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.25 ACP is known both as the round that's killed many, many people and as a round which is woefully insufficient for stopping an assault.
.25 ACP does a whopping 1d pi- out to 90/950. Acc 0.
Not a sniper round.
1d pi- will do 0-3 points of damage to the torso with ball ammo.
Hollow points get upgraded to 1d(0.5) pi and 0-5 damage to the torso.
Let's start at 7 yards with our knife wielding assailant.
Range is -3. Skill 15.
We assume we have the pistol ready at 7 yards and make a sighted shot.
15 + 1 - 3 = 13. With a Rcl of 2, on average we should hit twice to the torso.
On average with HP we deliver 4 total points of damage.
Our assailant isn't much phased and he continues his assault and advances 5 yards.
Now that range is -0 we change our targeting to vitals.
Same chance to hit, same 2 rounds hit on average.
HP will deliver 15 damage on average.
Combined with the 4 we did earlier, that's 19. Consciousness roll, but no death rolls. On average they make it.
Their move is reduced to 1 at this point, but we only have ONE round remaining in our vest pocket.
Vitals again! 7 for HP (26 total) and they will likely make the death roll.
Averages suck.
They're going to fall over dead, eventually, but probably not in time to keep you from being stabbed.
General V. Blokhin sez; "Da two five Aye Cee Pee is fine cartridge, very deadly, 100% effective, and I would know." Although Vasily always favored Walther pistols, a fact Walthers marketing dept. rarely points out.
ReplyDelete.25 ACP ball at contact range to the skull will do 4-16 points of damage once everything is accounted for. Since it's a head shot, unconsciousness is common with the major wound levels and since Comrade Blokhin didn't render any first aid, the subject was doomed even though 16 isn't enough to cause a death roll.
DeleteThe caliber is based on the concept that shooting someone, sure, may not kill them, but will hurt them and discourage them from continuing on.
ReplyDeleteAnd it's such a measly amount of recoil that it's not unreasonable to assume the firer is going full-finger-automatic. I mean, if I can do it with a .40 easily, and really easily with a 9mm Europellet, then even a relatively lousy unergonomic .25ACP should be able to be fingerstroked pretty darned fast.
Come to think of it, that's the basis behind the thoughts of using .22something as a self-defense weapon. Individually each round may not be instant-murderdeathkill, but wading through a hornet's nest of mini-pewpew does have the potential to slow or stop a semi-rational attacker from attacking.
Of course, that requires the attacker to be semi-rational.
Way back when it was developed, any gunshot would could be a virtual death sentence from infection.
DeleteThis is also when .32 caliber was common for defensive guns.
The threat of being shot was often enough to dissuade most assailants because dying from the infection meant a lot of time in agony. Modern trauma medicine makes it a fairly light wound.
Between modern medicine and modern street drugs, you're right. The threat of pain and long-lingering death has been dispelled by the magic wand of antibiotics and trauma surgery.
DeleteDangit.
Stupid should be painful and fatal, not a mere inconvenience.
Interesting math... i think i would prefer to BEGIN with a bigger number, starting perhaps with .357 and going up from there??? May the odds be ever in your favor!
ReplyDeleteGURPS math! I make a lot of what-if using the game stats from GURPS.
DeleteIt does an amazing job at passing reality tests for a simple role playing game.