Teflon Cop Killer

Most cops are wearing DR8/2*, some are wearing 12/5*.

When the teflon-coated armor piercing bullet controversy broke, DR8/2* vests were fairly new and just starting to see widespread usage.

So, how well do these cop killers do?

When all this started, in TL7, .38 Special was a common cartridge and often found with criminals who shot at cops.

Ball is 2d pi.  Expanding ammo is 2d(0.5) pi+ with a 4 in 6 chance of expanding.  The steel core (AP), teflon coated rounds are 1d+2(2) pi-.  Tungsten core (APHC), teflon coated rounds are 2d(2) pi-

Performance against a DR 8 torso is...

Ball 0-4 (avg 0) will penetrate resulting in 0-4 points of damage.

Hollow-Point 0 penetration. but a chance for 1 point of crushing from blunt trauma.

AP 0-4 (avg 1) will penetrate resulting in 0-2 points of damage.

APHC 0-8 (avg 3) will penetrate resulting in 0-4 points of damage.

Surprisingly, these numbers from GURPS pass a reality check.  It's just not as great as people think it is.

It's that change to small piercing that messes up armor piercing small arms ammo for killing people.

The modifier isn't applied to equipment, a point of pi++ is the same as pi- to a radio or radiator or what have you.  This is why the military develops and fields AP rounds for rifles and machine guns.

It's also worth noting that a belt of "AP" is going to be groups of three rounds of ball, one round of AP and one round of tracer not all AP.

Real armor piercing ammo is NOT small arms at all.