Comments | little_details: Gatling gun injuries & most importantly evidence

tarvae in little_details

Gatling gun injuries & most importantly evidence

Feb 26, 2013 21:49

Hi, I've had a dig through the injuries to order tag and have a pretty good grip on the type of injuries I want but having have googled every variation I can think of around Gatling guns, ballistics, gun shot wounds, historic injuries I still can't make sense of the part about how someone would tell how the victim got injured. All I seem to get is ( Read more... )

1860-1869, ~weapons: firearms, ~medicine: injuries: gunshot wounds, ~medicine: injuries: historical, ~psychology & psychiatry: ptsd

Comments 14

nuranar February 27 2013, 03:58:27 UTC

Does it have to be a Gatling gun? They were technically around at the very end of the Civil War, but way over-represented in movies. If it does, a lot of the answers to your questions will depend on the technical specifications of the Gatling: i.e. what the projectile is, its caliber, and its speed. The typical infantry weapon of the time had very large, very heavy, very slow projectiles that were capable of shattering bones and blowing really big holes in limbs. That was one reason (of several) for the high number of amputations during the war. They were also so slow that they could be deflected by objects like pocket Bibles and pocket watches, or even ricochet around and off bones. If a Gatling bullet is similar, it looks nothing like modern weaponry and will be very unusual in a modern emergency room. (For what it's worth, most "modern" firearm technology dates from WWI ( ... )

tarvae February 27 2013, 17:21:01 UTC

You've now got me tempted to throw in a gut shot as well just to be sure they'll want to write him off. Poor sod is not having a good time here lol

Anyone would think I 'liked' raining hell on the nice guy in the party...still, it is kinda his fault for deciding to all bloody heroic

nuranar February 27 2013, 17:34:56 UTC

A gut shot has the best chance (besides obvious lung shot) of having your people think he's done.

stormwreath February 27 2013, 04:42:43 UTC

A grand total of twelve Gatling guns were used in the American Civil War, by the Union army around Petersburg in 1864. They were privately purchased: the US Army did not adopt the weapon officially until 1866 ( ... )

stormwreath February 27 2013, 04:49:38 UTC

Just to add:

it's fairly easy to keep this from being an out and out police investigation

I'm pretty sure that at a modern hospital, any patient coming in with any sort of gunshot wound will be the subject of a police investigation. The hospital staff will report it automatically. Especially in Britain, if your mention of MI6 mean that's where the fic is set. Your MI6 person probably could hush it up anyway, but it would be a major task for them, not just something they could casually wave away.

tarvae February 27 2013, 16:33:40 UTC

Fortunately for my sanity, the person with the ID has a pretty good supply of BS to apply to the police if needed and as the world is not that close to the one we live in there is a much greater degree of leeway given to people from certain families. But you're right, it's not a matter of waving it off, they'll need to pull in favours and make calls and possibly answer for it later.

tarvae February 27 2013, 16:29:55 UTC

Thanks, that is really helpful about the ball shot and realistic rate of fire compared to the theoretical one.

Thread 5

lilacsigil February 27 2013, 04:54:11 UTC

Victorian medicine was actually pretty good at major injuries like this - if he's hit in the shoulder and femur and doesn't die quickly of blood loss, his Victorian friends aren't going to write him off at all. Not that you can't shoot him there, but it's not going to cause his friends to assume he'll die ( ... )

tarvae February 27 2013, 17:22:32 UTC

(The comment has been removed)

tarvae February 27 2013, 16:47:23 UTC

"so even if he does not end up needing his leg amputated, a severe gunshot wound above the knee may APPEAR to someone who is not a 21st (or 20th) century doctor to be a death sentence."

This is the direction I'm thinking, none of the 'victorian' characters are medically trained so all I'm really after is that they would consider him beyond much hope. If there were a John Watson there I'd be in a totally different situation ;)

lindaross February 27 2013, 15:06:23 UTC

( ... )

tarvae February 27 2013, 17:14:41 UTC

It has to be said that in the context of things 'friends' is possibly not the best word...superiors is probably better.

Agreed that they were able to treat major trauma back then but it was mostly by the method of amputation under ether anaesthesia and pray it doesn't get infected.

nuranar February 27 2013, 17:33:10 UTC

Not solely by amputation. They did have disinfectants and they knew how to use them - a lot more than just prayer.