That is one of the finest things I've ever read.

Generally what would happen, Zeel, is that after the initial Surprise Test, the target is no longer surprised that bullets are bouncing off the walls all around him, so it would enter into initiative, when the target, if he has any brains at all, would dive for cover or some similar means of protection.

What bullets? The sniper didn't get an action because he failed the surprise test, so no bullets were fired.

I don't get it. Oswald fired three times. 3 times != 1 time!

JaronK

I think I know what you mean by this, but can I have a page reference anyway?
That way, next time we challenge you on it you can bust out the rule and say, "Screw you guys!"

Slightly more on-topic, I don't think vehicle sensors would help against a sniper rifle. Unless it happened to be a shotgun mic pointed at the sniper's location... in which case you probably should be doing more than just sitting there, listening for the shot. Not sure if K-10 was implying that they do pick it up, but I figure I'll throw this out there anyway.

A shotgun microphone, as it's described in SR3, wouldn't help here. If the sniper is at a very long range or has a very effectively suppressed weapon, and there is a lot of background noise in the area, then you might need some sort of audio sensors to pick up the sound of the gunshot, but a shotgun mic would be pretty bad for that. The audio sensors in a basic vehicle Sensor package would (/should) be better.

IRL, there's a whole bunch of sensors which can tell you where a shot came from. Directional mics picking up the sound of the gunshot are one, and work especially well at rather short ranges or in more open areas. Specialized sensors picking up the sound of the passing bullet, tracking its trajectory and calculating its point of origin are extremely useful -- against a large caliber rifle, the vehicle could be 100+ meters away from the actual bullet trajectory for this. The sound of a flying .50BMG is pretty obvious hundreds of meters away when there isn't much background noise.

Then you've got (millimeter-wave) radars checking the airspace for small, fast-moving objects, and tracking their trajectory. Someone once linked a site about a VIP protection podium/lectern, which used a mm-wave radar to spot incoming bullets. It had small explosive charges of some kind that fired up armored plates around the speaker if an incoming bullet was spotted.

Military-grade vehicles with high-rating Sensors should logically have a whole bunch of sensors capable of instantly recognizing shots, where they're coming from, etc, as long as there's not a whole lot else happening around them at the time. If 10 guys open up with automatic weapons at the same time, it'd be impossible for the operator of the vehicle to keep track of all of it, even if the vehicle could -- but they probably would not care about the exact positions of all the shooters at that point, as much as they'd care about getting the hell out of there.

Much of it depends on the message that you want to send. Not everyone is killed for the same reason and security is different for every target.

A mob boss shot from 1km away by a sniper is an assassination, it tells the mob that they can have all the bodyguards they want but a skilled sniper only needs line-of-sight for a few seconds.

A room full of Knights Errant with their arms pulled off and their heads lined up neatly in front of the corpse of the target is still an assassination, the message this time is to be afraid.

Ah... That assumes that Oswald killed Kenedy. Look at the other Kenedy assassination; shot in the back at point-blank range by a man standing in front of him and at a distance...

Much of assassination-type short range sniping may well be done using subsonic ammunition. I wouldn't say most, simply because effective, accurate and subsonic ammunition is not exactly common, and going subsonic usually nets you at least one of the following: very short range, horrible penetration or substandard terminal effect.

A subsonic round would be very difficult for your average human to hear, indeed. A suppressed, subsonic gunshot may well not be. The H&K SL9SD manages 100dB which is about as "silent" as serious firearms get. The VSS Vintorez seems to be about as loud. You can probably get a good bit lower with a .22, but that has its own problems...

For comparison, a pneumatic drill/jackhammer produces 100dB, as does a jet takeoff at 500 meters. If there's not a lot of other noise around, you're going to hear that a whole lot further than 20 meters.

However, hearing the shot won't do you a whole lot of good, because all of those bullets are only barely subsonic. At 20 degrees C, 320m/s muzzle velocity, at 100 meters you've got about the same 0.04 seconds between hearing the gunshot and the bullet hitting you, even after taking deceleration of the bullet into account.

Personally, I'd rather cause 165dB at 400 meters than 100dB at 50.

That's really quiet. So-quiet-I-doubt-it's-true quiet. An automatic action is probably going to make more than 100dB at about a meter just cycling.

Yeah, I started doubting it myself. Since a suppressed, subsonic .22 is lucky to get below 115dB, excluding the action, I'm now considering the 100dB mentioned on the HKPro.Com site as BS until proven true.

I'm really quite ashamed I believed what a few hype-y Russian sites claimed about the Vintorez. 130-135dB would make a lot more sense.

Ehh, no. Your average assault rifle will produce somewhere around 150-155dB. A 7.62x51 rifle produces about 155dB. A GPMG on full auto could easily produce 160dB.

This page on Raygun's site has all the important information about the noise created by conventional small arms and how they are suppressed, and here are the rules to go with it. That deals with the differences of subsonic vs supersonic, different types of suppression, etc etc.

140 dB is the European Risk Limit and the Occupational Safety & Health Administration's limit for the threshold of pain for sustained sound pressure. 141 dB for impulse sound pressure. Exposure to that level of noise or louder can cause hearing damage immediately.

There is also a difference in frequency response to the human ear. A silenced firearm tends to make sounds in the upper frequencies of our hearing range, sometimes beyond our ability to perceive sound. While the amount of pressure doesn't change, the frequency does. This kind of thing makes a gun seem much quiter than it actually is.

Machine guns are generally much louder that 130 dB. An M16A1 gets 165 dB. An AKM get 167 dB. A 7.62x51mm rifle get 168 dB a meter from the muzzle (and that's what most GPMGs are going to get). A .50 BMG rifle runs 170-172 dB. All according to Alan Paulson's Silencer: History and Performance books.

Death will likely occur from the mechanical damage of the pressure wave at 220 dB.

Looks like I was wrong about the De Lisle. Alan Paulson tested one of the Valkyrie Arms reproductions in the spring 2004 issue of Special Weapons for Military & Police. According to him, the Valkyrie Arms repro was made using the original Sterling blueprints.

That would probably be because sound reduction had a bit more to do with the suppressor than the ammunition itself. This site describes the ammunition, not the suppressors it's fired through.

In Silencer: History and Performance, Volume 2, Alan Paulson (again) tested the .300 Whisper on one of SSK's Thompson/Center carbines, using SSK's full-auto capable, large volume .30-caliber suppressor. It produced an SPL of 122 dB one meter from the muzzle for -37 dB of net sound reduction.

I contributed some information to Quarterbore's website. You'll see a credit for my work on his SSK Whispers page.

I'm thinking more about finding the sniper following the shot. Alerted by the sensors, a Secret Service rigger in the "second limo" pinpoints the shot and send drone units in seconds later. Those are followed by agents and more vehicles, should the shot actually be aimed at the president. Or whomever, just a train of thought going.

That's actually pretty good for the size of round, if I understand these things correctly? Heh, and who said computer games were pointless... I learned about the Whisper round from playing the NATO 3 mod for Rogue Spear some gun nicknamed the widowmaker, which I think was their house mod to a custom Knight Arms gun.