Got a Real-World Weapon, Armor or Tactics Question? Mk. XVI

[Carl]

I'd say slings were more effective against armour than bows, given similar emphasis on armour penetration (length of the sling, heaviness of the stone, etc.). Of course, they're a high skill weapon, even more than bows. If you don't practice a lot, you look like the kids with slings in protests (they'll still near take your head off, if they ever hit their mark). Even stones thrown by hand are hard to armour against, and that's a pretty poor throwing mechanism (to be fair, arrows do better thrown by hand than you'd expect).

I'm curious could you explain your reasoning. I may be missing something but everything i know about physics says arrows would trample slingshot into the floor against armor as they're worse in both piercing and blunt force trauma aspects than an arrow.

Carl: Crossbows as hand-to-hand armour piercing specialist weapons sounds neat. And compressed air weapons could also take off among the underwater people. Going to consider what they might do with the compressed air, and how compressed they can get it.

Well to compress, fill a container that's open at the bottom with air at or near the surface, then carry it as deep as possible, seal the bottom at the new compressed volume, and there you go, instant compressed air. If you can go to the bottom of somewhere like challenger deep with it you've got 15,000PSI available in potentia. Obviously unless your very close to the surface the exterior pressure will sharply reduce this, but 10,000PSI in any light reaching parts should be doable with a deep enough section of ocean.

[Brother Oni]

I'm curious could you explain your reasoning. I may be missing something but everything i know about physics says arrows would trample slingshot into the floor against armor as they're worse in both piercing and blunt force trauma aspects than an arrow.

A possible suggestion for the proposed increase in blunt force trauma with soft lead sling bullets - they deform on impact, thus more kinetic energy is imparted to the target, much like a hollowpoint round.

Of course padding is going to mitigate that, as will shields (the sling bullets would probably batter the hell out of the shield, but would be unlikely to over penetrate, whereas an arrow would cause minimal damage to the shield but still have a chance to injure the wielder) and it's telling that there's very little mention of slingers in a warfare situation once armour improves - by the time of the Middle Ages, only the Spanish and Portugese are using it against the lightly armoured Moors.

Interestingly some sling bullets dating back to 1st Century BC reinforce their use as military weapons because of the writing engraved on them. In typical soldier black humour, they range from the name of the military unit (so the enemy know who they're fighting) to insults ('Take this' and 'Ouch') and sarcasm ('Catch!').

[Mr. Mask]

Carl: Knowledge of rocks, mostly. It hurts more than it should to get struck with a stone, even when armoured. Heavy things and dense things are particularly effective against armour; there was even some experiments with lead armour for this reason near to the world wars (that is, for its density). Against heavy armour, arrows have been known to be surprisingly ineffective. I may be able to dig up some accounts of slings doing well against armour, but so far I'm mostly finding examples of sling stones burying themselves in flesh like bullets.


Wow... that is a lot of psi. The sea people would likely be limited by the strength of their pressure containers, and would see the technology improve as their materials did. There might be concerns to their own pressure thresholds depending on the kind of sea creature they are. If they could get 10,000psi or more... you could build some nasty stuff with that. Hard to work out the exact details of what that would allow, but short ranged torpedoes or even airguns might become possible (I'm not familiar enough with water to guess at effective ranges).


Oni: "Catch!" is a new one to me .

I think slinging becoming rarer has more to do with slinging traditions being unusual, and much of Europe lacking ties to the places which kept up a slinging culture. It really is a high skill job. Still, I'll look into the matter again, since it has been brought up.

[Carl]

@Mr Mask: the problem is that according to the wiki the average lead sling "bullet" is only 28g's, (0.99 ounces). Arrows went a lot heavier. And given the probable size of such a small "bullet and the almond shapes good ballistic coefficient the average war arrow was almost certain to have higher drag meaning it would need to leave the bow with more momentum to reach the same max range. At the limits of range the momentum will be similar, so striking power will be mostly similar, except one's sharp and doesn't deform much. And at close ranges the arrow will totally outmatch the sling bullet in mass terms. Heavier sling bullets where used but they had correspondingly shorter range.

@Oni@ That would actually make them worse, not better because the deformation increase the deceleration time, reducing force applied and sheds energy in the process of deformation. That said against unarmored target's, blunt force may be more deadly, (armor would really mitigate this), though a suitably broad headed arrow would be as good.

Also dense materials in armor is totally different. Anything going through armor has to move the material the armor is made of aside, so high density increases the energy required to do so.

[Brother Oni]

Carl: Knowledge of rocks, mostly. It hurts more than it should to get struck with a stone, even when armoured. Heavy things and dense things are particularly effective against armour; there was even some experiments with lead armour for this reason near to the world wars (that is, for its density). Against heavy armour, arrows have been known to be surprisingly ineffective.

As Carl said, dense materials make armour harder to penetrate, as there's more material to get through per unit volume.

Heavy plate harness (anything over 2mm so gothic plate for example) is pretty much impervious to all non-gunpowder weaponry and does a pretty good job at stopping bullets too.

@Oni@ That would actually make them worse, not better because the deformation increase the deceleration time, reducing force applied and sheds energy in the process of deformation. That said against unarmored target's, blunt force may be more deadly, (armor would really mitigate this), though a suitably broad headed arrow would be as good.

Wouldn't the deformation result in a larger surface contact area to transmit the force though? Most sling bullets cause their damage by smacking a large area rather then putting a deep hole in you like an arrow.

That said I agree that there is energy loss via deformation, but if deformation shedding energy is bad for penetration, then why are hollowpoints more effective on soft targets than standard ball? This isn't a challenge by the way, just a question.

[Mr. Mask]

And why is dense material harder to penetrate, do you believe?

[Carl]

@Oni:

Glad you asked about hollow points as that lets me explain this in a really easy way.

Simply put for a very long time most weapons of war we've used have had excessive penetrating capacity against flesh. Shoot them at someone with no armor and they'll either go in deeper than they need to. They waste energy over-penetrating their targets. Hollow points are an attempt to create an answer to that be producing something that becomes wider on impact producing a larger wound cavity in diameter terms at the cost of penetration depth.

Yes the hollow point deforming costs energy too, but so long as the penetration depth loss from that and the loss from the wider wound it creates doesn't cause it to penetrate insufficiently the end result is still a better weapon.

Broadheads are to arrows what hollowpoints are to bullets btw.


Regarding armor:

Also dense materials in armor is totally different. Anything going through armor has to move the material the armor is made of aside, so high density increases the energy required to do so.

Emphasis mine this time.

Basically moving armour material aside requires, (outside of 2000m/s+ impact speeds), you to overcome the tensile strength of the material so it will deform, then through that deformation move the material aside by accelerating it to a velocity that moves it aside faster than the projectile or blade edge or whatever is moving at after it's shed energy doing that.

Conservation of momentum which i talked about in the prior thread dictates the minimum velocity and thus energy loss required to do this, but for high tensile strength values it will actually rather exceed this.

The actual force required to overcome tensile strength and the mass to be moved aside will, (for a given fixed thickness of armour), increase in direct proportion to the contact area.

Thats why something that spreads on impact will perform poorly against armour, it increases the armours ability to absorb the energy instead of the target, and why Bodkins where more effective than broad-heads.


Also regarding the PSI, early torpedoes ran on 350PSI, though they did have pneumatic engines, (that is engines that run entirely on compressed air without combustion). I also believe with extreme enough PSI you could use a forced rupture of a tank as an explosive, you'd need a way to compromise it's integrity or raise the pressure, (probably through modest heating of 25 Celsius or so), really rapidly to be much use and it would still make a real explosive look poor, but underwater pressure waves are really, really bloody deadly, it could afford to be bad and still be dangerous as hell.

[Gnoman]

@Mr Mask: the problem is that according to the wiki the average lead sling "bullet" is only 28g's, (0.99 ounces). Arrows went a lot heavier. And given the probable size of such a small "bullet and the almond shapes good ballistic coefficient the average war arrow was almost certain to have higher drag meaning it would need to leave the bow with more momentum to reach the same max range. At the limits of range the momentum will be similar, so striking power will be mostly similar, except one's sharp and doesn't deform much. And at close ranges the arrow will totally outmatch the sling bullet in mass terms. Heavier sling bullets where used but they had correspondingly shorter range.

@Oni@ That would actually make them worse, not better because the deformation increase the deceleration time, reducing force applied and sheds energy in the process of deformation. That said against unarmored target's, blunt force may be more deadly, (armor would really mitigate this), though a suitably broad headed arrow would be as good.

Also dense materials in armor is totally different. Anything going through armor has to move the material the armor is made of aside, so high density increases the energy required to do so.

You're overlooking something very, very important. An arrow that fails to penetrate transfers a fairly small portion of their kinetic energy into whatever they hit. A failure to penetrate almost always results in the arrow glancing off the target rather than being stopped. This is true of any "penetrator" weapon. Arrow vs. sling bullet has a lot of parallels to sword vs. warhammer. There wasn't a lot of difference in weight between swords and warhammers of the same general use, as the physics of the situation dictated the broad parameters, but hammers were a lot better at transferring their energy because the armor actually stopped the blow instead of redirecting it, while a blade striking with the same force would either cut through, or it would fail to cut and slide away, wasting nearly all the energy. The same is true of a sling bullet. A sling bullet would strike the armor, flatten out, and either stick to the armor or fall to the ground, transmitting 100% of the energy it posessed.

Slings were (and are) extremely deadly weapons, but they're also short ranged and extremely difficult to use. Once shepherds and hunters switched to the easier and more flexible bow, or the even easier crossbow to defend their flocks and provide meat for the table, it became militarily useless due to the training time.

[Knaight]

I'm curious could you explain your reasoning. I may be missing something but everything i know about physics says arrows would trample slingshot into the floor against armor as they're worse in both piercing and blunt force trauma aspects than an arrow.

There are a few big things. One is that a lot less energy is lost to air resistance, your assumption of comparable end velocities is questionable at best. This gets particularly notable when firing downhill, as slings benefit more from the potential energy of the height on account of losing less to air resistance. Another is that heavier sling glandes can and have been used for armor piercing - these show up particularly often with staff slings. Then there's the matter of wounds. Slings are going to be much more effective at inflicting blunt trauma through armor. The shape of the glandes also makes them much less likely to deflect - an arrow can easily hit armor at a bit of an angle (this is particularly true with later plate, but it holds for mail and similar), change direction slightly, and slide off. A sling glande isn't likely to do so.

Then there's the special case of strikes on limbs. Limbs are often comparatively unarmored (it depends on period and specifics, obviously, but the torso was generally significantly better armored than limbs). A glancing blow with an arrow produces a cut, and even a good one often goes right through and does comparatively little damage. Sling glandes are liable to break bones, or at least do a lot of tissue damage from their sheer size. They are also more difficult to extract.

[Jon_Dahl]

This is not the right thread for this question, but...

I want an assault rifle in my game that was designed 2021. Got any ideas? I was thinking about airburst weapons, but this weapon has to be used in drive-by shootings. I know that an assault rifle is not the best choice either, but humor me and suggest an assault rifle.

My players are knowledgeable of weapons of all types, so I'm under pressure here...

[Carl]

@Gnoman: Actually a hammer weighs a lot more than a sword in a swinging motion because when your swinging it your moving it in an arc and that means it's radial mass not linear mass that matters, and that is summed up as r^2 x linear mass. Because all the mass of a hammer is at the end of the shaft r is much larger for a hammer than a sword, (r is average radius of the mass btw).

Glancing of armour is a factor of angling really, and it applies equally to hammers as it does swords. But since hammers have greater energy and it's likely a corner or edge that hits the armor, you've got more chance of the corner or edge digging in and once it's even slightly in then it won't glance off.

@Knaight: I said the opposite. An arrow has a lot more air resistance. Unfortunately in arcing fire terminal velocity is key and that's determined by the velocity at which drag = mass x gravity. Since sling bullets are lighter they'll need less drag force to hit terminal velocity so their drag has to be a lot less than an arrow. However distance shooting is also a factor of where the high point of the arc occurs. To get the same range as a sling stone an arrow needs a similar high point, but with more drag force on it, it's going to shed more momentum per second. The higher mass gives it more momentum to work with, but if my hay memory on this is accurate this still works out at a higher required launch velocity for the arrow.

A slinshot is only going to travel faster at impact if the drag to mass ratio is better than an arrow with the same launch velocity. (drag is heavily dependent on cross sectional area so longer shafted arrows will have a better ratio, which means it improves with arrow mass, the same is true of slingshot, but if general shape remains consistent, not to the same degree)

Also do you have a source that slingshot can penetrate flesh, i'd expect broken bones and serious bruising sure, but i'd be stunned if they could actually penetrate flesh, (break the skin yes, penetrate into the target no). As for how much damage an arrow will do, pretty much any non-glancing hit will still disable the arm and the deep cut is more likely to become infected, and slingshot is as vulnerable to that as anything else, they'e not huge or heavy and their shape is conductive to glancing blows. If you need it putting into perspective, common chicken eggs are around twice as heavy, (European large size), and even a typical Napoleonic musket ball is heavier, (by about 15%).

If we where talking really big heavy shot, i'd be with you, because there's a lot of momentum there, but when your talking something that's only 88% the weight of the lightest estimate of the mary rose arrows (500 grains was what i turned up or 32g), it gets a lot harder to see them doing massive damage on anything but a clean strike. In those circumstance they have more than enough raw mass and momentum to do plenty of damage, but there's an upper limit on what they can do to armor or on glancing blows.

[Carl]

This is not the right thread for this question, but...

I want an assault rifle in my game that was designed 2021. Got any ideas? I was thinking about airburst weapons, but this weapon has to be used in drive-by shootings. I know that an assault rifle is not the best choice either, but humor me and suggest an assault rifle.

My players are knowledgeable of weapons of all types, so I'm under pressure here...

Where in the world is this taking place, that would vastly change what might be commonly available. But i'd say either an AK-47, AK-74, M-16, M-14, or the Chinese rifle, (designation escapes me atm), depending on locale. Basically a common military rifle with exact model depending on the where.

[Mr. Mask]

De Medicina goes into how to remove an embedded sling stone. There are a few accounts of sling stones embedding themselves deeply, so that the swelling covers up the wounds and hides them (which makes the surgery more awkward and painful, resulting in a few medical tools dedicated to this operation).


PSI: Leaves the question of the material strength needed to withhold the necessary amount of psi (stuff is lighter underwater, so you can simply build bulkier, thicker tanks to an extent). That'll effect when they can start developing air-pressure based tech.


On the subject of staff slings, anyone know much about the pros and cons of them compared to other slings?

[Incanur]

Supposedly it's in part the spin that allows lead sling bullets to penetrate flesh - at least according to some folks on slinging.org. Also note that slingers could use *much* heavier projectiles, 200g and above. If we believe Froissart's account of Spanish slingers at Nájera 1367, which claims that stonse broke bascinets and knocked warriors in to the ground, then the slingers in question were almost certainly using heavy stones. Currently slinging world records records suggest energies and momentums higher than any arrow from a hand-drawn bow.

Honestly the super-light lead sling bullets confuse me. I can only assume that were intended mainly to harass unarmored troops and perhaps kill such troops at close range. But some lead sling bullets were heavier than 30ish grams. I recalled reading that at least one was 150+g.

[Carl]

@Incaur: Sure heavier slingshot would have been insanely powerful. Whilst the rate of increase of drag for arrows weight increases should be lower than for slingshots, your still talking a steady improvement in terminal velocity for both and given enough then i could see slingshot penetrating flesh.

The problem is that whilst i'm not disputing the claim heavy shot existed, the average shot is very light, and it's from that, that we get the high range numbers from what i can make out. Which brings us back to bows being better because they have useful range.

The spinning comment is interesting, it would certainly reduce glancing potential, but given their ovid shapes i'm not sure how it actively helps flesh penetration.

[Honest Tiefling]

Is that average shot for all sling projectiles, or all sling projectiles used by specialists? I know the sling was considered useful enough to have several mercenary groups using them. But in a lot of cases, it was a part of siege warfare because well, you had rocks lying around.

Through I have to ask, which is harder to learn, bow or sling? I thought it was the former, but maybe I am confusing normal bows with larger, heavier ones like the english long bow.

[Spiryt]

It seems that sling is pretty much all skill and quite minute precision, which is why it might have been slowly but steadily pushed out by bows.

There's nothing indicating that that 28g would be in any way 'average' required for large distances.

In fact from all I've seen due to my limited interest, it seems that general kinetic energy and distance of sling shots in hands of strong/skilled user is in fact rather impressive.

At least compared to bows.

http://slinging.org/index.php?page=sling-ranges

http://www.biblestudysite.com/arch.htm

Ancient sources are full of description of slings wielded to devastating effect. And outranging bows, in many cases.

Penetration of flesh was considered normal occurrence it seems, as Roman legions apparently tended to have medical tools for bullet extractions.

It seems that slings were indeed formidable weapon, though likely even more erratic than bows, form the very nature of stone release.

[TheThan]

This is not the right thread for this question, but...

I want an assault rifle in my game that was designed 2021. Got any ideas? I was thinking about airburst weapons, but this weapon has to be used in drive-by shootings. I know that an assault rifle is not the best choice either, but humor me and suggest an assault rifle.

My players are knowledgeable of weapons of all types, so I'm under pressure here...

Right now, assault rifles are very efficient. They have a high rate of fire, are relatively easy to build and maintain, comparatively cheap to buy and are very effective at putting deadly holes in soft fleshy things.

In order to design a gun that is better than say the current generation of assault rifles, you need to make it better, it needs to be more effective, easier to maintain, and cheap to produce. People have tried to come up with a better design than the current generation of assault rifle platforms, but they really haven’t met with great success. Since you specifically set this gun in 2021, which isn’t that far away, you could easily rock with any of the current generation of assault rifles and get away with it.

A quick wikipedia search comes up with a lot of options, I know there are civilian versions of the more popular rifles out there (the AR-15 platform, and the AK-47 platform, these are semi-automatic not select fire or fully automatic weapons (that means you can't hold the trigger down and "spray-an-pray", you have to pull the trigger every time you want the gun to fire).

[Carl]

Is that average shot for all sling projectiles, or all sling projectiles used by specialists?

The wiki doesn't say, i'm guessing it's the average of all projectiles found.

@Spiryt: I'd assume whatever the average projectile size was, that's the one that gets the long ranges attributed to it in historical texts. That said intrestifn table, thanks for finding it, might try graphing weight vs range see if there's any pattern to it.

[TheThan]

More on assault rifles:

The AR-15 and AK-47 platforms seem to be endlessly modifiable, with all sorts of aftermarket parts to add on, all meant to enhance performance (your mileage may vary there).

The most common modification of the AR platform is the addition of a “rail” system. This allows for easy attachment and removal of other aftermarket parts; such as various sorts of sights and other gizmos. In fact this modification is so common that you can usually find a rifle for sale with this rail system already installed and it is very uncommon to find one without one.
The second most common is the addition of an adjustable tubular rifle stock, which allows you shrink the size of the rifle down fairly small, and set it to be more comfortable for you to shoot from the shoulder; this also lightens the weight of the rifle as the stock is fairly skelitonized.

[speculation]
In a drive by shooting you’re probably not worried too much about accuracy or being able to shoot it comfortably. So these expensive attachments aren’t necessary, but people being people might put them on to show off. Additionally someone would probably want something they don’t mind throwing away. That means they bought it really cheap (so more likely to be a piece of junk) or they stole it.

[Incanur]

The problem is that whilst i'm not disputing the claim heavy shot existed, the average shot is very light, and it's from that, that we get the high range numbers from what i can make out. Which brings us back to bows being better because they have useful range.

Well, Melvin Gaylor slung a 212.6g stone 349.6m in 1970. I don't think any bow is going to send such a heavy arrow that far - expect maybe that 240ishlb Manchu supposedly used to win a contest in the 18th century. It's noteworthy that medieval slingers and the Amerindian slingers that impressed the Spanish didn't use light lead shot.

I tend to think that bows and crossbows proved superior to slings in medieval Europe because they were more accurate and because you're better off on balance trying to pierce the thinner bits of armor or hit an unarmored spot than trying to bludgeon the person inside. Also because arrows are simply more dangerous than stones or bullets on average. With that said, slings apparently remained potent through the 14th century and even into the 16th in Europe. English archers defeated Spanish slingers at Nájera 1367, but the latter performed well enough to earn that honorable mention.

[Thiel]

This is not the right thread for this question, but...

I want an assault rifle in my game that was designed 2021. Got any ideas? I was thinking about airburst weapons, but this weapon has to be used in drive-by shootings. I know that an assault rifle is not the best choice either, but humor me and suggest an assault rifle.

My players are knowledgeable of weapons of all types, so I'm under pressure here...

Like the others have said any current assault rifle will do the trick.
If it has to be a newly designed rifles we can make some guesses based on current trends.
First of all it's probably going to be at least partly built from composites and it's likely to fire a 6-7mm bullet like the 6.5mm Grendel.
Since it's going to be fired from a car you'd want a fairly short weapon so either a carbine or (preferably) a bullpup.
How specific does the weapon need to be?

[Roxxy]

It seems that sling is pretty much all skill and quite minute precision, which is why it might have been slowly but steadily pushed out by bows.

There's nothing indicating that that 28g would be in any way 'average' required for large distances.

In fact from all I've seen due to my limited interest, it seems that general kinetic energy and distance of sling shots in hands of strong/skilled user is in fact rather impressive.

At least compared to bows.

http://slinging.org/index.php?page=sling-ranges

http://www.biblestudysite.com/arch.htm

Ancient sources are full of description of slings wielded to devastating effect. And outranging bows, in many cases.

Penetration of flesh was considered normal occurrence it seems, as Roman legions apparently tended to have medical tools for bullet extractions.

It seems that slings were indeed formidable weapon, though likely even more erratic than bows, form the very nature of stone release.

Another thing to remember is that a trained slinger breaks the sound barrier upon release. That's not something to scoff at.

[Carl]

Where are you getting that from roxxy. the longest slings discussed would have a spin circumstance of about 6 meter's, that still requires you spin it upto about 3600rpm to get it supersonic. And that ain't happening period.

@Incaur: then how do you explain the fact that the heavy bullets are rare and the light one's are common? The data on heavy bullets being hurled far is nice, (though sling construction, shot construction, and especially the type of athlete all need to be remembered, i think i will go a graphing), but it doesn't change the fact that the vast majority of slingshot available to the slinger for actual use isn't that heavy.

As to what a bow can do, that's going to depend a lot on arrow construction and especially bow construction. On a pure physics level it's quite doable, as little as an average 20Lb's over a 30 inch draw will get a launch velocity of 60MPH, but that's very dependent on the bow's ability to apply that much force and i suspect many bows weren't able to do that.

[AgentPaper]

Where are you getting that from roxxy. the longest slings discussed would have a spin circumstance of about 6 meter's, that still requires you spin it upto about 3600rpm to get it supersonic. And that ain't happening period.

It probably involves some trick of releasing it just right to amplify the speed just before it leaves the sling. Perhaps something like how a trebuchet works to throw a rock faster than the arm itself moves due to how the cloth sling whips around the end of it.

[Carl]

@Agent Paper: Gonna have to think on that see if i can figure out a formuale to approximate, i'd still be stunned if it could give supersonic velocities though.

Also graphs:

One for stone, one for lead & clay. Lead first, stone second.





The stone with a couple of exception displays a clear trend of lighter is better. The lead is just schitzo. Sling length in both cases appears to be in line with the weight, with lead seeing a very strong correlation.

Many datapoints have had to be omitted due to lack of one or more data entire's, if anyone can find the missing data feel free to post it.

[Telwar]

Right now, assault rifles are very efficient. They have a high rate of fire, are relatively easy to build and maintain, comparatively cheap to buy and are very effective at putting deadly holes in soft fleshy things.

In order to design a gun that is better than say the current generation of assault rifles, you need to make it better, it needs to be more effective, easier to maintain, and cheap to produce. People have tried to come up with a better design than the current generation of assault rifle platforms, but they really haven’t met with great success. Since you specifically set this gun in 2021, which isn’t that far away, you could easily rock with any of the current generation of assault rifles and get away with it.

A quick wikipedia search comes up with a lot of options, I know there are civilian versions of the more popular rifles out there (the AR-15 platform, and the AK-47 platform, these are semi-automatic not select fire or fully automatic weapons (that means you can't hold the trigger down and "spray-an-pray", you have to pull the trigger every time you want the gun to fire).

I'd stick with "a cheap Nepalese or Venezuelan knock-off of the (most recent AK, whichever that is)", given that most drive-bys are done by folks who don't necessarily have the funds for the latest brand-name gear. Nobody's going to stick their railed-out AR-type with active muzzle control and smartlink out the window and spray and pray unless they're dumb. Which is entirely possible, of course!

[Roxxy]

Where are you getting that from roxxy. the longest slings discussed would have a spin circumstance of about 6 meter's, that still requires you spin it upto about 3600rpm to get it supersonic. And that ain't happening period.

You can hear it loud and clear. It's not much harder than getting a whip to crack.

Here's another one.

[Brother Oni]

You can hear it loud and clear. It's not much harder than getting a whip to crack.

Here's another one.

While the parts of the sling are going supersonic, I don't think the sling bullet is going anywhere near the speed of sound, which is where Carl got the 3600rpm requirement from.

According to this page, sling bullets cap out at about 39m/s.

Some nice history there mentions Rhodian slingers achieving at least double the Persian archers' range of 5 pletra (154m), allowing the slingers to harass and kill them without fear of counterattack.

[Carl]

A very small part of a whip a long way from the handle goes supersonic not the whole thing. Given how a sling works it should see exactly the same sort of thing once you've let go of one half of it. But that's the sling itself flexing after release just like a whip. It dosen't mean the circular motion of the sling ever exceeds the speed of sound.