How to achieve maximum damage?

[Warp Spider]

That's not entirely accurate... not all cars have crumple zones and generally they do not have any discernable effect at 10 miles per hour. A car going 10MPH has way more momentum than a .50 caliber round as well. A bullet focuses the force onto a smaller area, causing a greater disruption of the tissue. A .50 caliber bullet will not transfer the energy to you faster. For the most part, it won't even transfer energy to you. The only energy it will impart is a fraction of that drained from the friction as it passes through your body. Generally, a car hitting you at nearly any speed imparts relatively little energy to you. Generally, it retains the majority of it's energy.

 

Like I said, the amount of "damage" you will cause is dependant on the volume and nature of tissues disrupted, and the level of disruption caused to those respective tissues.

 

The only practical way for you to increase damage is to hit hard and hit accurately. I would advise attacking the same area because attacks to varied parts of the target will result in a great deal of total tissue disruption, but little actual tangible damage. Though it is not noticeable until it "kicks in" and you suffer a serious injury, damage to the same area is cumulative to an extent.

 

Technically you could attack the person at the resonant frequency of the water in their skin, causing their flesh to boil over and splatter, but that would require precise attacks to a resolution of less than a millionth of a second, so failing that I'd stick with the advice above - hit hard, hit accurately, and hit often.

 

PS Don't worry about hitting "past" the target or whatever.. whatever helps is fine, but I'd say just hit the heavy bag. Whatever makes the loudest smacking sound is causing the most disruption in the bag. Keep in mind, however, that "pushing" the target is not useless at all, anyone who's been thrown can attest that falling to the ground is as bad as any punch.

[GrrrArg]

A good exercise I've posted somewhere else on the forums is too tape a balloon to a punch bag (or have someone hold against there stomach) and try to pop it with a punch. Beginners usually struggle with thsi because they aim to hit the balloon.

 

Try it yourselves. Hitting through the balloon will pop it, hitting the surface will not..unless your holding a pin or something

[JerryLove]

Jerry Love, that is slightly flawed yourself. A .50 cal roundprobably has more momentum anyway.

p=mv

 

So let's imagine a 1/10th pound bullet (very heavy) travelling at 1500 fps (very fast for a bullet) gives us 150 feet-pounds of momentum. A car weighting 1000 lbs traveling 10mph (about 14fps) give us 14,000 feet-pounds of momentium.

 

So the car has around 100 times the momentium.

You cannot say that it is only because it is small, or only because it moves fast because there are a number of factors that make the bullet effective.

 

Exactly

Finally, a punch will transfer more force if it is fully accelerated before it hits the target. You will get the 'pushing' sensation (people flying back) when you accelerate your fist a bit before you hit and try to finish the accelration through the target. If you want the full force you have to reach your maximum speed before you hit and drive that through your target.

 

You present a functionally impossable situation. If you are not pushing to accellerate, then you are not adding energy you could add... If you cannot push to accellerate, then you are decellerating your own punch. To ignore the theoretic physics and look solely at rpactical expereince.. hitting through a target inflicts more damage than not hitting through a target.

[GrrrArg]

hitting through a target inflicts more damage than not hitting through a target.

 

Finally something about Physics I can agree with...or understand

[gheinisch]

Perhaps a bit simplistic for some of the engineers on here but the analogy I like to use is a hammer and nail. You can hit a board with a hammer and do damage in the form of a dent and then take a nail and place it on the board and hit it with the same force with the hammer and penetrate the board and cause a deep more pin point area of damage. With brings up another point of not only punching through your target but also the importance of hitting it with the correct part of the fist and not the whole fist. A spear hand to the chest hurts like heck, and the area that is making contact with the chest is very small.

 

IMHO

[JerryLove]

OTOH, if you want to break the board, you'd do better with the hammer alone than with the nail. The nail will menitrate, but the hammer will break the wood.

 

Alternately, you could argue about how much more pointed the force is on your hand in a spear-hand than if you spread it over a greater area.

 

So there is the issue of what you are trying to accomplish. If you are trying to put your hand throgh their torso, and you are going to use the same force regardless of what you hit with (spear hand or open palm for example), then the hammer/nail analogy applies directly.

 

OTOH, if you are hitting their head, and you want to get their brain to rattle... you are more interested in getting their head to accellerate quickly. In this case, the open palm (for example) offers an easier strike which is safer on your hand and from which you can deliver more force... While less likely to put your hand through their skill (which won't happen either way), it's a better strike to get a knock-out from a head-hit.