5 weapon myths from the movies

[Riik O'Shae]

PS The reason why one sees a person leaping or 'flying away' from being shot is best explained this way:

It is your body's way of reacting to an invasion from a foreign object ~ much the same way as when someone else sticks you in the tookus with a stickpin.

Riik

 

[Dragoner]

Maybe he just needed another swing at it?

 

[Enoki]

PS The reason why one sees a person leaping or 'flying away' from being shot is best explained this way:

It is your body's way of reacting to an invasion from a foreign object ~ much the same way as when someone else sticks you in the tookus with a stickpin.

Riik

This also seems to happen with explosions....

 

[sabredog]

I often fly through plate glass when jabbed with a pin. And through doors. When I was shot with simunition I flew at least 5 feet through the air in slow motion.

 

[mike wightman]

PS The reason why one sees a person leaping or 'flying away' from being shot is best explained this way:

It is your body's way of reacting to an invasion from a foreign object ~ much the same way as when someone else sticks you in the tookus with a stickpin.

Riik

It only happens in the movies.

 

[nDervish]

As for a million folds, it's really a million layers. And I believe that's less than 50 folds, which is difficult enough when we're talking hot metal here.

20 folds would be slightly over a million layers, assuming you're folding in half (thus doubling the number of layers) each time. 2^20 = 1,048,576.

A million folds would nominally be somewhere on the order of 10^300,000 layers, but, based on some quick googling, it looks like a katana would weigh in at about a kilogram, which would give us somewhere around 2.5 * 10^22 atoms in the blade, so each "layer" would contain such a tiny fraction of an atom that we'd be well beyond even homeopathic swordcrafting.

 

[abomination]

And the folding stuff is what gives a blade strength. They're just rediscovering this now.

Nope, all you do when folding a blade is evening out the impurities. Iron / Steel has a crystaline structure. It's not plywood

As for a million folds, it's really a million layers. And I believe that's less than 50 folds, which is difficult enough when we're talking hot metal here.

I was joking 10 folds / 1000 layers is more typical

 

[abomination]

edit: The katana is two pieces laminated, a work hardened edge (eg all the folding) on a high strength spine.

Other way round, the pattern welded bit is the "soft" back. with a very hard (up to 70 rockwell) tempered edge welded to it. IIRC they used clay to prevent the core becoming brittle during the tempering process.

 

[abomination]

20 folds would be slightly over a million layers, assuming you're folding in half (thus doubling the number of layers) each time. 2^20 = 1,048,576.

A million folds would nominally be somewhere on the order of 10^300,000 layers, but, based on some quick googling, it looks like a katana would weigh in at about a kilogram, which would give us somewhere around 2.5 * 10^22 atoms in the blade, so each "layer" would contain such a tiny fraction of an atom that we'd be well beyond even homeopathic swordcrafting.

It would also be very small & made of pure iron as forging removes both mass & impurities, including carbon.

 

[Garyius2003]

Nope, all you do when folding a blade is evening out the impurities. Iron / Steel has a crystaline structure. It's not plywood


I was joking 10 folds / 1000 layers is more typical

Not to jump too far off course, because I am sure the 3I does bonded vibro cutlasses, but steel has grains. By folding/forging the higher carbon cutting portion they are evening out the carbon among the grains. I am sure someone can explain better than I, but the heating and cooling process has as much to do with the distribution as the mechanical folding.

I watched a documentary on making the steel the traditional way, and they make a layered construction out of clay and make the steel over the course of a week. The process makes the lower carbon blade core and higher carbon cutting/outside skin in the same run. At the end of the run they destroy the vessel and have taken up the efforts of 5-10 craftsmen for the entire week.

 

[BillDowns]

My son also pointed another movie trope left out of that article - all cars that crash explode.

Like they were all Pintos or something

 

[abomination]

Indeed, that is a pretty accurate description. One of the notable things about bloom iron is that the iron does not achieve a molten state in the smelting process - we couldn't reach those temperatures until the industrial revolution. This makes it very easy for metallurgists to tell under the microscope real medieval weapons from those made with modern steels.

A couple of wiki links*:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martensite
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloomery

Of course 3I steels are forged with huge artificial gravity fields which means swords can totally cut through a starship.


* Yeah I know, it's not good enough for an academic paper but it'll do for a forum discussion.

For further reading I suggest "The knight & the blast furnace" by Alan Williams. Who I've been lucky enough to meet a couple of times at the Wallace collection & even had a pint with him afterwards

 

[DangerousThing]

Not to jump too far off course, because I am sure the 3I does bonded vibro cutlasses, but steel has grains. By folding/forging the higher carbon cutting portion they are evening out the carbon among the grains. I am sure someone can explain better than I, but the heating and cooling process has as much to do with the distribution as the mechanical folding.

I watched a documentary on making the steel the traditional way, and they make a layered construction out of clay and make the steel over the course of a week. The process makes the lower carbon blade core and higher carbon cutting/outside skin in the same run. At the end of the run they destroy the vessel and have taken up the efforts of 5-10 craftsmen for the entire week.

It's fascinating to watch, even on video. I've never gotten a chance to watch a samurai sword being made in person.

I'm sorry for getting the number of folds wrong, I was just putting an upper bound there. I was too lazy to write a quick program to figure out the powers of two.

I have seen somebody make a damascine (sp?) blade. That has to do with folding and layers also, but they use two types of metals and it is done as much for appearance as for usefulness.

They don't use "folding" as much as pounding the layer flat, cutting it in half with a chisel, and then "forge-welding" which looked to me to just putting the two pieces of hot layers on top of each other.

The positions of the cuts and which way the layers control the final appearance, and there are a large number of patterns, some only known to a single smith (or so I was told, I suppose that any pattern could be figured out if somebody wanted to badly enough).

I have no idea if this makes the blade stronger or better, but it makes it very beautiful.

Unfortunately at the time I didn't have the money to buy one of the blades, and I keep promising myself each year that I will buy one at the big arts fest we have each year, but I can never justify the money (we're talking around $1,000 for a basic folding pocket knife here). I can buy my weight in Leathermans for that! And yes, I missed the 2009 Leatherman Wave edition, but I doubt I would have had the cash for that either.

 

[leo knight]

Back in the 70s on the Universal Studios tour, I saw one of the devices stunt men use to yank people off their feet. It looked like a big piston, attached by wires to a wide leather belt worn by the target. They didn't actually demonstrate it, though.

Some years ago, I did come across a shooting a few seconds after shots were fired. I heard a sort of "pap, pap" like a loud slap. I came around a corner to see the victim lying on the sidewalk, screaming, "He shot me! He f***ing shot me!" He seemed more angry than hurt. The shooter was still standing over him, and not far away, so the victim wasn't 'blown back'. The pistol looked almost comically small. Fortunately, people came rushing out of surrounding buildings, and the police arrived in less than a minute to arrest the shooter.

I suppose that's one reason why Hollywood exaggerates. The reality seemed so banal, so casual. Just point, "pap!', someone falls down, not dead, but hurt and screaming. I guess realism wouldn't sell many tickets.

 

[abomination]

It's fascinating to watch, even on video. I've never gotten a chance to watch a samurai sword being made in person.

I'm sorry for getting the number of folds wrong, I was just putting an upper bound there. I was too lazy to write a quick program to figure out the powers of two.

I have seen somebody make a damascine (sp?) blade. That has to do with folding and layers also, but they use two types of metals and it is done as much for appearance as for usefulness.

They don't use "folding" as much as pounding the layer flat, cutting it in half with a chisel, and then "forge-welding" which looked to me to just putting the two pieces of hot layers on top of each other.

The positions of the cuts and which way the layers control the final appearance, and there are a large number of patterns, some only known to a single smith (or so I was told, I suppose that any pattern could be figured out if somebody wanted to badly enough).

I have no idea if this makes the blade stronger or better, but it makes it very beautiful.

Unfortunately at the time I didn't have the money to buy one of the blades, and I keep promising myself each year that I will buy one at the big arts fest we have each year, but I can never justify the money (we're talking around $1,000 for a basic folding pocket knife here). I can buy my weight in Leathermans for that! And yes, I missed the 2009 Leatherman Wave edition, but I doubt I would have had the cash for that either.

I'd love to add a pattern welded sword to my collection, but as you say, they're really expensive. I especially like Patric Barta swords. But they're the price of a half decent car.

How about making your own? I know there are smiths who run courses on forge welding in the UK. I'd be surprised if there wasn't in the US (if that is where you are)

Oh by the way, it's a common misconception but damascus blades were made by a different process to forge or pattern welding. The weren't actually made in Damascus either, they made in India & imported into Europe via the middle east. So as far as anyone was concerned they came from Damascus.

 

[BytePro]

My son also pointed another movie trope left out of that article - all cars that crash explode.

Like they were all Pintos or something

Yeah - and all space ships must explode in a fiery, audibly booming conflagration after being hit by the brilliantly bright, and loud, laser beams from the streaking away fighters!

Of course, this should be no problem for the crew, who can just don space suits and outrun the explosion out an open cargo hold... probably shooting two automatics for thrust so they can catch up with a luckily nearby fighter they can cling to without being noticed... thereby gaining access to the enemy ship which they can take over after hot-wiring the computer to bypass its security... :devil:

 

[DangerousThing]

Oh by the way, it's a common misconception but damascus blades were made by a different process to forge or pattern welding. The weren't actually made in Damascus either, they made in India & imported into Europe via the middle east. So as far as anyone was concerned they came from Damascus.

Yes, I know. But that's why I didn't capitalize Damascus.

I would love to learn how to do this, but I'm my wife's caregiver and forging is both loud and time intensive. I can't just put down a blade in the middle of hammering it and tell it to wait while I go do something more important.

Well, I *could* tell it, but it probably wouldn't listen. The story of my life.

If I were to do something physical again, I'd go build robots again. I have an idea for a walking wheelchair for my wife that would be smoother than wheels and enable her to reach the top shelves and get to more places than she can get to now.

So I'm working on 3d graphics, that I've put down for a while so I could work on a new Traveller 5 game, face to face because half my players just can't get play-by-post, and I want to work on something for the other half, but I don't have the time.

 

[DangerousThing]

Yeah - and all space ships must explode in a fiery, audibly booming conflagration after being hit by the brilliantly bright, and loud, laser beams from the streaking away fighters!

Of course, this should be no problem for the crew, who can just don space suits and outrun the explosion out an open cargo hold... probably shooting two automatics for thrust so they can catch up with a luckily nearby fighter they can cling to without being noticed... thereby gaining access to the enemy ship which they can take over after hot-wiring the computer to bypass its security... :devil:

You must have played Star Fleet Battles. They had a rule where a named captain, if he ship was destroyed, could take over the nearest ship. My puny little tiny ship was casually swatted by an enemy dreadnaught, and my named captain took it over and turned a losing game into a complete rout for the other guy. He would have been able to take over all the other named people on his ship, but there weren't any.

 

[HG_B]

Indeed, that is a pretty accurate description. One of the notable things about bloom iron is that the iron does not achieve a molten state in the smelting process - we couldn't reach those temperatures until the industrial revolution.

http://www.engr.psu.edu/mtah/essays/forge_furnace.htm

Actually, molten iron was poured into molds in the Middle Ages.

 

[SanDragon]

You must have played Star Fleet Battles. They had a rule where a named captain, if he ship was destroyed, could take over the nearest ship. My puny little tiny ship was casually swatted by an enemy dreadnaught, and my named captain took it over and turned a losing game into a complete rout for the other guy. He would have been able to take over all the other named people on his ship, but there weren't any.

That would be the Legendary Officers rule.