Given that the OP asked for a weapon capable of “hurting”, not “killing”, this sounds like about what we’re looking for.
But could you educate the non-weapon-savvy among us on the distinction between an “anti-tank rifle” and an “anti-tank round”? I’m guessing that the former is a gun, properly so called, with all of the acceleration occurring in the barrel, while the latter is a rocket-propelled weapon, and likely with an explosive head. But if an anti-tank rifle is that much weaker than an anti-tank round, how is it used? Do you just have to aim at weak spots in the armor, or is it designed for lesser armed vehicles?
@Wesley_Clark mentioned an “anti-tank rifle” and a “tank round”, not an “anti-tank round”.
A “tank round” is just the projectile fired from the main gun of a tank.
An anti-tank rifle is what it sounds like. It’s a really big rifle that fires really big rounds - really big for a rifle, that is - much smaller and much less energetic than what a tank’s main gun fires.
Anti-tank rifles also aren’t really a thing anymore, and haven’t been since WWII. Tank armor has become just too heavy for anything fired from a rifle to really penetrate. Modern militaries do use “anti-materiel” rifles, which are useful against unarmored or lightly armored vehicles, like up-armored Humvees and some Armored Personnel Carriers. An anti-materiel rifle could also be potentially useful against some specific weak points on a modern tank, like external sensors, but not against the tank armor.
Well, they’re 1,000 times as durable as a regular human, so you need 1,000 times the quantity of poison, or a poison that’s 1,000 times as toxic, and some way to administer it.
There are quite a few poisons that are lethal in unbelievably small amounts, Ricin has no safe lower limit and various compounds of radioactive substances are even worse - it may well be that you would not even need 1000 times that dose.
Yeah, this is what I’m thinking. No reason to use 1000 times the energy. Somebody shot in the head with a .45 ACP sustains far and above the damage needed to end their life. A lot of over-use there. A well placed hollow-point to the cranium with an off-the-shelf .44 Magnum is sure as hell gonna hurt Mr. Thousand-times. But now you’ve just made him mad.
Sure, and I’m not arguing with you, but the fun of these kinds of threads (for me anyway) is trying to nail this stuff down.
So, ok, a relatively small amount of ricin could be deadly to our Mr. 1000X. Now how do you administer it? A sharpened umbrella tip probably isn’t going to do it. Looking at the energy comparisons upthread, a .50 BMG round might be enough to penetrate the skin; assuming their clothing isn’t also 1,000 times as durable as ordinary clothing, it wouldn’t even need to be bare skin. If that’s not enough, you could go with a 20mm anti-material rifle, which should be energetic enough. I’m not familiar enough with the fine points of this, but I think there are incendiary and explosive rounds in those calibers, so maybe using one of those and replacing the incendiaries or explosives with ricin would work.
Now, how long does ricin take to disable the target?
If we’re going to go the poison route, I’d pick VX nerve agent. Can be aerosolized and sprayed up his nose, or splash him with a small amount and let it seep through his skin. It’s also more potent than ricin, with an LD50 (median lethal dose) over 3 times lower than ricin, assuming both are administered intravenously.
Oh! Atomic Annie !
and even without the nuclear charge, a 28 cm shell could pierce 46cm of Battleship steel at 8 km…
One thing is also the conservation of momentum: even if M.Impenetrable stop the projectile, the energy will be transferred and he weight less than 200 pounds…that will be a big take off.
We have units for measuring material properties, so I think a good start on the definition of ‘durability’, especially in the context of this question would probably be some combination of things like:
Supposedly it takes about 1-2 newtons of force for a needle to puncture skin. So 2000 Newtons should do it. But would a needle be able to hold up to that kind of pressure? I don’t know.
A bigger needle would require more force to puncture the skin.
Either way, a 50 caliber gun armed with tranquillizer darts that have 10 grams of VX gas should kill it. You probably don’t even need a 50 caliber gun. A regular hunting rifle would probably do it.
Looking online, a boxer can punch at 2000-5000 newtons, so a strong human may be able to stab the creature with a needle filled with VX gas, but it would take all their strength.
I always wondered what it would take to successfully neutralize somebody who’s basically invulnerable but is still a “human”, like Wolverine or Jason Vorhees. Encase them in concrete and throw them into the sea?
