Sand blaster

Ferret · Dec 28, 2003

Have any of you seen or know about a weapon that shoots sand? What damage does it do? How would you adjudicate that in Dice? I've heard what pressureised water does, and it sounds nasty enough to grant some damage so a sand gun should as well.

Cergorach · Dec 28, 2003

Ferret said:
Have any of you seen or know about a weapon that shoots sand? What damage does it do? How would you adjudicate that in Dice? I've heard what pressureised water does, and it sounds nasty enough to grant some damage so a sand gun should as well.

It kind of depends on how much pressure is used, if you shoot a grain of sand at a high nough velocity, it will go through armor and flesh...

Jeph · Dec 28, 2003

Cergorach said:
It kind of depends on how much pressure is used, if you shoot a grain of sand at a high nough velocity, it will go through armor and flesh...

Will barely cause a wound, though--the puncture area will be the size of a pinhead.

And, uh, I thought sandblasters were for smoothening out ceramics and metal?

Cergorach · Dec 28, 2003

Jeph said:
Will barely cause a wound, though--the puncture area will be the size of a pinhead.

A pinhead between the eyes kills you as much as a bullet, same goes for the torso (organs, etc.).

Ferret · Dec 28, 2003

Yes, smoothing ceramic, but they could be used to hurt someone; I'm pecks of sand, not just individual specks.

Thresher · Dec 29, 2003

Ive used sandblasters for both pottery and car respraying and I cant really say that the gun-type with high pressure water would be a good way of offing anyone, unless they hold really still and you have a few hours to spare.
It will be delightfully painful though.

Yes, grains of sand at high velocity could kill someone. However the types of velocities youre talking about are in many 1000's of metres a second as by itself the grain of sand has very little mass, maybe 0.001gms by itself, which is why you need it to go at km's a second to do any real impact. Sort of like the velocities you get out of space junk in orbit, little paint flecks from previous rockets moving at 15km/s do a great deal of greif much like a conventional bullet.

But, youve got to basically make some kind of mass-driver to accelerate a lot of bits of sand, which could be done, why you wouldnt take the approach of a chemical+bullet or a high energy maser or laser to do much the same thing except the projectiles are different sizes and much easier to manage.