I understand they thought that gun was the Shchit.
MYTHBUSTERS 10th Anniversary Season
- Thread starter Christopher
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I understand they thought that gun was the Shchit.
Unlikely-projectiles week, for what they're calling the "season finale" (though it must be half-season, since I recall seeing shots of a few myths in the pre-season promo that we haven't seen yet).
Lethal ping-pong ball: Hmm, it should be possible to calculate how fast a ping-pong ball would need to be lethal given the mass. Although I'm not sure quite what the variables are. It wouldn't quite compare to a bullet since those are sharp and can penetrate a target more easily. There's also the fact that ping-pong balls are more flexible and would deform or shatter on impact, absorbing the force -- in which case it might not be possible for them to inflict lethal effect unless they're really going enormously fast. We'll see.
The vacuum cannon is a fascinating bit of physics -- both the way it works and the way it failed to work when they made it longer. I guess the longer it is, the more time there is for the air to leak past the ping-pong ball. Hey, how about using a sabot?
No, turned out they used that "choke" thing instead. And it worked remarkably well. World record! And it's amazing what it did to the ping-pong paddle -- like something out of a cartoon.
And the verdict -- enough to cause a serious flesh wound, but not lethal. At least, not instantly lethal. A hole that big punched in a living being's flesh could result in serious blood loss if not treated promptly. But the ball shattered on impact and seemed to come out worse than the pork shoulder.
Ice cannon: I'm not too surprised that the ice cannonballs held up better than the ice bullets, because size matters. We've all seen how much longer those big snowplowed piles of snow and ice take to melt even after all the rest of the snow and ice is gone.
But as far as the cannons went, I wonder why they didn't try building one of them with hemp or sawdust reinforcement like they tried with the cannonballs. Then the cannon might not have shattered and might have withstood a larger powder load.
Hmm. I wonder if the reality is that the Cossacks made just cannonballs out of ice, which seems feasible, and the story got exaggerated into the myth that they made the whole cannons out of ice.
Lethal ping-pong ball: Hmm, it should be possible to calculate how fast a ping-pong ball would need to be lethal given the mass. Although I'm not sure quite what the variables are. It wouldn't quite compare to a bullet since those are sharp and can penetrate a target more easily. There's also the fact that ping-pong balls are more flexible and would deform or shatter on impact, absorbing the force -- in which case it might not be possible for them to inflict lethal effect unless they're really going enormously fast. We'll see.
The vacuum cannon is a fascinating bit of physics -- both the way it works and the way it failed to work when they made it longer. I guess the longer it is, the more time there is for the air to leak past the ping-pong ball. Hey, how about using a sabot?
No, turned out they used that "choke" thing instead. And it worked remarkably well. World record! And it's amazing what it did to the ping-pong paddle -- like something out of a cartoon.
And the verdict -- enough to cause a serious flesh wound, but not lethal. At least, not instantly lethal. A hole that big punched in a living being's flesh could result in serious blood loss if not treated promptly. But the ball shattered on impact and seemed to come out worse than the pork shoulder.
Ice cannon: I'm not too surprised that the ice cannonballs held up better than the ice bullets, because size matters. We've all seen how much longer those big snowplowed piles of snow and ice take to melt even after all the rest of the snow and ice is gone.
But as far as the cannons went, I wonder why they didn't try building one of them with hemp or sawdust reinforcement like they tried with the cannonballs. Then the cannon might not have shattered and might have withstood a larger powder load.
Hmm. I wonder if the reality is that the Cossacks made just cannonballs out of ice, which seems feasible, and the story got exaggerated into the myth that they made the whole cannons out of ice.
The air-cannon devised by Jamie and Adam to launch the ping-pong balls was utterly amazing, simple and complex all at once. I am at awe of that thing, one of the bigger aw-inspiring things I've seen them do on this show. I mean, launching a ping-pong ball at over Mach-1 was incredible!
Christopher. I too wondered about a sabot with the initial problems as well but I kind of wonder if the resistence/friction between the sabot and the inside of the barrel would've slowed down the ping-pong ball? Anyway the choke Adam devised was brilliant. That thing was just utterly incredible.
What it did to the pork shoulder was pretty damn impressive and we could argue that it may be "potentially" lethal if the ball happened to hit you in the right spot. A pork shoulder is a pretty heavy, dense, chunk of meat with nothing to vulnerable in it. Yeah it'd wreck your day but it wouldn't kill you. Now imagine getting shot in the gut with that thing or, hell, in the eye. That may change the lethality of it somewhat.
I wonder what the results would have been if they had gone with ballistics gel/medium as opposed to that pork shoulder.
I'd say it could be a "plausible" considering the "right" set of circumstances could allow it to happen.
The cannon though, my hat is off to Jamie and Adam for that thing. Bravo!
Not much to say on the Jr. Team. Interesting take on the improvised cannon genre of myths.
I'm not sure how they consider their seasons when it comes to the "beginning" and the "end" but, yeah, there were other snippets in the promos for this batch of episodes we've not see yet. Like in previous years I'm guessing the show will be back in mid-Summer.
Christopher. I too wondered about a sabot with the initial problems as well but I kind of wonder if the resistence/friction between the sabot and the inside of the barrel would've slowed down the ping-pong ball? Anyway the choke Adam devised was brilliant. That thing was just utterly incredible.
What it did to the pork shoulder was pretty damn impressive and we could argue that it may be "potentially" lethal if the ball happened to hit you in the right spot. A pork shoulder is a pretty heavy, dense, chunk of meat with nothing to vulnerable in it. Yeah it'd wreck your day but it wouldn't kill you. Now imagine getting shot in the gut with that thing or, hell, in the eye. That may change the lethality of it somewhat.
I wonder what the results would have been if they had gone with ballistics gel/medium as opposed to that pork shoulder.
I'd say it could be a "plausible" considering the "right" set of circumstances could allow it to happen.
The cannon though, my hat is off to Jamie and Adam for that thing. Bravo!
Not much to say on the Jr. Team. Interesting take on the improvised cannon genre of myths.
I'm not sure how they consider their seasons when it comes to the "beginning" and the "end" but, yeah, there were other snippets in the promos for this batch of episodes we've not see yet. Like in previous years I'm guessing the show will be back in mid-Summer.
Just caught up on the last two episodes and really enjoyed them. That little cartoon intro at the beginning of the gun myth was great and I thought the fireball in the vacuum was one of their coolest pieces of high speed we've seen in a while.
I'm also surprised they didn't didn't use their standard "replicate the result" thing with this one. We've seen how strong pykrete is and they even when the extra step of making cannon balls put of it. Why not make a cannon out of it as well?
I'm also surprised they didn't didn't use their standard "replicate the result" thing with this one. We've seen how strong pykrete is and they even when the extra step of making cannon balls put of it. Why not make a cannon out of it as well?
One of my pet peeves as a shooter: In the animation showing cartoon Jamie firing a rifle and cartoon Adam firing a ping-pong-ball gun, they showed the entire unfired cartridge flying out of the gun barrel and zooming along thru the air.
The same thing happens in the opening titles of Chuck, which drove me crazy weekly.
Only. The Bullet. Comes out.
http://photoblog.pileofphotos.com/view.php?id=20&title=High-speed-bullet-photography
The same thing happens in the opening titles of Chuck, which drove me crazy weekly.
Only. The Bullet. Comes out.
http://photoblog.pileofphotos.com/view.php?id=20&title=High-speed-bullet-photography
I think they took cues from the AMES vertical gun
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/08/a-scientist-and-his-gun/
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/multimedia/images/2005/comets1.html
I think some hypersonic tunnels use both high pressure at one end and a vacuum at the other to really get the gas up to speed.
I would be rather more frightened about that simple sliding breech. If it can punch through that paddle, it might have blown out the breech--but the vacuum helped take the load off it I imagine.
I can see the ice cannon--if maybe they cut holes into a large mass of ice along a row. It just has to hold together once. Maybe a horizontal quarry style line-shot out the side.
Clever thought, but how do they get to the back to light the fuses? Or are you thinking in terms of a thick "wall" of ice with cannon bores dug into it? In that case, though, I think there'd be an increased risk of the explosive force blowing backward directly at your own forces if the rear wall fails -- more force concentrated directly at you than if a cannon blows outward in all directions. Which is fine if you're standing off to the side, maybe, but it's a risky tradeoff.
Mister Fandango
Fleet Captain
Or they could have just used reinforced ice just like their research came up with, but which they abandoned at the drop of the hat on the show because they got a plain ice cannonball to work (but didn't even bother using the stronger types of ice for the cannon itself, or even tested whether the other cannonballs they made were any better).
That was odd. Did they do an aftershock to cover those details at sll?
I was thinking more of an ice wall. Not only would the discharge over the heads of attackers hit folks farther afield, but the wall collapses on the folks who try to climb over it.
We saw something like this in WWI
http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2009/08/avalanches-as-weapons.html
You know, it looked to me like the ice-canon had... "fracture points" or "seams in it." I.E. it didn't look like it was a 100% solid block of ice.
^The procedures have been getting sloppier in recent years, especially among the M7 trio.
Or if maybe they did do it and it was cut for time?
Or it could be duplicating the results couldn't be done due to time limitations. I mean to make a cannon that could survive multiple uses it'd probably have to be pretty big and well built so it'd probably just not be practical to make such a thing.
Or it could be duplicating the results couldn't be done due to time limitations. I mean to make a cannon that could survive multiple uses it'd probably have to be pretty big and well built so it'd probably just not be practical to make such a thing.
Well, we've known all along that Discovery cuts up to 7 minutes out of each episode to make room for commercials. That's why there's so much "extra" footage available on the website. (And it annoys me that the DVDs don't restore the episodes to their full length.)
^Indeed, the episodes available for streaming on Netflix sometimes have material cut out -- specifically movie clips whose rights must have lapsed. Not sure if that's true for the DVDs as well. But it gets awkward sometimes when the setup for the myth is explained by the movie clips. In that one about using a harpoon and blasting caps to blow up a shark, it just jumps to the team starting to test the myth without any prior exposition of what they're testing.
In cases like that, it seems it would've been a good idea to produce alternate, animated exposition sequences, like the ones they use to recreate movie scenes they don't have the rights to. Then they'd have backups in case their license to the actual clips expired.
In cases like that, it seems it would've been a good idea to produce alternate, animated exposition sequences, like the ones they use to recreate movie scenes they don't have the rights to. Then they'd have backups in case their license to the actual clips expired.
That reminds me of something. I wonder if the production could have gotten the rights to depict a shot or two from Trek's "Arena" at a reasonable fee, but opted to create their own sequences just because they wanted to go "full fanboy" and have some fun cosplaying?
Sincerely,
Bill
Sincerely,
Bill
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