Common Misconceptions and Controversies Regarding Ballistics and Gunshot Wounds

Reassessing the terminal ballistic performance of trilobate and quadrilobate arrow points on Iron Age battlefields

“…The surprising effectiveness of the blunt point reproduced the same effect observed by Ankersen et al [39] for blunt and sharp steel knives pressed into Roma Plastilina PLOS ONE modeling clay. This confirms the markedly different density, flow behavior [40,41], and friction versus fracture toughness [42,43] of clay relative to soft biological tissues or leather. These results are at odds with a previous test of medieval arrow points shot into reconstructed leather and composite linen armor, where edge sharpness was identified as the most crucial factor for penetration, and wider blades were found to reduce friction on the trailing shaft by cutting a larger hole in the target [33].…”

“…Projectiles in these contexts must first penetrate an outer layer of tougher material before they can damage softer and less resistive tissues underneath. Results of controlled experiments against homogenous flesh simulants (typically 10% ordinance gelatin) are also difficult to extrapolate to heterogenous biological structures: skin, subcutaneous flesh interconnected with skeletal bone, and less-resistive internal organs [40,41,46,48,49]. Understanding how target simulants compare with real targets, therefore, requires careful comparison with real wounds and experiments in more realistic targets [40], and when studying the effects of weapons against body armor or clothing, simulating the specific properties of those materials is of seminal importance to understanding weapon efficacy [33,47,[50][51][52][53].…”

Wound ballistics of the pig mandibular angle: A preliminary finite element analysis and experimental study

“…This situation has encouraged scientists and physicians to define the mechanisms and basic principles of wound ballistics in the head and neck (Allen et al, 1982;Thali et al, 2002;Zhang et al, 2005), including the maxillofacial region (Tan et al, 2002;Viano et al, 2004), for clinical, forensic, and military purposes. For decades, research based on various ballistic simulations have drawn convincing conclusions about the mechanisms of the projectile-tissue interactions (Fackler, 1986;Fackler et al, 1986;Kneubuehl and Thali, 2003), and misconceptions and myths have been nullified every few years (Fackler, 1998;Silvia, 1999;Santucci and Chang, 2004;Powers and Robertson, 2005; Bartlett and Bissell, 2006).…”

Treatment of gunshot wounds of the spine using full-endoscopic surgery: analysis of a small clinical series

“…В связи с этим антибактериальная терапия препаратами широкого спектра действия должна использоваться во всех случаях огнестрельных ран позвоночника. Длительность антибактериальной терапии, по данным литературы [39,[40][41][42][43], составляет от 7 до 10 дней. Особую группу представляют пациенты с сочетанным ранением органов брюшной полости.…”