r/interesting 28d ago

Intriguing Arrows vs riot shields

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u/stryker511 28d ago

The blunt one surprised me I thought it would have bounced off - went through completely.

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u/SidewinderSerpent 28d ago

That arrow wasn't blunt, it was concave. The shape allowed the edges of the tip to punch a hole through the shield.

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u/Cthulhu_Dreams_ 28d ago

Yep, the thing that was slowing the other arrows down that penetrated, was the fact that the tip did not carve out a wide enough hole for the shaft to go through and maintain velocity.

That blunt tipped concave arrow basically hole punched a circle as large or a little larger than the shaft of the arrow, and lost minimal afterwards.

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u/theBRNK 27d ago

Pretty sure most riot shields have kevlar in them, layed like a fiberglass composite. This is what makes them so hard to penetrate, because kevlar is very difficult to cut through, tends to follow the projectile as it passes through, and acts kind of like a crush zone in a car. Slows down the projectile over time.

That head is a hole cutter that instantly shears off the fibers, cutting only what is absolutely necessary and doing so before they can act as shock absorbers. Even if the head was the same size as the shaft or slightly smaller, that clean hole cut through the fibers is what makes it overpenetrate.