Reply #100: My first experience shooting a large caliber gun

[kristopher]

was a 12 guage when I was 6. I literally did a back flip from the recoil.


There are several factors at play regarding this point and you aren't acknowledging them much less addressing them.

1. Balance. The amount of energy it takes to place an object in motion is NOT the same as the amount of energy it takes to alter the trajectory of an object that is either in motion or balanced.

2. The vest. The manner in which the kinetic energy of the bullet is transfered to the target is affected by whether the target has a vest or not. And whether the vest is a hard or soft vest. The hard vest distributes the energy over a wider footprint than a soft vest. Read up on how the two different configurations function to stop a bullet. In the case of no vest we have yet another manner of force transfer. I'd describe the differences this way:
Hard vest: Car hitting a solid concrete wall
Soft vest: Car hitting a very taught and strong net
No vest: Car hitting a series of barrells filled with water.

3. The description of what your mythbuster's episode was testing for does not seem to incorporate the soft vest impact. However, your reference (Fackler, 1998) does indirectly address it in the section on methods of transfering the kinetic energy from the bullet to the target. Note the discussion is focused on the rapidity with which the energy is transfered. Of our three scenarios, the hard vest transfers the energy most quickly, but it also distributes it over a large footprint. The duration for a no vest scenario is one where there is a release of energy over time as the bullet penetrates. The soft vest (as Watson wore) transfers the energy very nearly as rapidly as the hard vest, but it does a much worse job of distributing the energy over a large footprint.


I think the difficulty of the shot is the principle evidence of a staged event. If Watson had been knocked off balance, I would have been more willing to accept his story of having been shot. At best, you've argued that his failure to show a reaction to impact isn't proof of fraud (I do not yet accept that you've addressed the soft vest etc). It isn't a positive proof of his account of events.

There is also the issue of motive. Do you really think the Japanese would do something so stupid? If they wanted to assassinate him strongly enough to put a person on board who could make that one in a million shot, don't you think they would have been a little more discrete in the construction and execution (no pun intended) of a plan to that end?

I still think Watson staged the whole thing. It is obviously something that isn't out of character for him.