3
HOW FAR
CAN A
RICOCHET FLY?
4
The fl atter the shooting angle
is and the harder the target
material that the projectile strikes,
the more their force will be retained
in the rebounding shot. In a series
of experiments conducted at the
University of Bern in Switzerland,
some of the projectiles bounced
back from a distance of 4,900 feet.
Even a penetrating gunshot wound
can deflect a bullet without taking
away the majority of the
energy with which it
is traveling.“Grazing shots” are, strictly
speaking, exactly the same
as ricochets—the body changes the
course of the bullet, the shot falters.
But for such a ricochet to rebound
in the direction from which it came
is rare—at least when it’s a human
body that has been hit. But where
animals are concerned, that doesn’t
always hold true: In some cases, a
bullet will rebound off the thick skin
of a wild boar. And in Texas, a man
was injured after he shot an armadillo
and was hit in the head by a ricochet.CAN
RICOCHETS
BOUNCE OFF
BODIES?
Shots fi red 6 miles above the
ground sound like suicide:
Because when an air marshal—a
police offi cer who is disguised as a
passenger—near you shoots wide
of the mark or a ricochet smashes
into the plane’s fuselage, then
disaster looms. Despite
this, the prohibition on
shooting a gun in a
plane doesn’t apply
to the air marshals
who are deployed
to combat would-
be terrorists who
might be on board:
The American fl ight-
safety officers are all
equipped with a standard
weapon, such as a Sig Sauer
P229, for example. But on board a
plane they use special ammunition
that has been developed specifi cally
for the purpose of hitting so-called
soft targets. These bullets possess
predetermined breaking points and
cavities that guarantee the bullet will
easily deform when the target is hit.
As a result they achieve a high level
of what’s known as stopping power,
so they transfer the largest part of
their kinetic energy to their target
when they strike instead of gliding
straight through. That means:
The shots stop potential
terrorists, but they’re
not able to destroy
hard material like
a cabin wall.
And by the way:
Air marshals are
not just deployed
in the U.S.; almost
all of the European
countries have such
forces at their disposal.
In Germany there are some
200 specially trained offi cers from
the federal police who are deployed
as air marshals. The details of their
operations are not known. After all,
these units are subject to the strictest
secrecy—to prevent terrorists from
gaining an informational advantage.WHY IS AN AIR
MARSHAL ALLOWED
TO SHOOT IN AN
AIRPLANE?
COVERT DEPLOYMENT
Air marshals only make
themselves known in an
emergency. And even then
they don’t always pull out a
gun, as Liam Neeson does
here in the movie Non-Stop.Ricochets on
board a plane can lead
to a catastrophe. That’s why
federal air marshals
use a special type of
ammunition for
“soft targets.”rolled-up armadilloideasanddiscoveries.com 73 Mar 2017