Combat Lurchers are insane

[Phantom Monstrosity]

Okay, but the Pull guy in AoL didn't seem to have any problem with that.

 

Chapter 18, the Alloy of Law

 

It seems like something funny is going on with that Lurcher armor. Or, I dunno, maybe the Pull guy just had a lot of determination (a Lurcher/Pinnacle Twinborn?).

 

I assume that lurcher armor problems are just something being handwaved by Brandon, since even with a modern bulletproof vest you're liable to get injured ribs. 

 

Steel doesn't exactly have the same give and energy dissipation to it that ceramic plates or kevlar does, which is an issue as well.  Really depends on the thickness of the plate, and how much weight you can carry  around without being totally overbalanced.  Ned Kelly managed to make his own set of bullet-resistant platemail back in the late 1800s, but he wasn't actively making the bullets move faster towards him.  Even with only a quarter inch of thickness on the steel plate, his armor weighed a hundred pounds and didn't cover his legs.

 

Obviously also depends on your level of armor steel vs your guns as well, and how much faster a bullet goes when you pull it inwards. 

 

Overall, I think it's on the edge of plausibility, but probably not worth looking into too deeply.

Edited June 6, 2013 by Phantom Monstrosity

[Abevan]

With regards to steel being less flexible than Kevlar etc, wouldn't that mean less impact damage to the wearer, as a larger body area would be affected by the armour?

 

Also, a Lurcher would probably just have armour covering his chest and so could go without the rest of the plate, lessening the weight carried even if balance now becomes more of an issue.

 

And as for being distracted by bullet impacts in the quote from AoL, Wax fires all six shots at the lurcher in rapid succession, chances are all he had to do was brace for the impacts.

[skaa he/him]

And as for being distracted by bullet impacts in the quote from AoL, Wax fires all six shots at the lurcher in rapid succession, chances are all he had to do was brace for the impacts.

 

Yeah, that might work. Ah, well. I guess I was just assuming there was an issue because of what Mr Atmos said:

 

On that topic, how is his breastplate so conveniently bullet resistant anyway and why doesn't everyone wear one (or everyone who can afford one at least)?

 

If that's not an issue, then good! That's one less theory I have to defend.

[king of nowhere]

I don't find anything really strange here.

pull is able to wear a relatively small armor. say, one square foot. because it's so small, he can wear a thick one (say, one inch. enough to be virtually immune to handguns and rifles) without getting too much wheight. I also suppose he's wearing a LOT of padding under that plate, to cushion the impacts.

Now, there's always the chance of a bullet missing the plate, since pulling like that is not a sure thing. in fact, we see wax shooting pull hoping one bullet will miss the shield. It means the chance is not negligible (however, for story reasons, it could not happen).

And yes, it certainly is dangerous, and being a coinshot work better to deflect bullets. but you can't choose your power, and being lurcher is better than nothing.

 

 

I think the best chance to take a lurcher would be to aim to miss him. a shoot to him would get pulled to the shield, but a shoot a bit farther away may easily be pulled on some exposed flesh.

[Phantom Monstrosity]

I don't find anything really strange here.

pull is able to wear a relatively small armor. say, one square foot. because it's so small, he can wear a thick one (say, one inch. enough to be virtually immune to handguns and rifles) without getting too much wheight. I also suppose he's wearing a LOT of padding under that plate, to cushion the impacts.

Now, there's always the chance of a bullet missing the plate, since pulling like that is not a sure thing. in fact, we see wax shooting pull hoping one bullet will miss the shield. It means the chance is not negligible (however, for story reasons, it could not happen).

And yes, it certainly is dangerous, and being a coinshot work better to deflect bullets. but you can't choose your pou'ower, and being lurcher is better than nothing.

 

Well, the thing is, you're also pulling on bullets aimed at other dudes.  They'll be pulled in towards your chest, yeah, but there's no reason why they have to hit your chest dead on - you could just as easily redirect bullets directed to the left, right, and below you into your own arms, sides, or crotch.

[Kadrok she/her]

I feel like we keep coming back to... don't go into combat at all... stand behind a solid wall, pull everything... rest of the team pounds the disarmed team... bring a good book.

[kroen]

A Lurcher might not be very effective at surviving bullet shots, but he can easily pull the guns themselves to him, preventing being shot in the first place.

Edited June 9, 2013 by kroen

[king of nowhere]

Well, the thing is, you're also pulling on bullets aimed at other dudes.

I think a lurcher has much more control over his pulling than you give him credit for.

A lurcher cannot just pull any bullet. And he cannot pull a bullet once it already fired, they move too fast. he has to be ready to pull while the bullet is still to be fired. this means that the lurcher must be prepared for it, must see the gun and the intent to shoot. So the lurcher will appproximately see where the bullets are fired, and he will know how much his pulling can affect them. If he see a gun pointed to himself, he can pull on the plate. If he sees a gun pointed to an ally away from himm, he can pull and be sure he won't deviate  the bullet enough too hit him. If he sees a gun pointed close to him, he avoid pulling.

Keep also in mind that bullets are much faster than metalpulling. in the original trilogy, people could see the coins they fired, and could react to them. Sometimes people could dodge the coins, or bring up a shield. You can't do this with bullets. So, when a lurcher pull on a bullet, the acceleration he imparts will sum itself to the speed of the bullet, as per the laws of physics, and will result in a minor deviation. if the gun is pointed ten meters away from the lurcher, there's no way he's going to get hit by his pulling. A good combat lurchers has to be aware of all this when he decides whether to pull or not. And of course he must have good reflexes, to start pulling before the gun is fired.

That would make a lurcher quite useless on a large scale battle, where there are way more opponents to keep track than is possible. But as long as you fight a handful of opponents, it's reasonable.

It also means that a combat lurcher is not just any lurcher, but must be highly skilled and trained in what he does. Which fits with the story. If any lurcher could do this, then they would have sent much more than push and pull against wax. push and pull weren't the only allomancers in their payroll, they were the only ones good enough to fight.

[Observer]

Upvoted king for sense.

 

Also, don't forget that the bullet, if somehow pulled sideways, would slow due to air resistance and from moving the wrong direction. Not much, but it's something.

[Phantom Monstrosity]

Also, don't forget that the bullet, if somehow pulled sideways, would slow due to air resistance and from moving the wrong direction. Not much, but it's something.

 

I'll definitely concede that for arrows.  Drag'll obviously be a lot less of an issue with bullets. 

 

Ideally you'd want to tumble it and create as much drag as possible, but I'm not really sure there's enough flighttime to create more slowdown from drag than the speedup you're giving it from your Pull.

 

 

Anyway, since we're discussing this sort of thing, here's the first description we have from AoL.

“Lurcher rounds?” Waxillium asked, holding up another box.

“Similar,” Ranette said, “but with the ceramic on the sides. Not quite as effective, at least at long range. Most Lurchers protect themselves by Pulling bullets to hit an armored plate at their chest. Those bullets, they explode when Pulled on, and you get a little shrapnel blast of ceramics. Should work at ten feet or so, though it might not be lethal. I suggest aiming for the head. I’m trying to get the range up.”

And here's the only section of the fight scene with the lurcher that matters, since he gets chumped by aluminum soon after:

Good, Waxillium thought. Now over a hundred feet in the air, he grabbed the facade. He fired down at the Lurcher, but the man was Pulling carefully. Waxillium’s bullet arced and hit the plate on the Lurcher’s chest.

Waxillium hesitated for a moment, then let go of the wall, balancing as he pulled his other revolver out of his second shoulder holster.

He emptied it, firing all six rounds in rapid succession. The Lurcher turned, angling his chest toward Waxillium, sparks flying as the bullets hit his breastplate. Luck wasn’t with Waxillium—sometimes you could kill a Lurcher that way, as one of the bullets ricocheted toward his face or the plate at his chest got knocked free. Not this night.

Note: Wax is above Pull, here.  Pull is inverse-rapelling up the skyscraper.  The reference to bullets ricocheting towards the lurcher's face indicates that they can't just instantly deflect bullets, since otherwise the bullets would be just kinda stuck on.

 

 

And then Wax's steelbubble and bullet-pushing tricks.  Steel, not iron, but the metals are basically perfect opposites.

Wax fired, then Pushed on the bullet, slamming it forward with extra thrust to make it faster and more penetrating.

Wary, he too remained still. Steel continued to burn comfortably in his stomach, and so—as a precaution—he gently Pushed outward from himself in all directions. It was a trick he’d mastered a few years back; he didn’t Push on any specific metal objects, but created a kind of defensive bubble around himself. Any metal that came streaking in his direction would be thrown slightly off course.

It was far from foolproof; he could still get hit. But shots would go wild, not striking where they were aimed. It had saved his life on a couple of occasions. He wasn’t even certain how he did it; Allomancy was often an instinctive thing for him. Somehow he even managed to exempt the metal he carried, and didn’t Push his own gun from his hands.

 

Apparently there's a noticeable difference between normal bullets and pushed bullets, and you'd think that adding more penetration power to a bullet coming for you would be a bad thing.  I'm guessing that iron bubbles are more effective at this sort of thing than steelbubbles (just like how slowtime bubbles are bigger than fasttime), since otherwise you wouldn't be able to precisely direct towards your armor.  Could also just be one of those intuitive allomancy things where lurchers' ironbubbles just don't pull bullets that won't hit them anyway.

[Kurkistan he/him]

Thanks for the quotes, Phantom. Given them, I think we might have been looking to make Lurchers a bit more expansive in their bullet-pulling than they really are. At the very least, I doubt that any Lurcher bothers to try and make a bullet hit his chest plate that isn't already about to hit some other part of his body.

 

The Lurcher doesn't really have to do much work here to deflect the bullets towards his chest. Recall that all Pulls are towards you center of mass (the plate, in this case) and Wax was at a fair distance aiming at Pull's face. It doesn't take much to change the angle by a few degrees and make the bullet impact your chest instead.

Edited June 9, 2013 by Kurkistan

[Phantom Monstrosity]

The Lurcher doesn't really have to do much work here to deflect the bullets towards his chest. Recall that all Pulls are towards you center of mass (the plate, in this case) and Wax was at a fair distance aiming at Pull's face. It doesn't take much to change the angle by a few degrees and make the bullet impact your chest instead.

 

Well, the thing is, he's going to be pulling at an angle, so if they're initially sperated by three stories and it's deflected by a foot, about 97% of Pull's... Pull is going to be in the vertical drection, making the bullet fall faster.  Dude needs to be pretty swole to get it to work, and be very good at knowing when a bullet is aimed at his head, and when a bullet is aimed a foot above his head.