ICMP ECHO REQUEST and ICMP REPLY are the technical terms. See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ping_(networking_utility)
or
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Control_Message_Protocol
Yes, I’m an Official Internet Geek, SME-rated.
“We were *not* PC back then.”
“grope” in not inherently a sexual term, though it has in recent years come to be used that way a lot more. At the time, there was nothing un-PC about the term.
Figured it got the name ‘ping’ because it acted like a radar, which tended to make, well, a ‘ping’ sound when it encountered something
So, just like how the ‘RPG’ was retro-nym’d into ‘Rocket Propelled Grenade’, they decided to make ‘ping’ an acronym (because how many nerds would know what the sound of a radar making contact was?)
Grenades vary. But in WWI, some squads were issued a shotgun just to blast incoming grenades and it… mostly worked.
From https://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/ballistics-for-dummies-a-beginners-guide/:
“Ballistic Coefficient (BC) refers to a bullet’s ability to resist air drag, affecting how well it maintains speed and energy as it flies toward the target. A higher BC means the bullet flies faster, drops less, drifts less in the wind and delivers more energy upon impact. BC is influenced by the bullet’s weight, diameter and shape—the heavier, narrower and sleeker the bullet, the higher its BC. Bullets with high BCs look long, slim and pointy, with tapered boat tails designed for aerodynamic efficiency.
The ballistic coefficient becomes more important as the distance increases. Within 100 yards, it’s not a big concern—factors like accuracy and terminal performance (how the bullet behaves when it hits the target) matter more.
However, at 200 yards and beyond, BC starts to have a noticeable effect. By 300 yards, a higher BC can make a significant difference in trajectory and energy retention, making it crucial for long-range shooting. When selecting ammo for longer distances, you must balance accuracy, terminal performance and a bullet’s aerodynamic shape for maximum effectiveness.”
The other side of ballistic coefficient of course is that if it keeps its velocity through the air, it will also likely keep its velocity when it hits the target. Which may not be what you want. If the target is armored, you want it to go through the armor. But once it penetrates the armor, you want it to transfer its energy to the target, which it does by slowing down.
A high BC would make it fly further, but against anything without armor, it may just go right through.
“ping doesn’t really come up unless you insist on playing on a server on another continent for some reason.”
Or the reason you play on a server on another continent, is because you don’t live in America and all the servers are in America lol.
Sincerely, the person who plays games with 350~ ping basically at all times.
ROOL OF COOL baby!
H**L YEAH!!
Go all Gunny Carlos Norman Hathcock II on that weapon…!!!
,\../ ^_^ \../,
You put a hot bullet anywhere through an explosive material, it will go BOOM. Extra points for hitting the primer right in the front – the BOOM is then guaranteed.
Nice shot, Tex… errrrr, Peg.
fun fact.. Mythbusters actually tested this very scenario. (season 8, episode 12. labelled “what’s more environmentally friendly” on YT after the motorcycle focused main story.) turns out that a bullet can explode an RPG warhead, but only if it hits after the warhead arms itself after firing. (much like grenade launchers, the fuses on RPG warheads are designed to only arm after traveling a certain amount of distance.. usually about 40ft or so.) if hit before that, it won’t explode but it will destroy the warhead.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfPtRq-PKzw
My takeaway on that video was that lower velocity rounds such as the shotgun pellets and pistol bullets disrupted the casing of the grenade before the igniter could set it off while the much faster rifle found carried enough energy to set off the explosive. A lot of explosive formulas are treated to reduce their shock sensitivity but a high velocity projectile from a rifle carries enough energy to get the job done. The grenade in the video , for instance, exploded before it’s ignitor would have set it off when it was struck by the bullet from the rifle. The same could happen with the RPG without any influence from the igniter or built in safeties or whatever. If you throw enough energy at it it will go off. The shaped charge effect might be disrupted but I wouldn’t next to it when it happened.
Maxima may have used her superpowers to disable an explosive device, but Peggy managing the same in a clutch scenario is nevertheless awe-inspiring
Peggy didn’t disable it, she set it off early
so, it was one of the BETTER RPG-7 rockets, one that only arms after launch (Soviet/Russian ones arm mid-flight while reportedly Chinese ones may not have that safety device/it may not work)
The Chinese may have elected to arm right away rather than having an in-flight arming mechanism that may not work. At that point you have a dud.
by “security mechanism may not work” I obviously meant “the fuze may arm in transport & blow up the second anything hits the tip of the rocket”
Why does it look like Peggy’s round is hitting the RPG perpendicular to where it should be aiming?
The guy is aiming at her, and she’s aiming at him/it, so surely the bullet should go straight down the nose of the RPG, down the barrel, and them possibly out the back? RIGHT?
So how the hell does it go in one side and out the other?
It went in the front, bounced around inside, and came off at an angle from the interior mechanism, like a bullet bouncing around inside a skull before exiting.
Anyone else waiting for Maxi to loom behind Peggy and say “That’s not how I remember it!”
Or maybe just wait until Peggy is alone so as not to embarrass or humiliate her
Heheh, I remember jumping in quake 3 to bait railgun shots. They never expected me to disappear mid-jump.