Wound ballistics
Wound ballistics is the study of the behavior of projectiles when they penetrate the body of a person or animal. In particular, the behavior of the bullet is described as well as the injuries it causes to tissues and organs. Wound ballistics is an interdisciplinary area with connections to medicine , forensics , physics and military research. Basically, the behavior of the bullet in the body ( action , physical-ballistic aspect) and the effects on the tissue and other body components ( reaction , medical-biological aspect) can be considered. In ballistics, a distinction is made between indoor , outdoor and terminal ballistics (also called target ballistics ). Wound ballistics is a branch of terminal ballistics. Internal ballistics has a great influence on the wound formation mechanism when examining applied and close shots, just as nutation and precession movements play a role in short shots. As the firing distance increases, the length of the straight firing channel increases. The examination of the temporary wound canal plays a particularly important role in wound ballistics. This occurs mainly with long guns , less with short guns . The decisive factor is not the total energy of the projectile, but how much of it is given off in the body being shot at. The energy output is increased or maximized by rollover of the bullet or "mushrooming" (with partial jacketed and hollow point bullets ). The penetration power decreases, the so-called man - stopping effect increases.
Causes of death
There are three possible causes of death for gunshot wounds. First, cardiac arrest due to the destruction of the heart or main blood vessels. After about 15 seconds, loss of consciousness occurs due to insufficient oxygen supply to the brain . Brain death follows after about seven minutes. The immediate collapse of people hit by a heart shot can be explained by a nervous reflex. The second possible cause is the destruction of important brain centers themselves. The destruction of the brain stem in particular leads directly to death, but injuries to and loss of parts of the frontal lobe where no animal functions are performed can be survived , sometimes with personality changes . Third, so-called shock death can occur. It has been observed in rabbits that their death occurs even though a large number of shotgun pellets only penetrate under the skin and into muscle tissue, but not into vital organs and thus do not in themselves cause fatal injuries.
Research areas
In the area of forensics , all circumstances related to the firing of a shot are investigated. In particular, the investigation of gunshot marks and smoke marks can provide important clues about a crime.
Methods
Wound ballistics is researched with the help of ballistic gelatine or glycerine soap, the former being more common. Due to the plastic deformation of the latter, which virtually “freezes” the temporary wound canal, this aspect, which is decisive for wound ballistics, can be analyzed well. By comparison, it has been sufficiently proven that these materials behave in almost the same way as human tissue under fire. Bones can be simulated by embedded plastics . In addition, the different elastoplastic behavior of the two substances plays a less important role in the development of the injuries. More decisive are density , viscosity and flowability , in which the two materials are very similar to one another and also to the muscles . Occasionally there are also animal experiments (mostly anesthetized pigs, whereupon the projectiles are shot). However, there are enough real gunshot wounds (forensic medicine, war surgery ) that animal and corpse experiments can largely be dispensed with.
Injuries from arrows
The wound ballistics for arrow injuries was examined in 2004 by Hubert Sudhues. In this context, it was found that the ballistics of arrows and their wound ballistic potential differ significantly from firearm projectiles.
Injuries from splinters
Injuries caused by splinters are also examined in wound ballistics. There are no fundamental major differences to those of the projectiles. The only noteworthy difference is that splinters are accelerated randomly by a propellant charge (e.g. a hand grenade), whereas projectiles experience targeted kinetic energy from the propellant charge in the gun barrel. Splinters can also be caused by fragmentation of the bullet if the bullet hits a hard surface. The fragment masses relevant for wound ballistics range from a few hundredths of a gram to a few tens of grams, with speeds of up to 2,000 m / s. This results in energies from 1 J to 60 kJ.
Desired Effects
In the area of military applies: The gunshot wounds should be so severe that the person hit is no longer able to continue fighting or to fulfill its mission. This is generally referred to as incapacity to fight . It can be an advantage that the enemy is “only” seriously injured instead of killed, because then other soldiers are tied to their medical care and can no longer take part directly in the fight.
In the area of hunting, the following applies: The resulting gunshot wounds should kill the game on the spot and render it immobile ( gunfire ), on the one hand to spare the animal unnecessary torture and on the other hand to prevent the animal from escaping. Furthermore, a safe committee should be guaranteed in order to quickly find a refugee animal based on its sweat trail. Nevertheless, the projectile should cause as little damage to the tissue as possible so as not to reduce the value of the hide and meat .
See also
literature
- Bernd Brinkmann, Burkhard Madea (Hrsg.): Manual forensic medicine. Volume 1. Springer, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-540-00259-6 .
- Silke MC Brodbeck: Postmortem computed tomography of gunshot wounds compared to autopsy findings. Verlag für Polizeiwissenschaft, Frankfurt am Main 2008, ISBN 978-3-86676-039-4 (also: Frankfurt am Main, Univ., Diss., 2005).
- Vincent J. M. DiMaio: Gunshot Wounds. Practical Aspects of Firearms, Ballistics, and Forensic Techniques. 2nd Edition. CRC, Boca Raton 1999, ISBN 0-8493-8163-0 .
- Beat Kneubuehl (eds.), Robin Coupland, Markus Rothschild , Michael Thali: Wundballistik. Basics and Applications. 3. Edition. Springer, Heidelberg 2008, ISBN 978-3-540-79008-2 .
- Beat Kneubuehl , K. Sellier: Wound ballistics and their ballistic basics. 2nd completely revised and expanded edition. Springer, Berlin / Heidelberg / New York, 2001, ISBN 3-540-66604-4
- C. Giannou, M. Baldan War Surgery (PDF; 7.1 MB) Chapter 3.2, p. 62 ff. International Committee of the Red Cross 2010
Individual evidence
- ↑ Bettina Jakob, The shot on the soap block. ( Memento from November 1, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) In: UniPress. 133, 2007, pp. 21–23 (report on ballistic tests by Beat Kneubuehl, PDF viewed on October 3, 2009; 353 kB).
- ↑ Hubert Suedhues: wound ballistics at arrow injuries. University of Münster, Münster 2004 (accessed November 22, 2009).
