E=MV^2
(Energy = Mass X Velocity X Velocity)
Of coarse the damage ACTUALLY imparted goes something like:
(initial energy - energy lost*) /time taken to transfer energy to the target (IE bullet fragmentation, mushrooming upon impact etc… to get as much surface area friction as possible)
So
(initial - lost) / transfer length
-
- if bullet fragments leave out the other side of target, or other things that result
velocity is a huge part of the equation no matter which side you are calculating from. Making mass big helps, which is why slow moving arrows can still be so effective. But velocity is the biggest part of the equation. Sub sonic rounds cut noise by cutting velocity as do silencers, though more efficiently (less speed loss on bullet for same noise drop) I think because they work like this IIRC:
The silencer is just a chamber added to the end of the barrel that lets the expanding gasses that are pushing the bullet go somewhere other than out the end of the barrel in one big rush (creating noise) This means that the gasses don’t push the bullet for as long reducing their effect on the speed.
All in all you are right. I just want to make sure the details are not lost.
[spoiler= Oh crap there I go >.> Beware: ballistics rambling ahead]Of coarse any time you mess with a bullets speed or mass you mess with its trajectory making the gun less accurate than what it was sighted in for.
before I get to into this let me start by saying that there are two points a gun can be sighted for. Where the bullet comes “up” into the sight reticle, or when it comes “back down”
If you mess with the speed of the bullet you effect how far it travels per amount dropped which changes where the bullet lands in comparison to where you are aiming. Less speed means more “drop” to the bullet.
Less so, it also effects the left and right because to increase accuracy rifles have rifling which is WHY they are called rifles these days. See to make something more stable, and thus more accurate in trajectory you give it spin. Much like a quarterback putting spin on a football.
Rifles accomplish this by ever so slightly gripping the bullet as it goes down the barrel like a really long nut and a really small screw without threads. This slows the bullet minutely but results in MUCH greater accuracy as opposed to the bullet bouncing down the barrel. Actually it might mean more speed as well…
Anyways. If you change the speed of the bullet it can effect how much spin it gets from the barrel and sometimes this results in a change in a sideways vector (up, down, left, right, and any combination there of)
Similarly adjusting the mass of the bullet effects how fast it drops for the distance traveled so if you remove gunpowder so you can add lead you effectively double-up the effect you are having.
That said:
Some bullets coefficients work out such that you CAN just swap out two bullets with minimum effect.
[/spoiler]
Spoiler tl;dr: Ballistics: its simplified rocket science. Don’t take it for granted.
