What would the big differences be between a 14.5x114m SABOT round and a .58 Cal Minie ball when it comes to soft targets?
I know the .58 wouldn't penetrate armor near as well (if at all), but I'm not sure if it'd do more or less damage v. soft tissue.

Context; considering the viability of an ACW mod for Halo MCC, and want to get an idea of what rifled musket damage would/should be. Sniper ammo seems the nearest and most suitable match.

It’s a question of “what effect does bullet shape and sectional density have on terminal effect?”

I am also interested in the answer. We’re assuming energy is equal?

>>63916436
Hang on, I need to add that this thought experiment is pointless if we’re considering the 14.5mm caliber with its >22,000ft*lbs of energy. The answer is: “you die no matter what”.

Better to consider something like a .224. 5.56 vs a light, blunt-nose 22lr bullet with equal energy

>>63916091 (OP)
the big differences would be that the SABOT is designed for punching through armor and would likely over-penetrate 'cleanly' unless it hit bone or something, the cavitation would probably be insane with that amount of energy even if it did pass through 'clean'
the minie ball would flatten into a disc and stay in the body, it would leave a gigantic permanent cavity and dump all of its energy into whatever it hit, it's actually meant to kill people and not punch through lightly armored vehicles

>>63916091 (OP)
bullet hardness & muzzle energy
the .58 is just a slug of pure lead going around 1,000-2,000 fps (probably more like 700 fps though, honestly)
i didn't see anything from gaylo's 14.5 about it's velocity, but considering modern tech, that thing is probably going to be around 4,000-5,000 fps

make of that what you will

>>63916091 (OP)
14.5x114mm in any form is powerful enough to instantly incapacitate and kill a human if hit anywhere near centre mass, even getting shot in the arm would probably result in you dieing unless you were rushed to the ER. Even 5.56 will kill pretty good. A 14.5 from a long barrel has at least the same velocity as 55gr 5.56 from a 20" barrel, but the bullet weight is 18x greater. Sabot means more velocity but lower caliber and bullet weight. A saboted 14.5 wouldnt really work with current tech. They are just too inaccurate to be practical and saboted small arms projectiles as a whole never took off due to a myriad of problems.
From the sorts of black powder guns that fire a minie ball, the lethal capability is still no slouch. Its still a hefty projectile traveling at a decent speed. Check out capandball on youtube for info on minie projectiles

>>63916436
>We’re assuming energy is equal?
Nah that's the thing; I'm not too sure on the average quality of ACW era powder charges and how they'd compare to 14.5x114mm.

>>63916481
>The answer is: “you die no matter what”.
Yeah but in this context we're talking about 7ft tall squid lipped aliens.

>>63916503
Yeah that's what I figured. I know you'd have to remove the sniper's penetrative abilities when making a rifled musket, but I'm not sure how damage would work given velocity vs. projectile size + dumping it all into one target.
I know I'd probably change it so that it actually does damage to flood; in regular gameplay sniper rounds go in the front and out the back without doing anything to them. I presume it's Bungie's way of showing the "clean" penetration, but obviously not very accurate, and even if it were, as you said the minie ball would create a permanent cavity and dump all energy.

>>63916091 (OP)
Hard cast lead bullet has a much lower limit on how fast they can spin even after the limit on how fast they can slide compares to copper jacket. You can be out of luck that the spin rate required by the bullet at that speed is above what the bullet can hold itself.
Beyond velocity like 1200 m/s both armor penetration and meat cavity increases drastically.
You should be able to calculate how much faster to shoot a stubby bullet based on the energy developed in full caliber 14.5.
I'd say it does more damage but it drops off faster. Not sure if halo implement range damage fall off.

>>63916503
>the minie ball would flatten into a disc
Nope. Minie balls only have a MV around 800-900fps, you can't push them faster or the skirt will shred and accuracy goes to shit. In flesh they perform almost, but not quite, like a bigger 45 ACP. If they hit a major bone they'll blow it to pieces, but then so will a 45 ACP.

>>63916091 (OP)
>14.5x114m SABOT
Provided you can produce a gun that large and provided it doesn't explode on ignition and provided the projectile doesn't instantly disintegrate, I would argue that getting hit by a 14.5m bullet will kill every soft target it hits.

>>63917047
It would be no fucking contest, the Sabot round would totally smoke the Minie ball. It has so much more energy than the Minie it's not even funny.

>of what rifled musket damage would/should be.
Same as a 12ga shotgun firing slugs. The velocity, caliber, and mass are comparable.
>Minie balls only have a MV around 800-900fps,
And that's enough to flatten into a disc. Have you never shot a musket before anon?

>>63917039
>Hard cast lead
They're soft lead anon. Dead fucking soft. Zero alloying elements and they're not quenched.

>>63917081
>And that's enough to flatten into a disc.
Nope.
>Have you never shot a musket before anon?
I have owned a Parker Hale .577 rifled musket since the mid 80's, and have successfully hunted whitetail deer and wild hog with it. The minie bullets do not flatten into a disc. They deform a bit especially if they hit a big bone, but no disc.

>>63917081
>Same as a 12ga shotgun firing slugs.
You're forgetting the context; the only shotgun in these games is an 8 gauge that fires 15 pellets of 00B.

Let me make it simpler; the only named calibers we have to pick from for comparison before Frankie/343 took over and started doing stupid shit like making the DMR the same caliber as the AR, are these,
>8 gauge magnum (00B)
>7.62x51mm AP
>9.5x40mm
>12.7x99mm AP
>14.5x114mm SABOT
>12.7x40mm HE semi-AP (space .50 AE)
>5x23mm caseless
With these as damage reference, how would the .58 cal minie ball damage be calculated?

Also, yes, I'm fully aware that if the damage is anywhere around the 7.62 and 9.5, that it would be bullshit impossible to deal with squid lips by firing once every 20 seconds, when it takes 30 round mags to down them. That's kinda the point and charm; humanity would get it's shit stomped in if the Covenant stumbled onto earth in 1861 instead of 2552. I want a bullshit challenge.

>>63917081
>>63917176

>>63917176
>you're forgetting the context
I don't know anything about the video game, I'm trying to explain it to *you* so you can make informed decisions on your own.

In terms of terminal effectiveness it would be closest to the 7.62, albeit with a much shorter effective range, though I don't know if these games scale damage with range or not. Is your goal realism or game balance? Because if the idea is to balance things you probably need to make the damage unrealistically high.

>>63917010
>Yeah but in this context we're talking about 7ft tall squid lipped aliens.
I don't think you understand how much energy there is in a 14.5x114 cartridge. Unless your alien's skin is made of multiple inches of hardened steel, that 14.5 is going right through it.

>>63917047
But it's pushed by sabot by 14.5 worth of powder. Sealing is not an issue, that also means the concave dome shape is not necessary.
>>63917081
Can't we use a round steel ball instead?

>>63917260
>Can't we use a round steel ball instead?
Sure.
That would be worse though. Steel is less dense than lead, and a sphere has a much worse ballistic coefficient than a minie ball. If you want to make the projectile harder without deforming that can be done by alloying the lead or using tungsten.

>>63917191
>Is your goal realism or game balance?
I'd say lore-accuracy more than realism, since the in-lore ballistics aren't really "realistic" themselves.
I would want it to be unbalanced since it'd just be a way to experience how fucked humanity would be in-lore if the Covenant found earth in the 1860s.

>>63916091 (OP)
The musket will have recoil closer to the sniper rifle and damage closer to the battle rifle, but little to no damage against hard armor.

>>63917398
Rifled muskets don't actually have that much recoil. While the minie bullet is fairly heavy, it's got a low muzzle velocity, and the rifles tend to be fairly heavy. Recoil from a rifle musket is significantly less than a 30-30.

>>63917047
you're right, they deform but they don't flatten like a musket ball
thx anon

>>63916091 (OP)
That fictional picture is of a nonexistent long bodied sabot round that can "canonically" pass straight through over twelve feet of meat and bone, or several inches of armor, and we have no idea how fast it's moving or what it's made of.

>>63917047
I have never heard of minie balls being unable to be fired at faster than 900fps.
Musket velocities reached well over Mach 1 with other ammunition anyway.

>>63917176
Humanity got shit stomped as it is. The elites barely took any infantry casualties in the war, it was like Afghanistan for them. The AR was fucking useless against them, as half the infantry arsenal.

>>63920926
>Musket velocities reached well over Mach 1
Round balls, sure. But those aren't minies.
Minie's *can* be fired faster than ~800-900 fps, but accuracy goes to shit. The causes are the very slow rifling twist which reduces fouling but makes the bullets only marginally stabilized, as well as the very thin skirts which are necessary for achieving a gas seal. At larger charges the skirts would press too tightly into the bore, causing excessive leading which reduced accuracy of following shots, and when they left the bore the greater muzzle blast would deform or even rip the skirts causing the bullet to tumble and fly off course (due to the marginal stabilization). Minie rifle muskets were a carefully balanced set of compromises. You can buy minie bullets (or the moulds to make them) with thicker skirts that will allow for larger charges, but like their thinner-skirted cousins they will only shoot accurately within the narrow powder charge that will sufficiently expand their skirt for a gas seal while not also ruining it as it leave the muzzle. But for historical minies the powder charges were quite modest (~50-65gr of FFg), the minie skirts quite thing, and the velocities surprisingly low.

>>63917010
The Civil War rifle has like 1000-1100 foot pounds of muzzle energy because it’s blackpowder and therefore the heaviest hitting round you can get is generally a subsonic huge chunk of lead.
The 14.5x114mm has a muzzle energy of over 22,000 foot pounds
There is no comparison. The civil war rifle will lay someone out (200ftlbs more energy than 44 magnum, 400ftlbs less than 50AE), but the 14.5mm will turn their torso into mist.

>>63921492
This is actually a great example for why energy is a terrible way to estimate terminal effects on target, thank you.

>>63917316
>I would want it to be unbalanced since it'd just be a way to experience how fucked humanity would be in-lore if the Covenant found earth in the 1860s.
Okay well depending on the game covenant infantry routinely wear armor over an inch thick which would stop approximately infinity musketballs and an elite could probably walk off a direct hit from a small cannon.

>>63921492
The musket will poke a half-inch-plus hole in a guy, the HMG will poke a half-inch-plus hole in a guy plus 10 or 15 guys behind him.

>>63924855
Musket projectiles tend to flatten and scythe off in weird directions when they hit a body, they do quite a lot of soft tissue damage.

>>63924918
See >>63917091

>>63924918
minie ball doesn't flatten, it can deform but won't form a pretty disc like a musket ball, nor bloom like a modern hollow point, it'll flatten the nose a bit and tumble.
you might get fragmentation or shearing when it strikes bones, i can only find this anecdote from civilwarmed
“struck a soldier…the top of the cone flattened out, resulting in massive damage to tissue and splintering of bone”
and
"Ricocheting or flattened bullets could create even larger lacerations and could carry foreign material into the wound" which would seem to indicate prior 'roughing' from a hard surface producing better cavitation

>>63924918
minie ball doesn't flatten, it can deform but won't form a pretty disc like a musket ball, nor bloom like a modern hollow point, it'll flatten the nose a bit and tumble.
you might get fragmentation or shearing when it strikes bones, i can only find this anecdote from civilwarmed
“struck a soldier…the top of the cone flattened out, resulting in massive damage to tissue and splintering of bone”
and
"Ricocheting or flattened bullets could create even larger lacerations and could carry foreign material into the wound" which would seem to indicate prior 'roughing' from a hard surface producing better cavitation
for reference, here's some minie balls a guy collected off of a modern firing range, you can probably assume the ones with blunted noses hit the dirt, the ones that are totally shattered or flattened hit steel, but even those don't fully flatten

>>63921492
The 14.5 is a sub-caliber sabot with what looks like a 40 cal projectile. It must be moving at like 4500+ fps. wtf does >4500fps cavitation with a super high SD even look like?