How much damage should a Werewolf take from bullets?

[Silent Hunter]

This may have already been talked about in the past or as a part of a broader healing thread but i'm not of fan of trawling up old topics, plus some new ideas may of been thought about by then.

So, i was thinking, assuming silver did more damage to a werewolf, how much damage would guns of various calibers do to a werewolf and how would it deal with bullets in it? Plus how would its healing mechanism handle it?

[RedEye]

I would suspect that the Were' would take the same sort of damage that anyone else would, from silver bullets. Let's remember, for all the hype, a Silver bullet wouldn't expand in the wound channel. It would act just like a FMJ bullet in a Non Were'.

Caliber would be related to damage the same way it is with Smoothskin Humans. Bigger is better, regardless of velocity. Heavy bullets do more damage than light ones, given similar velocity. Smaller bullets driven very fast would tend to over-penetrate.

What Silver does, apparently, is to keep the Werewolf's healing abilities shut down in the area it is embedded in, thus producing a wound that won't heal. In earlier days, that was a death sentence.
If we postulate the existence of type "R" cells (Regeration cells), I suppose that Silver would kill them on contact; thus preventing healing.

[Kelpten]

Ya, I experimented with an idea that werewolf cells undergo mitosis at an increadable rate, giving them their transformation and regeneration powers. The reason they do so is because they have some element or other (never could think of anything exactly) in their cells. But Silver bonds easily to this element, preventing it from doing it's job and preventing mitosis. I got the idea from the way carbon monoxide bonds with oxygen more easily than hemoglobin, making it impossible for the hemoglobin to deliver the oxygen to the body. This would mean that not only would they not heal quickly, but not at all, and the part of the body that the silver touched would, while not actually die, be unable to transform. Eventually the living cells beneith would push out the non reproducing cells and the werewolf would be ok, but until then he'd be in a lot of pain.

[Set]

I'm of the opinion a werewolf would take as much damage from a bullet as anything else would. I was never a fan of nearly invincible weres, or ones that weren't much phased by a bullet and could push them out through the skin a la Underworld.

[Terastas]

I would say as much damage as it would to a human. The difference would be in how fast it heals.

[Zombie]

[quote="RedEye"]I would suspect that the Were' would take the same sort of damage that anyone else would, from silver bullets. Let's remember, for all the hype, a Silver bullet wouldn't expand in the wound channel. It would act just like a FMJ bullet in a Non Were'.

It would act like a FMJ- unless it was cast as a hollowpoint. Depending on the cast that they were drawn from, it could cause an obcene amount of damage in comparison to caliber and velocity.


Caliber would be related to damage the same way it is with Smoothskin Humans. Bigger is better, regardless of velocity. Heavy bullets do more damage than light ones, given similar velocity. Smaller bullets driven very fast would tend to over-penetrate.

Again, it all comes down to bullet construction. If you are casting hollowpoints, you are going to have some expansion, even at moderate handgun velocities. Tougher solid types could be driven very fast out of a rifle, but the performance would be like a dangerous-game solid through-and through with a caliber-sized hole. If one were to make a bullet with a traditional lead (or tungsten) core with a silver jacket, you would have decent penatration and lots of wounding capacity, because the jacket would shed during penetration, causing secondary wound channels.
Bigger is always better! That why I hunt deer with a .458 Win Mag!

[Anónimo Juan]

This may seem a bit off topic but, since we are on a bullets topic.... Anyone knows why only silver bullets/stuff can damage a werewolf? It's just silver after all.

[RedEye]

Two answers here: One> Silver isn't all that expansive, compared to brass/lead hollowpoints. A hollowpoint SIlve bullet might not expand at all, since the metal is both a lot harder than lead and tougher as well.

Secondly> Silver, IMHO, does damage by killing the specialized cells that heal the Werewolf so quickly. Silver is a poison, a heavy metal poison like lead. It is a bacteriocide- it kills the cells it comes in contact with.
Thus: A Werewolf shot with Silver would have a wound similar to the type a Smoothskin Human would have...and it wouldn't heal any faster than said Human.
More people died of setpticemia from bullet wounds than died of being directly killed by the bullet. Add in the poison that silver is, and you have a sick, sick werewolf. They may even be sensitized to the metal in some way.

[vrikasatma]

Let's keep in mind that silver is a very soft metal, compared to, say, bitumen, aluminum, bronze, copper and brass. Like gold, it can be worked cold, with hammers.

There's a thorny problem with my friends who are more versed in ballistics than I was; they didn't buy the theory of a pure "silver bullet" because the ignition of the gunpowder would soften the slug enough to degrade its ballistic and penetrative capabilities.

This isn't to say that shooting it from a gun would render the silver bullet useless. Not at all. It might penetrate less, but everyone knows how much damage napalm does. There's also the possibility that a semi-deformed silver bullet would shrapnel. And hey, it's still a chunk of metal hitting you at several hundred miles per hour.

So what would the damage of a bullet composed mainly of silver, alloyed with a more durable metal? Say, a bullet made of bell metal, which contains a fair amount of silver? Or asti dhatu from India, "eight metals" that also contains gold as well as silver? Obviously the gold wouldn't harm overmuch, but what percentage of a weapon's metal has to be silver before negligibility?

[RedEye]

I'm still of the opinion that a deeply-plated Copper bullet would be as effective as solid silver.
Copper is THE first metal plated to, say steel-because it's "sticky" and holds other plated metals tightly. A copper slug with heavy/deep silver plating would be as effective as solid silver since the silver wouldn't come off of the copper base.

One thing Silver does do is surface harden- working silver requires that it be annealed periodically to stay soft. Swaging a silver slug to fit a bullet base would surface harden it quite a bit. One of the bullets I reload is Silver based, alloyed with copper, nickel, chrome, and a few other mysterious metals- and it is very hard, not deforming at all in the wet newspaper media I test with. Pure, swaged silver deformed (mushroomed) slightly, but penetrated virtually the same distence as the part silver alloy. In either case, a .45acp silver or silver alloy slug loaded to 850 fps penetrated 19.3 inches (silver) and 20.1 inches silver alloy, while a lead/copper jacketed FMJ penetrated 17.5 inches and a lead/copper hollowpoint (Remington) penetrated 15.2 inches, and was the only one to expand signifigantly.
The Human chest (the thickest part of the body) averages 16.6 inches deep thru the breastbone. Every bullet other than the PbCu hollowpoint would have gone through the target's body.
Tests were done back in 2003, using a 1911 with a 5" barrel at a distence of 25 feet...for an unrelated subject- the Lone Ranger.

The .45ACP round is ballistically identical to the black powder .45 Colt round from the Model P revolver. It was made so to ease the cross-over from the re-issused military .45 Colt revolvers.

[vrikasatma]

H'mmm, hadn't thought of that. I was thinking of silver from a purely artistic stance as a malleable material. Dammit Jim, I'm a sculptor, not a reloader (yet)!

[RedEye]

Be patient! Reloading's an art, too!

[Shadow Wulf]

How about 5.56mm bullet from an M16 made from only a little bit of silver mixed with copper? Do you know how much damage a 5.56mm bullet does to the human body?From mid to long range it travels at such high speeds that the bullet can barely handle it and so once it contacts with flesh the metal pieces starts to break apart and spread through the body! Thats why all it takes is a couple shots to kill a person and hardly anyone survives from it, thats why people drop so fast from such a small bulet. A werewolf wouldn't stand a chance against an M16, it has a better chance of surviving from a handgun or regular rifle.

[Zombie]

How about 5.56mm bullet from an M16 made from only a little bit of silver mixed with copper? Do you know how much damage a 5.56mm bullet does to the human body?From mid to long range it travels at such high speeds that the bullet can barely handle it and so once it contacts with flesh the metal pieces starts to break apart and spread through the body! Thats why all it takes is a couple shots to kill a person and hardly anyone survives from it, thats why people drop so fast from such a small bulet. A werewolf wouldn't stand a chance against an M16, it has a better chance of surviving from a handgun or regular rifle.

Once again, its construction,construction, construction. Military 5.56 loadings are scooting along at a nominal velocity of 3100 feet per second (fps) Military loads are also all FMJ, because hollowpoints are banned for use in warfare by the Geneva Conventions, because they are considered "inhumane" (compared to humanely shooting someone) because of the amount of damage they do in comparison to the caliber. Barring the politics of warfare, its the construction of the bullet that causes the damage once it penetrates. The base of the 5.56 is heavier that the front portion of the bullet (Ive sectioned one) and that causes a tumbling effect once it has penetrated. Remember too, thats its still moving along at supersonic speeds when it initially hits you, and hydrostatic shock also comes into play here too. While it wont mushroom much, if at all, it will still have more than enough energy to break any bone it encounters with enough force to splinter it inside the body, causing more wound channels. The tumbling effect itself will send the bullet in any random direction once it slows down enough to be effected my the muscle and organ tissue that it is plowing through. Normally though, it will simply run through and through, causing damage from hydrostatic shock and getting a new hole where you werent meant to have one.

In contrast, the commercial loadings in 5.56 bore size, is available at your local sporting goods store. Its the .223 There are several loads that have this bore diameter, one of them being the 22-250, that can exceed 4,000 FPS,(and the bullets expand explosively) and that is a regular hunting rifle (for varmants), so if there is any advantage of a full auto, it would be the simple volume of fire, not the load itself.

-Z

[RedEye]

When I was in 'Nam, we didn't have those wonder bullets. The SS109 is a more modern attempt to make a sub-calibre bullet do what a larger bullet does.
The bullet we had was the SS89/99 round, meant to wound Russians when they charged through the Fulda Gap in Germany. A wounded man takes five people off the battle line to care for him, etc. Charlie just left his wounded for us to deal with. We did. Period.
The more modern SS109 round is impressive, yes, but reports from both Afganistan and Iraq say that it still doesn't put people down as well as the old (and returning) .308 Winchestser.

As to the effect on Were's, the damage would tax the regeneration system, and the silver would definitely do damage; but I still am not sure that it would take a Werewolf out.
It doesn't reliably take out Smoothskin Humans- and Were's are tougher than they are.

Oh, and those Hague convention bans on Hollowpoints are for Regular Army soldiers; irregulars and guerillas (not regular army soldiers) are NOT covered by that ban. We use the FMJ rounds because we have them in quantity, already paid for.

[vrikasatma]

Slightly off-topic...since cannons can be considered firearms...

When I was down at my Mom's for the holidaze, I watched the Mythbusters Marathon and particularly took note of their Pirate show. They were having fun at the gun range, shooting various implements out of a cannon at a butchered hog.

Among the various projectiles they shot was a length of heavy chain, which unquestionably did the most damage. Now grant you, in your standard urban warfare environment, a cannon won't be the best choice of weapon and certainly easy to avoid, but the image that came to mind was shooting a silver chain at a werewolf...

[RedEye]

a cannon won't be the best choice of weapon and certainly easy to avoid, but the image that came to mind was shooting a silver chain at a werewolf...

Better yet, shoot the chain and the guy wearing it at the werewolf!

[MattSullivan]

In the Camp Lycanthrope universe, silver doesn't kill on contact, but it can cause major damage and unless the bullet is removed, can damage tissue much like a flesh-eating bacteria can damage humans.

[Aki]

Slightly off-topic...since cannons can be considered firearms...

When I was down at my Mom's for the holidaze, I watched the Mythbusters Marathon and particularly took note of their Pirate show. They were having fun at the gun range, shooting various implements out of a cannon at a butchered hog.

Among the various projectiles they shot was a length of heavy chain, which unquestionably did the most damage. Now grant you, in your standard urban warfare environment, a cannon won't be the best choice of weapon and certainly easy to avoid, but the image that came to mind was shooting a silver chain at a werewolf...

Probably would get better results with a shotgun. A shotgun loaded with like, silver buckshot would probably be pretty effective.

Especially given that a shotgun gives you much lethality in close-range conflict, and werewolves tend to engage solely in such fighting.

But silver-chain-cannon would make for pretty kickass scene in a movie. BLAM! Werewolf shreds.

Edit: On the note of rifle rounds and effect on the body, here's the wound profiles of some, as demonstrated in ballistics gel (which, susposedly, mimics human flesh).

[RedEye]

Note Above:

30 CM is roughly one foot (just shy of 12" by appx. 1/8") The chest cavity averages between 16" and 18" front to rear, and the abdomen is roughly the same, usually about 80% of the chest dimension.

What mucks up the figures in people, is that they wear clothing and suchlike; and the lighter the round, the more energy is used up in going through through that clothing (yeah, it really does make a difference!)

It would be interesting as to the distance the Ballistics gel was from the rifle or carbine: usually, it's pretty close (you don't want to miss!)
Lighter rounds lose velocity faster at distance as well, and none of these rounds are long distance rounds (past 200 meters or so). The 7.62 x 39 is most lilkely the longest reaching round, since it's the heaviest.

Note for content: we're about at the limit for inclusion in this subject, so let's get back to shooting Werewolves...

[Zombie]

Probably would get better results with a shotgun. A shotgun loaded with like, silver buckshot would probably be pretty effective.

Especially given that a shotgun gives you much lethality in close-range conflict, and werewolves tend to engage solely in such fighting.

But silver-chain-cannon would make for pretty kickass scene in a movie. BLAM! Werewolf shreds.

For a shotgun, I think that some heavy loadings of #2 shot would have more wounding capacity. Buckshot (000 size) is .357 caliber and with a 10-gauge (Im using this figure since I own one and handload for it too..) you have 18 pellets. Initially, you would think "Hey, great! Its like hitting them 18 times at once with a .357 Magnum!" but that isnt quite the case. Not only are the prjectiles going much slower than a .357 Magnum (and therefore not going to penetrate too much) but you only have 18 pellets. #00, 0, 1 and 2 shot can be loaded a little faster, and with a cylinder bore gun, you could have a little spreading effect at PRACTICAL shotgun ranges (within 50 feet with shot) and have much more damage area via the amount of pellets that have penetrated and are doing what they were designed to do.

For a plain sledgehammer effect, try a 10-gauge slug load. a 2oz slug at 1300 FPS. I can hear the "slap" when it hits my target, and is effective to about 110 yards. Also, dont forget that there are still 8, 6, 4 and even a 2 gauge out there, the 4 gauge (a blackpowder cartrige loading) with a quarter pound conical bullet, and the 2 bore that launches a half-pound load!! And exploding loadings are available for them too...

But that opens a whole new dimension on things...