# What would happen to a human body if a tanks armor piercing shell was fired at it? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 8, 2022, 9:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-happen-to-a-human-body-if-a-tanks-armor-piercing-shell-was-fired-at-it/959095 "2022-02-08T09:40:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![mmmiiikkkeee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/edb3f5/32.png) [@mmmiiikkkeee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mmmiiikkkeee)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2022, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-happen-to-a-human-body-if-a-tanks-armor-piercing-shell-was-fired-at-it/959095/41 "2022-02-10T20:19:22Z")
I saw another video where a 40mm gun was shot at a dummy. There isn’t highspeed footage and you don’t really see what happens well, but you do see the dummy mostly disintegrate: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/dSp7CipN1pw/maxresdefault.jpg "The 40mm Machine Gun!!!") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSp7CipN1pw) ---
**Author:** ![md-2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@md-2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md-2000)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2022, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-happen-to-a-human-body-if-a-tanks-armor-piercing-shell-was-fired-at-it/959095/42 "2022-02-10T20:46:51Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > In a later video, they tried shooting baseballs at various targets, including a gallon jug of mayonnaise. The baseball, at ~1000 MPH Done blowed up _gooood!_ Like I said, the shock wave created by the watermelon, mayo, or meat target material trying to get out of the way faster than it physically can at the speed of sound in that medium, is essentially an explosion shock wave. Considering iron is 6 times as dense as water which itself is denser than baseball means that a weight at extreme velocity carries a lot of energy which can push the material out of the way creating a shock wave. The momentum loss of the projectile translates into that shock wave, so the more momentum the projectile has (i.e. steel not baseball) the more energy it impacts onto the target. ---
**Author:** ![Spiderman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spiderman/32/230_2.png) [@Spiderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiderman)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2022, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-happen-to-a-human-body-if-a-tanks-armor-piercing-shell-was-fired-at-it/959095/43 "2022-02-10T22:28:37Z")
found it…recent news story of a [French soldier’s armor after being hit w/ a cannonball at the Battle of Waterloo](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10378269/Tis-scratch-Smashed-armour-worn-French-soldier-Battle-Waterloo-online-hit.html). He was ‘wounded’ ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2022, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-happen-to-a-human-body-if-a-tanks-armor-piercing-shell-was-fired-at-it/959095/44 "2022-02-10T22:42:46Z")
Some what related, but this pic has been circulating on Reddit lately: > **[r/Damnthatsinteresting - A picture taken from the history museum of Lahore....](https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/sovvvq/a_picture_taken_from_the_history_museum_of_lahore/)** > > 70,432 votes and 4,609 comments so far on Reddit ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2022, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-happen-to-a-human-body-if-a-tanks-armor-piercing-shell-was-fired-at-it/959095/45 "2022-02-10T22:56:51Z")
That is of course from the [Painting by Vasily Vereshchagin](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blowing_from_a_gun#/media/File%3AVereshchagin-Blowing_from_Guns_in_British_India.jpg). This was a piece of propaganda in the Great Game: the British Soldiers are in uniforms dated forty years after the actual event. Vereshchagin later went along with the Tsar’s fleet to paint pictures of their expected smashing of the Japanese. Luckily his last work had not been done in watercolor. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2022, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-happen-to-a-human-body-if-a-tanks-armor-piercing-shell-was-fired-at-it/959095/46 "2022-02-10T23:04:01Z")
> [@Slithy\_Tove](#): > > That is of course from the [Painting by Vasily Vereshchagin](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blowing_from_a_gun#/media/File%3AVereshchagin-Blowing_from_Guns_in_British_India.jpg). This was a piece of propaganda in the Great Game: the British Soldiers are in uniforms dated forty years after the actual event. It’s portraying the same event, but it doesn’t appear that the museum exhibit is directly referencing the painting. The British uniforms are different, for one, although I’ve no idea if they’re more or less accurate than the painting. The Indian fellow doesn’t look like any of the ones from the painting, either. Are you contending that this sort of execution was never carried out by the British, and was purely the product of Russian propaganda? ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2022, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-happen-to-a-human-body-if-a-tanks-armor-piercing-shell-was-fired-at-it/959095/47 "2022-02-10T23:29:25Z")
Yes that painting is Russian anti-British propaganda. Those tunics are accurately scarlet; no idea why the museum has them in blue; but neither are 1857 British. No of course I’m not contending that the British didn’t shoot victims from cannons on 1857, and thirty years after this they’d shoot them at Amristar with rifles. But Vereshchagin didn’t know that. He wanted the Indians in the 1880’s to see the British as cruel as ever (while he also made paintings of Russian soldiers bravely fighting Central Asians, devoid of the irony). ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2022, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-happen-to-a-human-body-if-a-tanks-armor-piercing-shell-was-fired-at-it/959095/48 "2022-02-14T14:00:43Z")
To be fair, it looks like execution by being blown from a cannon really was a thing, though the British weren’t the first to think of it: > **[Blowing from a gun](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blowing_from_a_gun)** > > Pages for logged out editors learn more > > > Blowing from a gun is a method of execution in which the victim is typically tied to the mouth of a cannon which is then fired, resulting in death. George Carter Stent described the process as follows: > The prisoner is generally tied to a gun with the upper part of the small of his back resting against the muzzle. When the gun is fired, his head is seen to go straight up into the air some forty or fifty feet; the arms fly off right and left, hig... ---
**Author:** ![bryanmaguire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/d07c76/32.png) [@bryanmaguire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bryanmaguire)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2022, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-happen-to-a-human-body-if-a-tanks-armor-piercing-shell-was-fired-at-it/959095/49 "2022-02-16T12:39:41Z")
The tunics for artillery regiments in that period were blue not scarlet. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-happen-to-a-human-body-if-a-tanks-armor-piercing-shell-was-fired-at-it/959095.md?page=2)