CAN A
RICOCHET
BE USED IN
ACONTROLLED WAY?
HOW SAFE
AREYOU
FROM A RICOCHET
UNDER THE WATER?
There are various reports of
snipers who can supposedly
shoot around corners—by deploying
ricochets in a targeted manner to hit
a target who is behind cover. But to
do this the shooter would need a
whole lot of luck because in reality
rebound shots can’t be controlled.
In addition, he’d have to give up his
camoufl age for the shot. Previously,
rebound projectiles were used with
artillery in a specifi c way: In order to
elongate the range of the projectiles
or increase the effect of their impact,
soldiers would aim their weapon at
a point in front of the actual target.
In this way, the projectiles touched
down multiple times or fragmented,
thus increasing the scattering effect.STARTING AT WHAT POINT CAN A
RICOCHET HURT YOU?
Nine times out of ten, almost
every projectile that hits the
unprotected skin of a human being
will cause an injury. This has been
confi rmed in experiments carried out
by University of Bern researchers: A
weight of just 10 grams (that’s aboutthe mass of a bonbon) was enough
to do damage when it was dropped
from a height of 3 feet and struck a
steel pin with a 6-millimeter diameter
that was erected vertically on a test
subject’s skin. The mini hammer blow
was suffi cient to cause an injury.6
7
Water is about
800 times denser
than air.It provides
effective protection
against ricochets.Firearms and their projectiles
function just the same under-
water as they do above the surface,needs to overcome
an extremely strong
resistance. In the case
of a ricochet, this same
principle applies except that
the water slows down the deformed
projectile even more strongly. In fact,
security personnel, for example on
ships, use barrels of water as simple
but effective barriers against bullets.8
in principle. Oxygen
contained inside the
cartridge is sufficient to
trigger the shot, but even
while it’s still in the barrel the
bullet gets slower, loses its rotation,
drifts off course, and plummets to
the ground after around 6 feet or so.
Reason: Water is about 800 times
denser than air. Therefore a bulletSELF-EXPERIMENT
Physicist Andreas Wahl
stands in a pool and
fi res at himself from
around 10 feet away
using a remote control.
The water slows down
the shot, so there’s no
danger to Wahl.PHOTOS: Getty Images; iStock (5); You Tube (2); Alamy; Ullstein; Onfokus; UniversalImagesGroup/Getty Images. ILLUSTRATION: wdw-Grafi k.RICOCHETS IN THE BODY
Bones such as the cranium can also alter
the route or position of a projectile, as seen
here in this radiograph of a war injury.
LAB