Blunt Thrust vs Swing Damage to the Arms

[Paul Heinz]

I was looking over the tRoS damage tables and noticed a significant difference between the Blunt Thrust and Blunt Swing damage tables for the Arms.

For most locations (e.g. Legs, Body, Head), the Blunt Thrust and Blunt Swing damage tables are pretty much identical implying that a Blunt hit for 3 points is the same with thrusting vs swinging mainly just changing where you hit.

The arms however are quite different and a Blunt Swing to the arm (Zone 7) is much more impairing than a Blunt Thrust to the arm (Zone 14) for most damage levels.

In fact, in terms of Blood Loss, a blunt swing is not much less than a Cutting swing i.e. it's more Blood Loss than a Puncture thrust!

Are the arms particularly vulnernable to a blunt swing over a blunt thrust, unlike the rest of the body?

[Draigh]

It seems to me that the arms would be much more fragile than just about anywhere else on the body other than the head, especially when it comes to blunt trauma.  You've got relatively thin, and relatively solitary bones trying to absorb quite a bit of force.  Take for instance, a baseball bat.  I'd much rather take a shot to the ribs with a bat than a shot to the forearm or bicep.  There'd be more muscle and bone to disperse the shock in the chest, and much more mass in general.  To the best of my knowlege, swings to the arms are relatively easy to perform, and arm bones tend to splinter or shear when struck "horizontally".  The strength of bones lies in compression, for instance, your femurs can bear much more weight applied to their ends than they can latteraly, that's also something that you'd have to take into account.  Ribs however, form arches, which means that a horizontal blow to the ribs disperses the majority of the force to the ends, along their length.

Does that make sense, or is it just blather?

[Jake Norwood]

My logic at the time was just that. "BL" is all internal damage. Blunt trauma to the limbs will break them apart pretty badly.

Or that's the thinking.

Jake