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Zen Armaments AR-1 Assault Rifle

Why would the AP rounds do more damage?
 
That's my interpretation of the DR scale there. An AP round can penetrate body armor better than a ball round, which penetrates better than a hollowtip round. Is that an incorrect interpretation?
 
AP would have more velocity and hardened tips to do more damage. More velocity = better penetration I believe. Which would be more DR damage. -Shrugs- I could be mistaken.
 
Penetration =/= Power
 
The AP round is supposed to be the fastest of the three rounds. Is this something GMs can adjudicate on their own, while the DR remains the same for all three rounds? It's all good to me either way, I just want to know what to edit.
 
Wes said:
Penetration =/= Power

Velocity = Power = More Kinetic Energy.

The degree to which permanent and temporary cavitation occur is dependent on the mass, diameter, material, design and velocity of the bullet.

I don't claim to know a whole lot about bullets but what I do know is if you're wearing bodyarmor, get hit by an AP round, and the jacket fragments and it enters your body it will not only crush the tissue but also rip into surrounding tissues and leave fragments inside of the body (If it does fragment). In which case become lodged in there, and as you move, cause more soft tissue damage as that temporary wound channel opens. If I got my information straight that is. If not w/e. This is directed more at Doshii since he can correct me on it.
 
Actually, an armor-piercing round would be less effective against soft tissue than a full-metal jacket because the core of the round doesn't fragment and tends to pass through. Also, not everything you shoot at will be wearing body armor, and not all body armor will defeat FMJ rifle rounds in the first place.

Oh, and a hollow-point caves in on itself when it hits armor, but will literally blow holes in you if it hits a soft part. They're much deadlier than regular ammunition.

Finally, AP rounds don't move faster. That's impossible. The only way to accomplish that in a conventional weapon like this one would be for the round to have more powder in it, which would require it to be longer, which would make it an entirely new round fired by a different weapon. AP rounds move at the same speed as FMJ rounds, but instead of being made of solid lead or whatever metal, they have a casing of lead surrounding a core made of some very strong metal like high-carbon steel or tungsten with a pointy tip.
 
As far as I know, that's accurate, but my experience shooting AP rounds at steel targets is that the jacket doesn't clear the steel. I, admittedly, assume it would act the same way against a trauma plate or what we would call Level IV body armor (ceramic or steel plates).
 
You mean, that the armor-penetrating core pierces through the steel silhouette target, but the jacket of the round doesn't?
 
Oh yeah. Did that a few times with a police sniper rifle, couple times with my old Mosin. This is shooting steel plates, mind you, not body armor. I'm assuming there. One time the jacket ricocheted all the way back to my arm 50 meters away. Burned like hell.

Normally the jacket gets stripped by the hole the penetrator makes and stays lodged in it — jacket's located at a larger diameter on the bullet than the penetrator, so the hole the penetrator makes is too small for the jacket to enter.
 
Yep, that's basically how it ought to work. Armor Piercing rounds striking someone wearing armor will be effective, but they will not be as effective as a full-metal jacket or jacketed hollow-point against someone who is not wearing armor, and in some cases, a full-metal jacket might be preferable anyway (for example, if your target is wearing armor that an FMJ could still penetrate).

In light of that, I don't think I like the idea of AP rounds dealing extra damage. JHP should deal the most damage with AP dealing the least and FMJ in the middle, but AP would penetrate armor the most effectively and JHP would penetrate it the worst.
 
Yeah, exactly. So I flip the DR values around to reflect that if that'll get approval. Whatever works.
 
It needs to have a bayonet. I don't care how little a bayonet may be used in SARP light infantry combat but it needs one, if only to complete the look.
 
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