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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Dabbler went somewhere tropical, in a very small bikini. As you might guess, it doesn’t stay on for long, which of course, you can see over at Patreon. Also she has an incident with “lotion,” and there’s a bonus comic page as well.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.
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Fun fact: Sometimes the closest server is actually in another continent.
Also sometimes your closest friends(at least of those you game with) are on another(or several other) continent!
I have no idea how much of that was insane skill or luck. Maybe a touch of divine intervention. Is anyone tested to see if Peggy has active super genes?
As far as anyone in-universe knows, active super genes would give her that comicbook superheroine slash supermodel body type automatically, so assumedly not. Still, this world also has supernatural elements and a seemingly wide variety of ways for humans to access various types of magic, so it’s far from inconceivable for there to be a middle ground between ordinary human and super. Math definitely fits in that category, and IIRC he and Peggy aren’t even the only ones in ArcSwat.
It’s a bit vague as to whether they *can* test for “superness” in this universe.
On the one hand, the super in question and any witnesses mostly seem to find out when basically “a miracle happens”.
On the other hand, Dabbler appears to have some sort of handle on it. Although not nearly as much of one as she wants to.
Oh there’s a test, but it’s when you pick up a brick and squeeze it into powder, or sneeze and bump your head on the ceiling, and so on… Deus might find a way to detect a super, but for now, Archon just looks for signs of someone having power(s). That’s why most of the teams are civies that were busted for being vigilantes or criminal actions.
it was kind of aluded to that some humans may be able to just tap their toes into the superion field, not enough to be considered a super but enough that they are TOO good at what they do, in the case of Peggy she is too good at being a sniper
Since she’s *our* sniper, there’s no such thing as “too good”, there’s “good”, “great”, “Hathcock good”, and “would scare Hathcock”.
Starcraft 2 is played on different continents and you often see European and Korean progamers participating in events on the American server. Amateurs do that too. The ping I get from Germany to the US east coast is about 110ms, to US central it’s 150ms and to US west it’s 200ms.
The “Americas” region contains Australia too so people playing in that Region sometimes get pings of 150-200ms by default.
The thing is you can’t appreciably lower those pings because of the speed of light In coper or fiber and the latency of packets transitioning all of the devices in the chain. the speed of light is a variable when its in some medium other than a vacuum. For electrons in a copper wire its called the velocity factor and it runs about 80%-85% of c.
I know it’s cool factor and all, but considering her accuracy and that she has now adjusted to her offset as well as being a capable enough shot to blast a target that size while in motion, wouldn’t it be easier to simply shoot the guy holding it and then the driver (or in reverse order) in half the time it would take to aim for the shot we’re currently seeing?
One thing to consider is that after that rocket finishes detonating, she may no longer need to take any more shots at the rest of the vehicle occupants.
Hey if she hits it, problem solved. If she misses, still a better than even chance of taking out the guy holding it, which will give her more time to target the rest of them.
She hits another one, and the rest are going to know it’s a class sniper shooting at them, and will take better cover than a hilux windshield.
Or she was actually trying to hit the guy and accidentally hit the tip of the grenade. Even if she doesn’t have a concussion, the adrenaline and stress might interfere with what she remembered, resulting in her memory being based on what she observed, rather than what she was thinking.
As others have noted, hitting the RPG makes it less likely she has to deal with that truck anymore. There are also two other factors to consider. First, putting a pullet through his head won’t necessarily stop him from pulling the trigger (if only in his death throes), so if he had a decent-enough aim before she shot – or if she got really unlucky and it ricocheted off the ground or something – she’d still be in danger. The other is that, if he goes down without shooting, the other guy could pick up the RPG and shoot at her with it.
From my understanding, RPG-7’s have a minimum arming distance of 5 meters, so the weapon arguably shouldn’t have been armed at this point. However, I’m not certain if that were the case for the weapons used by AQ back then (many of which may have been left over from when the Mujahideen drove out the Soviets), or if they may have modified their own ones to lack such a minimum arming distance. That said, I wouldn’t be surprised if a perfectly-aimed shot would be able to activate the detonator even if it weren’t technically armed… and even if not, that’s hardly the most cinematic thing to happen in this story. But even if it hadn’t exploded, shooting it to disable it would have been useful for Peggy to do.
Many many many years ago I did infantry basic training for the IDF. It got so many captured RPGs it actually regarded it as a standard issued weapon. Of course, for that to work the Israeli industries had to produce ammo for it.
We were instructed that the only difference between Soviet produced ammo and the Israeli replica is that they didn’t crack the delay arm mechanism, so Israeli produced ammo armed immediately.
I don’t remember the distance after which it armed (many many many years ago, remember?), but I remember it was significantly longer than 5 meters.
So, no, assuming this is Soviet produced ammo, that shot would not have worked.
Ah, interesting. The 5 meter figure was something I got with a quick search, so was probably from an unreliable source (either that or it’s more “when you dial it down, the lowest you can go is 5 meters, but normally it’s a lot longer). Of course, if we assume this is some sort of locally-produced ammo (not sure if AQ ever did anything like that), that might explain why it appears to have somehow been armed before the dude ever even pulled the trigger – if Israel couldn’t figure out how to get the delay arm working, I doubt AQ would have been able to (although possibility of a genius AQ armourer who figured it out – or a Russian defector/collaborator who had access to the design specs – certainly exists, particularly in the Grrl-verse).
Ever seen RED? “Old man, my ass” – John Malkovich, right after shooting down a live and in flight RPG-7 warhead with a revolver.
Mythbusters checked that scene. They found that, in real life, the explosive charge isn’t armed while in the launcher.
It usually arms after 60 feet into the flight so it doesn’t blow up in your own face. Those settings can, of course, be changed by the user before launch.
Similar to the safety settings on a torpedo (The Hunt for Red October).
Nice! Can’t argue with the Mythbusters.
It’s worth noting that the RPG had already been fired in the movie, and he shot it down in mid-air. Rewatching the video clip, though, it definitely wasn’t at 60ft – more like 20ft. That being said, they were in a maze of shipping containers, with only short spaces between them, so they’d probably changed the settings to arm it at a shorter range.
Mythbusters also showed if you *did* manage the shot onto the detonator of a live HEAT rpg round you *might* end up with a face full of molten copper. A normal HE round might spatter you with casing fragments.
Either way, not the best result.
Besides, those things are way faster in real life than movies.
Mythbusters were looking at igniting an RPG that has already been fired and is moving toward you rapidly, was hit by a bullet, and somehow exploded backwards to take out the bad guy. Busted.
In this case the warhead is still in the launcher, and it does look like a HEAT warhead. While there would be some danger from the shaped charge aimed at Peggy who is “under 100 yards” away, it would be much more dangerous for the people in the truck.
This clip is relevant – https://youtu.be/0MwpNkqlbNE
There’s the comment I was looking for.
I remember being the first one to suggest the movie scene from the trailer at the time. It was from the good old forums era. Someone had actually answered and said “impossible” or something similar, till they saw the movie. They apologized afterwards. Myth still busted, but it was nice to see it on TV.
The tip of an RPG contains a piezoelectric trigger. Shooting it dead on with the rifle Peggy is using will ABSOLUTELY set it off, but it is essentially shooting down the barrel of another rifle.
Yes but there is an arming switch, which needs to rotate a certain number of spins before it arms. If it doesn’t arm you don’t get a boom the normal arming range is sixty feet. This is similar to the 40mm grenade that we use here and the TOW2B no explosive round unless it is coming out of the main gun of the Bradley or M1 fires. 40mm arming range is 25 feet the TOW as I recall is also within that range close enough to allow you to nail tanks within fifty feet yes this happens but far enough away you don’t get caught in the blast. No one is stupid enough to fire hot explosive rounds to many chances for something really stupid to happen.
I would cautiously presume that Peggy is using AP ammo and that even if hitting the piezo fuse wouldn’t detonate the round, a bullet slamming into the ignition charge at the base of the explosive fill would almost definitely do the trick.
Well, it did, didn’t it? Otherwise: no KABOOM.
Even “just” FMJ can get through a pretty decent amount of steel (compared to the warhead casing on an RPG). I’ve shot .308 through 3/8″ steel, although it wasn’t the intended-for-target-usage stuff. Google seems to think that an RPG-7 round has a casing of amount 2mm…
I would totally claim it, even if it was just a 1-in-10,000,000 shot. No one would believe me, but I would still have the bragging rights.
Yar, as far as I can tell you got all the RPG stuff about right. I’m not sure if the RPG was fired (looks not) at time of impact, but with those RPG-7 models I’m pretty sure that I read somewhere they have to be primed before firing. As in there the pin gets pulled THEN you fire it. Arming pin on those don’t come out on their own after release. So a hit on the nose like you drew is highly plausible to det the explosives. Only nit pick really is the fact that the bullet didn’t come out of that interaction with even a scratch, however I can agree that some literary arbitrariness is fair – letting the audience be able to tell that yes it was this bullet. (I somehow doubt they’d be using brass solids for projectiles as I’ve seen some other places.)
Haha, on my third rereading I had basically the same thought- “there’s no way a bullet would exit the RPH that pristine”.
At least I don’t think it would- I haven’t researched just how dense the casing for an RPG round (shell?) is, but I assume it would be something more than tinfoil-strength so you weren’t ruining them all over the place. I suppose if the bullet was supposed to be an armor-penetrating round it might harder than the normal fragment-for-maximum-damage anti-personnel shot? What’s a “short range sniper riffle” that Peggy is using usually equipped with?
It’s admittedly hard to see in this smaller version of the page, but the bullet is actually dinged up a little and slightly bent. I was assuming she’d be using AP rounds cause you’d want the extra bit of penetration if you were commonly shooting at stuff at long range. But if that was the case, the bullet definitely would have gone through that guy’s head and the glass behind him and through that guy’s… smock thing between his legs. Whatever they’re called. (Quickly googles) Apparently it’s called a Thawb. Which sounds like a guy from Boston describing what his thumb feels like after he hits it with a hammer.
Eh, deflection is always a possibility – less likely with AP ammo from my understanding, but that bullet switched media quite a few times – air, then tempered and laminated (which means it’s got several different layers in close contact) windshield glass, then air again, then a skull, then some brains, then skull again, then air again. Possibly the back headrest somewhere in there, but I don’t think the middle passenger normally has one of those. So it deflecting off-course and going down through the bed of the truck certainly isn’t impossible.
Failing that, if it really bugs you, you could have Peggy say something like “I normally mix my ammo, two AP followed by an FMJ. Sometimes a target is too hopped up on adrenaline or drugs to be stopped by AP, which doesn’t do a lot of tissue damage unless you hit something important, but an FMJ will tumble and tear them up a bit more. So if the first two AP shots don’t do it, an FMJ has a better chance. Most don’t do that because the two have slightly different ballistics, plus it can be hard to keep track of which shot you’re on in the heat of battle, but I’ve honestly never had a problem with either. But since I used up the first two shots figuring out the rifle’s new zero, the third was an FMJ, and it mostly demolished itself between the windshield, skull, and brains.” (That last bit would be a nod to her “dipping her toes in the Superion Field”)
I remember in the game Planetside people would exploit really bad pings, as hit calculations were done on the shooters client side. If your ping was high (bad) enough you could hit someone where they were seconds ago before they reached cover.
Like PVP in souls games. Just watch some of the clips of teleporting backstabs due to latency differences.
Apparently this happened to Robert Jordan, author of the Wherl of Time series when he was in ‘Nam or Korea. He shot a RPG out of the air mid flight when he was in a helicopter. He said he just got lucky. Although he was using a SMG. It exploded the rocket.
Minor nitpick: RPGs are like grenade launchers except that they are antitank and portable. And without the “like”.
I mean, that’s literally what RPG stands for: “man-portable antitank grenade launcher”.
No…
RPG literally stands for:
Rocket
Propelled
Grenade
(Not trying to nit-pick, but when you state what it “literally” stands for, that IS what it literally stands for because it’s a set of initials.)
Megamoya is actually correct in this instance, RPG was originally “Ruchnoy Protivotankovyy Granatomyot” which is “Handheld Anti-Tank Grenade-launcher”. Rocket Propelled Grenade was a backronym, where English speakers created a new phrase to fit the existing acronym.
And, because America didn’t want anything to do with the Ruskies (they are sill looking for an alternate name for the AK’s, but the committees can’t even agree on which pizza joint to use :P )
why, the one run by the Russian mob, of course!
There are things like rocket-propelled grenades – that is, grenade launcher/mortar shells with rocket motors for additional range/acceleration. An RPG does not not shoot grenades, though, so it would be a pretty weird thing for it to literally mean (and yes, the Soviets, too, were wrong calling it a grenade launcher – it’s a rocket launcher (which was in turn developed from a recoilless gun)).
That leads into “What is a grenade, and how is it different from a shell?”
The internet seems to think it’s mostly that a grenade is thrown by hand as opposed to from a weapon. Rifle-launched is a border case.
A grenade that is self-propelled is even more borderline, since then it intersects with rocket or missile (the difference being that missiles generally have some sort of guidance and course correction system).
You could differentiate on size/yield, though that would run into problems if you manage to increase yield significantly. After all, what if the “californium rounds” thing ever becomes possible?
> That leads into “What is a grenade, and how is it different from a shell?”
Etymologically, it’s named after the pomegranate, whose fruit you have to pop open to find a lot of edible seeds inside. So the key feature *there and then* obviously was the fragmentation aspect.
Nope but close The term “rocket-propelled grenade” is from the Russian acronym РПГ (Ручной Противотанковый Гранатомёт, Ruchnoy Protivotankovy Granatomyot), meaning “handheld anti-tank grenade launcher”, the name given to early Russian designs
They also make fragmentation and thermobaric warheads for anti-personnel use. But I agree, the warhead drawn is definitely a high-explosive anti-tank (HEAT) version. Not the best for anti-personnel, but it would get the job done. Also I’m assuming that the highest-ranks would get to ride in the cab, with Peggy’s first shot taking out the commander. The goons who have to ride in the back probably just know how to shoot the rocket-thingie and that it makes a big boom.
Rockets meant for combat accelerate fast. A second is way too long. Basically every modern RPG arms after a small (fifth to eighth or so, usually) fraction of a second, traveling at least a dozen meters in that time, and has a few seconds on a fuse to prevent unexploded ordinance issues.
Oh yeah, 100% super-adjacent.
That fucking shot is, like, only possible for a human being to make on purpose in the most technical sense.
Would those sights even focus on something that close, and closing rapidly? Or is Peggy *also* aiming at a wildly wobbling gray blob among other wildly wobbling blobs?
You can’t see it on this page, but two pages back, you can see that she has an offset reflex sight. It’s still a little small, but I spent the time to draw it, so it counts. :)
Didn’t Mythbusters shoot a grenade?
Probably. They shot lots of things that will explode when being shot. They also shot an RPG warhead.
The Mythbuster’s example wasn’t a good one, they used a contemporary RPG that requires a “spin-up” to arm so the primer is ready to explode. In this case, the loads look more like the very old style, Using the basic m-1 with a blank cartridge to launch it, dating back from WWII, those were strictly contact triggered, no spin-up arming needed. Terrorists use whatever they can get their hands on, many times it’s junk that was surplus or stolen.
No joke, that was a hell of a shot Peggy! The driver might survive, but he won’t be feeling so hot.
Different episode – here’s the clip the OP is referencing. Summary – handgun and shotgun did not cause the grenade to detonate, the rifle bullet did. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MwpNkqlbNE
Hitting the trigger point of an RPG with a bullet is possible, even with it being a moving target that’s not in a straight line. Basically, you have to be a well trained and incredibly skilled specialist to do it… Which Peggy is. (There are videos of people having someone toss an aspirin or something similar into the air and the marksman shoots it while it’s in the air. Some using pistols and quick drawing from the holster before the shot.)
With someone who trains long hours and extensively with a small set of firearms (very likely with someone like Peggy being proficient in a wide range but a specialist in a few) it’s down to a level where their brain is making the trajectory calculations so fast that it all becomes essentially reflexive. And yes, this would include upside down such as she is because she’d treat it more like a pendulum swing than a bouncing ball.
With an RPG, the initial detonation focuses hot brass or copper through the hole in the front to allow the rest of the detonation better access to the vital parts (and people) inside the target vehicle or structure. At its simplest, it’s got ignition material to superheat solid metal into a molten spray focused through the funnel shape of the front half of the main explosive. Then, shortly after, the detonation happens and “it go boom”. There IS a timing delay for the direct arming of the projectile after it is launched (if the safety pin is removed), but that’s more so that the ability for the chemicals inside to ignite is held for whatever minimum distance (much like setting a different fuse time on a standard grenade). The thing is, these chemicals are often separated by layers of metal, ceramic, or whatever. Firing a bullet into that system kinda bypasses a lot of those safety measures and allows the chemicals to mix prematurely or can create an early spark in the ignition mechanism.
I mean, the chances are as much luck as skill… but with both her shot and the resulting detonation are enough within the realm of possibility that it’s not just an “action movie impossible shot that won’t do what they show it doing.” (The only problem with the scene in RED with Marvin shooting the RPG is that there wouldn’t be as much of a back-blast as they show because of the overall shape of the charge. That, and he’d very likely take some molten metal shrapnel himself.)
That’s not how shaped charges work. The (typically) copper liner is cold-shaped (not because it’s not hot – it’s just not molten but shaped by explosive force) into a projectile by the detonation of the shaped charge (which uses a high-explosive, meaning it’s supposed to convert its chemical energy into force, heat just happens because you don’t get to choose how thermodynamics work). The projectile/focused shock wave then penetrates the armor. Any superheating you get is caused by transformation of the projectile’s kinetic energy. Damage is inflicted by parts of the liner and parts of armor launched by the explosive force. No further explosion takes place (unless you hit the good parts like fuel or propellant charges). If you have tandem warheads which indeed cause two explosions, you have one explosion to defeat reactive armor and a second one to penetrate the main armor which is now, hopefully, unprotected by reactive armor.
A shaped charge will only work like this if exploded in a proper sequence (that is, starting in the center). Deformation and improper ignition (e.g. using things like a bullet through the liner and priming charge at an odd angle while the rocket/warhead is still in the launcher) may result in somewhat less precisely tuned explosions.
Huh… Then the couple of military tech TV shows illustrating how they work must have been wrong.
I do know what ping is, but only because sometimes the Steam servers (Steam the videogame company not some kind of steampunk clockwork computational machine, in case anyone is unfamiliar, anywho…) sometimes the Steam servers go haywire and your ping skyrockets out of nowhere, and the game you were playing just fine one minute turns into a powerpoint-slideshow (of your death cause it’s always at the worst possible moment) the next minute out of nowhere.
A ‘Best Shot, Ever’ still counts, no matter the circumstances, specially if it allows them to still be around to talk about it
Typo in the name of the page: it’s “The RivIera Kid” (with two eyes)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnLDt0RFOjU
D’oh!
Had to look it up, but it was worth it :)
RPG from moving vehicle.. peggy was not in all that much danger. Also it is not a blast/frag it is a HEAT so minimal blast radius. Best chance is setting aircraft wreck on fire. Dumping the magazine into the front windscreen would have had a similar effect as MOST drivers will jerk the wheel when bullets say hello as the wiz by or if a Hit its near 100%
Still a darn good shot.
RPG from moving vehicle.. peggy was not in all that much danger. Also most commonly not a blast/frag it is a HEAT so minimal blast radius. Best chance is setting aircraft wreck on fire. Dumping the magazine into the front windscreen would have had a similar effect as MOST drivers will jerk the wheel when bullets say hello as the wiz by or if a Hit its near 100%
Still a darn good shot.
I love the sniper war story trope. This arc is giving me the same glee as the GitS: SAC: Poker Face episode.
Okay, it didn’t work (linkage is not clickable), so here it is again
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1z-MKQfPF8
Anyone else having flashbacks to Red and the shootout at the airport?
Never seen RED, but DaveB does reference (with a typo) to a character from ‘Red Dwarf’, does that count?
The Riviera Kid shot a pair of bullets out of the air from about five feet away
I love the Red Dwarf reference! Cat was so cool.
This comic is starting to remind me of Schlock Mercenary – either Maxim 35: That which does not kill me has made a tactical error. or Maxim 64: An ounce of sniper is worth a pound of suppressing fire. – applies to Peggy.
And now I got started re-reading Schlock….
Oh no, you poor fool. Not.
;-)
Hitting the rocket fuel seems adequate. It may have more chemical energy that the warhead, and solid fuel is readily persuaded to explode or deflagrate. There is a video of someone disabling an SA-3(iirc) sitting on the ground by shooting it with a rifle at close range. Rapid unscheduled disassembly counts as disabled. The person standing well back made the video.
An RPG will detonate if hit by a bullet, but only after it has armed. Unfortunately it doesn’t arm until its has been fired and is a safe distance from the shooter. This is a safety feature to make sure you don’t kill your squad if you accidentally shoot it into the ground or close cover for some reason. Plus, it’s designed for penetrating reinforced targets. Which means even on detonation, the explosion still travels forward and risks still hitting her.
Fun Fact, Dave…RPG rounds use fuses
They are also timed to go off on their own, in an air burst, if they travel beyond a certain distance, like, 500 yards. However, of struck by a bullet, it’s still not likely to set them off. So the answer, as always, is still “Maybe?”
Also, RPG rounds come in many different flavors from fragmentation to armor piercing, to incendiary, to white phosphorus, to chemical. All but biological and nuclear, and I am sure there were experiments with those.
C
M-29 ‟Davy Crockett” explosive yield equivalent to 20 tons of TNT, was a bit more than experimental first built in 1956. Yes maximum range technically within it’s own blast radius.
Perhaps best that it was never used in combat, yet not just experimental.
error 1958
Okay again, I must reiterate. Remind me to NEVER get into a sniper battle with Peggy.
I have no opinion on the likelihood of that scene, but it reminded me of about a dozen or so vids I’ve come across where the kids firing the mortar find that the projectile didn’t have a charge attached, or the charge was defective, or whatever, and either the projectile (a grenade) didn’t come out of the tube, or it pops out and kind of lands in the dirt at their feet… The instructions for handling a misfired mortar are … illuminating. But mostly it’s clear that the grenade portion of a mortar round isn’t particularly sensitive, since the instructions include things like kicking the barrel to dislodge the round.
When discussing probabilities with things like Peggy shooting at the RPG, you have to remember selection bias. If it hadn’t worked, she’d be dead and unable to explain what happened. So any situation where she can explain things, the trick had to work no matter how unlikely.
Mr. Abraham Wald, ladies and gentlemen.
called it, what a badass
I can assure you that ping still matters. Blizzard makes sure of that.
Sight aligned just right,
sniper’s shot cuts through the night—
rocket blooms in flight.
-Kaboomsky
Well, that really blew up in their faces.
YouTube recommended this to me 5 minutes ago. I didn’t search.
How did it know I’m a Grrl Power Fan? How did it know about today’s episode?
https://youtu.be/lX_eii4sYP0?t=143
Panel 1: I learned the saying as “Close counts in darts, horseshoes and nuclear war.”
“will a grenade explode if you shoot it.”
A lot of work goes into avoiding accidental explosions.
Dynamite was actually just “Nitroglycerine, but less likely to blow up when you don’t want it to”.
Which saved the lives and limbs of many demolition experts, railway personel and factory workers in the field.
Unfortunately it also made it save enough to be used in warfare. Alfred Nobel was not happy about that second part.
“RPGs are basically the same as grenades, except they have propellant.”
That is indeed what the name “Rocket Propelled Grenade” or “RPG” stands for.
Mythbusters did this and their result was – handgun round, no. Shotgun, no. Rifle, YES (big boom). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MwpNkqlbNE
Quake III was fun and all, but Unreal Tournament had the Shock Rifle and that’s more relevant to this scene, I think.
See, the gimmick in UT was that most weapons had two different firing modes. The shock rifle’s primary mode was a very fast plasma projectile, but the secondary mode was a relatively slow-moving plasma orb. The trick, however, was to shoot a plasma orb from the secondary mode and then shoot it with a plasma bullet from the primary mode. The collision between both created a big explosion, and so with proper timing this could be used to get enemies that were behind cover.
The primary fire of the shock rifle was a hitscan that just looked like a beam.
I was never good at shock combos, personally. I could barely hit people with them when I was standing still, let alone hitting people with them while bunny hopping and circle strafing while they were also bunny hopping and circle strafing.
You probably are using Chrome as you browser, which records everything you browse.
“Everyone has broadband”
Yet most people that don’t live in a city tend to get 70+ms even nowadays. I imagine sub-50 was fantastic back then, considering that I barely get that consistently even now, if I do a latency test for my own country (and even then its only an average, swinging wildly between 30ms and 100+ms). Anything outside my own country is definitely above 50ms. Maybe if I paid out the nose for a top-tier glassfibre connection (rather than the cheapest glassfibre thats standard now), I’d get better latency.
We live in the sticks, but thanks to a retired rich guy moving in (after dropping close to 10 million on a mansion and a large barn), we have fiber optics on our road, 1gb/s! No more of the swirly-do’s waiting for netflicks to load :) FAR better than the 25mb/s we had with DSL.
Given that she is looking at the SIDE of the weapon, and the bullet goes there as well, she can’t have been in too much danger.
I think WE’RE looking at the side of the weapon, thanks to artistic presentation. Looking at the last panel where the bullet appears to have hit the tip of the warhead I would say she was head on.
You can see her round in p10, so it hit the top of the grenade, ripping it open and triggering it’s load. IDK if it was good luck (given her situation) or she’s just. that. good, but I know I would never accept a challenge to play paintball with Peggy!
She survived, and they didn’t, that’s what counts
Robert Jordan the ‘Wheel of Time’ author did something like this in Vietnam… possibly. Simply put, an RPG exploded midway to the chopper he was gunning from while he was making a last ‘oh crap’ effort to make it do just that. Whether it was a premature detonation or he really did pop it out of the sky does not change his ultimate conclusion; “Do not try this at home”.