The Guns of 1632 : They Shoot Horses, Don't They?
Published August 27, 2002
Long before those thirty seconds expired, however, the street had become a charnel house. As soon as Dan's first shot went off, the deputies and armed citizens in the upstairs windows began firing their weapons. The range was point-blank, and the street below was packed with horsemen. Due to their excitement and fear, many of the citizens--and not a few of the deputies--missed practically every shot they fired. It hardly mattered. It was almost impossible for a bullet not to hit something.
As I do not have the handgun horsekilling experience necessary to respond adequately to the argument, I turned to a man who might, the FusilierPundit. Fuze went to great pains to profess his love of all things equine before he proceeded with the discussion on how to kill them.
Jeff Cooper (PBUH) calls felling a horse a task for a rifle. Stopping a charging (toward-the-shooter) horse (full-size, what? 1 ton? armored?) with rider (armored?) within 40 yards requires shot placement to an internal organ that results in immediate stop. Heart or brain. Horse's small brain is in sorta small thick head at end of long neck that moves the head around enough to rule that shot right out. The bullet would have to be FMJ to penetrate the tack (if any), muscles and lungs and reach heart. Any hits on heavy bone are wasted in this caliber. FMJ is an unlikely choice for someone carrying a .40 for non-military purposes, an expanding bullet is more likely, which opens up and penetrates to less depth.
(Not knowing horse anatomy) the frontal area presented by a horse looks very muscular, too much material to penetrate to the vitals with the .40. Your shooter would have to empty the magazine in two seconds, leaving the third and fourth seconds for the horse and rider to collapse in front of him, instead of upon him. More likely outcome, the horse slows down from hemothorax, pneumothorax, or pulmonary edema, and collapses of asphyxiation ~5 minutes after the dismounted shooter has been stomped into the turf.
If the .40 is all the shooter has, well, Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum . . . aim for the _rider_. Even if the rider is armored in steel,
even if the bullets are hollerpoints. A riderless horse is, well, riderless.
So it's possible, maybe, but not likely. Fuze may have more thoughts after he reads the passage above. Flint does leave himself wiggle room by not specifying how many horses were in the front rank, and the sheriff is not a lone shooter, after all. I'll have to agree with James that it is one of the weaker spots in the book. To give credit where credit is due, Flint does bring David Weber to co-write 1633. Weber is fairly well known for his knowledge of military history, which presumably would give similar scenes in 1632 a more realistic ring.
- The Guns of 1632 : They Shoot Horses, Don't They?
- Published: August 27, 2002
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- Writer: Bigwig
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Wow, this was a fascinating article. Glad a spammer brought it to my attention. IMO you could stop a horse with a .40 because the shock of impact would cause the horse to stumble, throwing the rider and possibly taking the horse down even if it didn't kill the horse.
And against a cavalry charge you wouldn't need more accuracy than a pistol would give you. Just blaze away at the tight-packed horses and you'll cause total chaos. Take down the front rank and you take down most of those behind it as well.
Dave