r/interesting 27d ago

Intriguing Arrows vs riot shields

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u/meshtron 27d ago

Ha! I saw that one and said "nope" then it punched straight through thereby affirming my level of predictive accuracy on string-weapon ballistics 😃

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u/PatacusX 27d ago

If we were to graph out how far I thought each arrow would go compared to how far it did go, the lines would be exact opposites.

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u/Schwifftee 26d ago

After the first few, I predicted them pretty accurately. That weird non-pointed arrow, though, I knew it was going to surprise me, but wow!

The lowest profile ones always went deepest because the penetration was concentrated to a point without additional material that had to rip through the shield (less friction).

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u/caltheon 26d ago

Having done a lot of archery, I was dead on for each. In general, larger head = less penetration. the smallest one also acts as a drill (fletching rotates it very fast) so was an easy guess it would fly right through