By: Burhanistan
Yeah, and the Barret .50 cal is pretty widely known as well, and is no doubt responsible for tons of individual pick-offs in Iraq and Afghanistan by this point. Maybe when a fire team is dismounted and...
View ArticleBy: longbaugh
ROE are entirely dependent on the requirements of the military force at the time. The "no .50 cal against human targets" is a common misconception though. .50 BMG rounds will go through about a foot of...
View ArticleBy: Burhanistan
>A good friend of mine was in the Marine Reserves. He was telling me that the Rules of Engagement prevented them from using .50 caliber weapons on personnel That's curious. Do you have a citation...
View ArticleBy: Xoebe
A good friend of mine was in the Marine Reserves. He was telling me that the Rules of Engagement prevented them from using .50 caliber weapons on personnel - but of course they could be used against...
View ArticleBy: longbaugh
A 12-gauge slug is 18.5mm iirc. The A-10 uses a 30mm round (see the size comparison with a man's hand) fired from the GAU-8, a weapon which, with it's magazine, is about the same size as a family car....
View ArticleBy: porpoise
steambadger - not quite 22mm, but here's a 20mm/12-gauge revolver. (I was sure that there was a metafilter post about this, but can't find it right now). 0.50 calibur is roughly 12.5mm. 20mm rounds are...
View ArticleBy: zardoz
My grandfather, when he was a young man, would shoot at targets that he placed against the toolshed in the backyard of his house. I don't know the gauge of the rifle, but it must've been pretty...
View ArticleBy: disillusioned
"McSweeneys people are reading this in bad neighborhoods!" (I laughed. From the first video.)
View ArticleBy: TwelveTwo
"Books and bullets have their own destiny." This must have been what the quote was referring to.
View ArticleBy: steambadger
A 22mm would be about about twice the size of the largest handgun ammunition (.50 calibre). Whoa! Where can I get me some of those?
View ArticleBy: jonp72
I'm surprised nobody's mentioned Hitchcock's The 39 Steps for an example of a book stopping a bullet.
View ArticleBy: DNye
Apparently someone's HTC Evo 4G, or more specifically its battery, saved him from a stray bullet, so Kindle for Android, maybe?
View ArticleBy: weapons-grade pandemonium
This is why I carry a copy of In the Way Of All Flesh by Samuel Butler in my breast pocket.
View ArticleBy: meowzilla
Given the soaring costs of textbooks, it might be cheaper to actually buy trauma plates.
View ArticleBy: horsewithnoname
The first time I'd ever played paintball, I didn't have cup to wear. After a painful period of trial and error, I found that a copy of A Farewell to Arms under my jeans offered the best combination of...
View ArticleBy: Nanukthedog
Maxwell Smart: [Max holds up Tolstoy's War and Peace to block a KAOS agent with a knife] Nobody gets through War and Peace! - Get Smart, Again Now the question is: would Max be dead if he was reading...
View ArticleBy: ZenMasterThis
When books are replaced by kindles, this idea will become obsolete. What, no bullet points in Kindle ebooks?
View ArticleBy: mannequito
I live in England. We tend to use books fo' readin'... Admit it, last time your football team lost, you bludgeoned a rival fan with your copy of Dickens or Joyce or whatever you were lugging around.
View ArticleBy: flarbuse
"Years ago, my mother gave me a bullet...a bullet, and I put it in my breast pocket. Two years after that, I was walking down the street, when a berserk evangelist heaved a Gideon bible out a hotel...
View ArticleBy: grounded
In WWI, a French solider had a copy of Rudyard Kipling's Kim in his left breast pocket which stopped a bullet and saved his life. The soldier presented the book, with the bullet still in it, and his...
View ArticleBy: The 10th Regiment of Foot
Theodore Roosevelt's life was famously spared when the assassin's bullet hit this speech. Actually, that's the speech he made in lieu of the one that saved him. To be fair, the speech he was going to...
View ArticleBy: graftole
If you're ever living somewhere with thin walls and occasional gunfire, well-stuffed bookcases are great cover for when the kids on the corner decide to settle a score. I bet Alton Brown would consider...
View ArticleBy: Burhanistan
>Well, iPods are already stopping bullets in combat a That's an older model with a moving hard disk (with extra metal). I doubt the newer flash memory only models would have the same stopping power.
View ArticleBy: ardgedee
Would a mint-condition first-edition copy of Action Comics #1 stop a bullet? It's got the Man of Steel on the cover, and all. Ought to be effective. Somebody should try it.
View ArticleBy: philip-random
old text books will stop new bullets way better than old bullets will help you level your new couch. and now I shall get on with my work week
View ArticleBy: longbaugh
ahem... "This is from a lower than 100% memory of several Osprey books related to Native Americans that I have read but do not have in my possession here at work to refer to for sources". I am a dumb.
View ArticleBy: longbaugh
Also, and apologies that I do not have any online source for this, the Native Americans used Bible paper because of the perceived "power" inherent in the text of the Colonists. Thunder shields were...
View ArticleBy: DavidandConquer
I had friends in middleschool who armored their fronts with phonebooks and shot at each other. They were only using 22mag's, but still a tremendously bad idea. After each shot, each one would remove a...
View ArticleBy: BlueMetal
The Oklahoma superintendent of education candidate is on to something. Oklahoma schools might as well get some use out of their textbooks. I suspect they aren't often read.
View ArticleBy: longbaugh
Katjusa Roquette is correct - and has also been handling Stalin's Organ ;)
View ArticleBy: Paquda
When I was in the army, a comrade was shot up pretty bad by machine gun fire. When we had a chance to clean up the mess (he was literally torn into ribbons of flesh), we noticed the small, pretty bible...
View ArticleBy: Fizz
Back in the days when White people were moving West, if Native people could get their hands on the Bibles, they did, not to read them, but because they liked a layer of Bible paper in their shields to...
View ArticleBy: three blind mice
We guess it must have been a 22mm. A ".22" is measured in inches - a bit smaller than the diameter of a pencil eraser. A 9mm round is a bit smaller than a .38 cartridge. A 22mm would be about about...
View ArticleBy: Decani
Books don't save people, people carrying really thick books under their coat save people. Err. Or something.
View ArticleBy: steambadger
I suppose it would make a better story if I knew exactly what book it was. I could ask him. Yes! Do!
View ArticleBy: Katjusa Roquette
Oh I definately would have trusted my Medical Coding book to save my life!
View ArticleBy: TomMelee
I had friends in middleschool who armored their fronts with phonebooks and shot at each other. They were only using 22mag's, but still a tremendously bad idea. After each shot, each one would remove a...
View ArticleBy: Katjusa Roquette
Back in the days when White people were moving West, if Native people could get their hands on the Bibles, they did, not to read them, but because they liked a layer of Bible paper in their shields to...
View ArticleBy: StickyCarpet
True story. 1986, 14th Street and 3rd Avenue, leaving a party with a friend at 3AM. He's wearing a motorcycle jacket, with a medium-thick paperback in the pocket. At the corner, a car slows down, a...
View ArticleBy: Fizz
When books are replaced by kindles, this idea will become obsolete. But more importantly, will it blend?
View ArticleBy: longbaugh
Depends on the round, the distance, the angle and a whole bunch of other factors I would guess althoug I imagine the bible is quite good with it's message of peace* and large number of pages - it's a...
View ArticleBy: steambadger
When books are replaced by kindles, this idea will become obsolete. Obviously, you haven't seen the new Kevlar model.
View ArticleBy: Sand
RPG books get to play too! Here are some ballistic tests of the Hero System 5th Edition rulebook.
View ArticleBy: pracowity
Can a book stop a bullet? I suppose so, if the book convinces the shooter to put down the gun. But I suppose a book can also convince someone to pick up a gun.
View ArticleBy: twoleftfeet
If you don't want to read the book, wait for the movie. If you don't want to go to the movie, wait for it to come out on DVD. Because the DVD will still stop the bullet.
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