My uncle, who was with the North Shore (New Brunswick) regiment, had a pretty neat story he told me. I dont think he'd mind me telling it. Well he was in Holland at the time i believe. Him and around 10 guys, (10-15 depending on who's telling the story) where running across a dyke as a german machine gun was shooting at them, and hears a high piched "ping" but didn't think anythign if it, luckily he made to the end of the dyke and into to safety. He looked around and it seemed only 5 out of the 10 (or 15) guys had made it. Well after they had moved on into a bit of a safer place they stopped to eat. So my uncle takes out his can of bully beef and lookes at a big hole. Turns out the ping had been a german machine gun bullet, the can had stopped it.
A very unusual event if the can had been hit by an MG34/42 round and stopped it without knocking the carrier of the can to the ground. That's a lot of energy to be absorbed and would have normally knocked the person being hit on his a**e. That is of course if the round was stopped. It is quite possible that the round went through the tin and off into the distance without the person carrying the tin noticing. You are concentrating on many other things when you are being shot at and if the round hasn't done you too much damage any you are still moving then you tend not to worry about close calls too much. There have also been occasions where soldiers have been shot, but only a flesh wound, and due to the excess od adrenalin pumping through the body, not noticed until things had calmed down or it was pointed out to them.
Well it could very well be that it wasn't a machine gun bullet and i mis-interpreded, i'm pretty sure there was more then just the machine gunner firing at them.
A very unusual event if the can had been hit by an MG34/42 round and stopped it without knocking the carrier of the can to the ground. That's a lot of energy to be absorbed and would have normally knocked the person being hit on his a**e. That is of course if the round was stopped. It is quite possible that the round went through the tin and off into the distance without the person carrying the tin noticing. You are concentrating on many other things when you are being shot at and if the round hasn't done you too much damage any you are still moving then you tend not to worry about close calls too much. Not so. Having been a law-enforcement firearms instructor, I've had to deal with the whole "knockdown power" thing more than a few times. Newton's Third Law of Physics applies to bullets too (i.e. "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction"). If the bullet is capable of knocking down the target, it would also knock down the person firing it. For example, I can fire 8mm Mauser out of a 98k all day long and stay on my feet. While there are times that due to various reasons a person might fall down after having actually been shot (as in, the bullet perforates their body) - a bullet won't "knock" someone down. It's entirely possible for the can to have stopped the bullet as described in the his uncle's anecdote. He's a lucky man.
Not so. Having been a law-enforcement firearms instructor, I've had to deal with the whole "knockdown power" thing more than a few times. Newton's Third Law of Physics applies to bullets too (i.e. "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction"). If the bullet is capable of knocking down the target, it would also knock down the person firing it. For example, I can fire 8mm Mauser out of a 98k all day long and stay on my feet. While there are times that due to various reasons a person might fall down after having actually been shot (as in, the bullet perforates their body) - a bullet won't "knock" someone down. It's entirely possible for the can to have stopped the bullet as described in the his uncle's anecdote. He's a lucky man. What about the area of Ballistic "resistance". I can comprehend your analogy of a bullet passing through without resistance but find it difficult to comprehend with resistance. The collective resistance of garment, flesh and bone creates resistance to the impact of the force. In my mind, the only way a can of bully beef could stop a powered weapon as would have been used is that the bullet was at the lower end of its velocity or was from say a Luger handgun at distance or it had been the secondary point of impact (ricochet).
