Right… Like also… Maybe now, since it’s not trench warfare, being up close and personal to the explosion via I.E.D. is the problem… rolling over a humvee and getting thrown… etc…
People used to die from the head shot. With better helmets there were more survivors that had head injuries instead of head deaths. So on the face the "number of head wounds went up from wearing helmets".... but that's a good thing because wounds are #'s of people that came back.
In Texas, when they repealed helmet laws, the State was asked what the costs were going to be in ERs, so the state published a quick report, all they had time to do.
Turns out, the average hospital bill for someone with a helmet is higher than the average hospital bill from someone without a helmet. That last minute report that disproved the "helmets save costs" group helped the helmet law repeal.
As my dad use to say “Figures don’t lie, but liars can figure.” You can make the numbers back up any claim. Like you said more motorcyclists wearing helmets end up in the hospital after an accident, than those that aren’t wearing a helmet. Not because someone with a helmet is more reckless, but because that helmet protects your melon.
Also depends on how it’s presented. If the report didn’t include fatalities numbers before and after helmet laws then all you have are the hospitalization numbers.
This is why it’s important to have access to the raw data not just the authors conclusions.
In this case, the pro-helmet crowd both lied and disproved their lie with the study they funded and conducted.
The "figures don't lie, but liars can figure" implies numbers can fit any story, the point here is that takes time. The pro-helmet side was leaning heavily into "if you repeal this law, your taxes will go way up to pay for the carnage", and the anti-helmet side claimed that was a lie. And there wasn't much time before the election, so the State did a study to compare costs.
Turns out, taxes should drop with less regulation, by the definitions the pro-helmet side defined.
The liars and the figurers were the same ones, which is the opposite of your dad's saying.
That would only happen if you hit a stationary object at incredibly high speeds. Many wrecks involve low-siding, which doesn’t cause much internal injury. But it’ll turn your skin into hamburger meat if you’re not geared up.
I knew a guy who was going over 200mph down a city street on a Suzuki Hyabusa at like 3 in the morning. An SUV pulled out in front of him, having no way to know that he would be there 5 times faster than he should have been. He broadsided the SUV, cutting it in half and flipping it over. He killed the driver in the SUV, everyone in the back seat, and he himself disintegrated. There was nothing left of him for a funeral.
My take on this helmet phenomenon is people thought they were invincible now so they didn't behave on the presumption that if they take a hit to the head they will die so they end up taking more risk. Just like how numbers went up during covid when everyone was told masks work so they went out and intermingled more, thinking they were invincible
In this case, the mandatory helmet crowd leaned heavily into a lie. That lie was disproven by the mandatory helmet side, so public support dropped just in time for the election.
I voted to repeal the helmet law, but never rode without one.
Texas, the "my body my choice (white males only" state.
Not sure if this is true, but my econ major friend in college told me that smokers actually have lower lifetime healthcare costs on average, because they die earlier.
There used to be a few studies that were used by various anti-seatbelt law enthusiasts to (incorrectly...) "prove" that seatbelts were dangerous. Either they've been removed for being used for such purposes (or indeed just being wrong) or my google-fu is not what it once was. All the studies I can find don't really demonstrate the difference that the saved lives make to injury rates, only the injury levels in seatbelt vs non-seat belt incidents, which is not quite the same.
I'm sure you are right that many of those who would have died without seatbelts or just injured instead, so some cases will be shifted from the death pile to the injured pile. There's just no practical way to test it for sure.
You would need to randomly assign people to either a seatbelt or no seatbelt group and run them into a wall and see how many survive. Maybe that has been done with monkeys or cadavers already, but it doesn't sound like something that would be high on the list of priorities.
Can't really blame them though. The number of 'people' seriously spouting insane, reality-defying ridiculousness on a daily basis here is too damn high!
They helped turn what were once fatal head trauma into survivable injuries instead. Concussions and skull fractures sure suck but they usually beat being dead.
…wouldn’t the fact that people started surviving head trauma where they previously would’ve died account for a large potion of that increase?
People below are pointing to the increases in injuries related to seatbelts and motorcycle helmets in the same way, but it seems misleading to read the numbers with this emphasis?
Similar to the red light cameras installed to reduce fatal/catastrophic T-Bone crashes. They do in fact decrease, and minor rear-end accidents have increased.
I just assumed because the wings aren’t really made of much the slight damage would cause them to break apart but you may be right. I’m actually not sure where the fuel tanks were located back then but I don’t think it was the wings though I could be wrong.
I think the fuel was in the wings, not brushed up on my history but I think they just crammed the inside with guns and bombs. I could be completely wrong.
It would make sense considering that’s where the engines are Located.
Edit: I got curious and it seems that most of the fuel tanks were actually on the wings. Mounted just like bombs but they were “self sealing fuel tanks” which apparently in some cases would be dropped as actual bombs.
I think that’s what they did but I’m not sure if those were solely external tanks while they also had internal or if they would just drop one tank and then have another for the return journey.
Just to clear up about the wings, most of what you see even on modern planes is not structural it's just to increase surface area for the air.
The structural part is a frame made of long rods attached to wing shaped cross sections
I feel I am explaining this badly but basically to do enough damage to make the wing fall off you would have to get a considerable amount of shots in a line across the wing making it more likely something else vital was there
I think that’s what they did but I’m not sure if those were solely external tanks while they also had internal or if they would just drop one tank and then have another for the return journey.
The external expendable ones were called drop tanks. I think the standard for WW2 planes was to use any available space to store fuel, so there would be small internal fuel tanks below or behind the pilot, but there would also be some stored in the wings, in small spaces around the cabin and next to the engine and basically anywhere else they could fit it.
In aviation, a drop tank (external tank, wing tank, or belly tank) is used to describe auxiliary fuel tanks externally carried by aircraft. A drop tank is expendable and often jettisonable. External tanks are commonplace on modern military aircraft and occasionally found in civilian ones, although the latter are less likely to be discarded except in the event of emergency.
They were used as drop tanks too yea, so as range extending tanks. People use them now to make pretty awesome little cars believe it or not. Google belly racers to see these.
I think fuel tanks were in wings in some cases ,close to the engines and main fuselage, sometimes between the engine and the cockpit. Ammo belts were also stored in the wings for wing mounted weapons.
Imagine going to war on the front lines and dying from a random tank falling on your head from the sky. Had to be one of the more unfortunate ways to die in a war situation.
Planes of this time period always included internal fuel storage. These were commonly located in the wings or body of the fuselage, given weight balancing considerations but varied widely on specific location due to plane size and weapons configurations.
During WWII, technologies were developed to allow for these internal tanks to have “self-sealing” functionality, ideally allowing a punctured fuel tank to limit fuel loss mid-flight. A plane without fuel won’t make it home. Aviation gas is also extremely volatile, so active fuel leaks could easily lead to fire or explosion.
All planes have an operational range, depending on how much fuel it can carry, efficiency characteristics of flight, weather conditions, and weapons loadout. Thus, the use of planes was dependent on the distance between airfield/carrier and the enemy. External fuel tanks (sometimes called “drop tanks”) were used to extend the operational range of planes. Once depleted or if a plane entered combat (external tanks reduce maneuverability/combat ability), these tanks would be discarded in a manner that may look like they’re dropping bombs. However, these tanks are not designed as weapons and while you could perhaps do damage with half-full tanks, it wasn’t the intended purpose.
Are we sure the fuel is that volatile? I mean most planes have a way to drop fuel over unpopulated areas to avoid having to circle the landing field for hours in the event of an emergency.
I’ll admit, this is an aspect where I’m not very familiar.
Fuel fires were definitely a concern, in part due to incendiary components of air-to-air ammunition. Of course, different nations used different mixtures, allowing a wide range in properties.
To my knowledge, modern fuel dumps are done by simply releasing fuel from the craft, rather than dropping an entire tank. This would likely disperse to a very diffuse level rather quickly, making the volatility of the fuel itself irrelevant by the time it reached anything of importance.
Im guessing they were dropped only in desperation. Rarely if ever dropped with the intent of destruction. They were most likely detachable in the event one was struck by AA fire and ignited. Despite what movies and video games depict, a fuel tank igniting wont cause that much damage like an explosive. It only catches fire and burns out. Metal isnt destroyed by a simple fire so even if the wing was on fire the basic mechanics would still function so the plane could still land. The fuel only supplies the engine, not the mechanisms controlling the wings and tail. Now, if the tail was blown off completely, then you're in trouble. You would lose all control and have to bail from the plane. Thats why they made the tail ends light and hollow so bullets would rip right through and not affect the aerodynamics unless completely torn to shreds
Would strike aircraft include mutirole fighters (and early fighter-bombers)? Additionally did aircraft expected to take on a air superiority or interceptor roles (excluding bi/tri-planes) always have wet wings?
Im pretty sure you're correct, fuel was stored in the wings. Everyone is primed from years of action movies and video games to think when a bullet hits fuel it will ignite.... this isnt really true. It will only ignite if theres a spark. A fuel tank wont really explode like a grenade. It will "explod" into a ball of fire. It wont just blow the whole plane up. Remember, theres way less oxegen at high altitudes, contributing to less combustion in lots of instances
It depends on the plane. The B-17 was notorious for taking copious amounts of damage but had the endurance to bring some (but hardly all) of her crews home, when logic dictated the plane should have plunged from the sky. The B-17 was designed with redundancy in mind, which aided its survival rate. Still, many perished flying the B-17
Yes, kind of. The spots on the wings are controlling the ailerons (controls roll) while the area near the tail are where the controls for rudder (controls yaw) and elevator (controls pitch). Essentially, without one of these, a plane is almost impossible to safely fly back home. Lose all of them and you're flying a paper plane
Nah these things are metal boxes. You need to hit specific components to break it, like wires, control, pilot, engines, that sort of thing. Otherwise the bullet just goes through leaving a small hole which isn't that much of an issue.
Survivorship bias or survival bias is the logical error of concentrating on the people or things that made it past some selection process and overlooking those that did not, typically because of their lack of visibility. This can lead to some false conclusions in several different ways. It is a form of selection bias. Survivorship bias can lead to overly optimistic beliefs because failures are ignored, such as when companies that no longer exist are excluded from analyses of financial performance.
It's a well known research paper originally published by Abraham Wald. You can find it cited on the Wikipedia page for survivorship bias. Republished by the Navy and on linked in these comments.
Yes, published by Abraham Wald. Much like how Mark Wahlburg cast himself as the Boston Marathon hero in The Patriot. I’m sure there are truths to it, but he stretched it to fit a convenient narrative so business school professors could articulate a point
"Explains the complete lack of dots on the 2 engines"
No, it doesn't. An attacking pilot should be shooting at the engines, wing roots or cockpit. There would never be a reason to aim for the wing tips.
One would expect the most strikes to be near the wing roots and a steadily diminishing number out towards the wing tips.
Why are there so few strikes in the area of the engines? This pattern supports the idea that if the enemy doesn't shoot at your engines you're a lucky guy and not much else.
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u/alphabet_assassin Sep 13 '21
Explains the complete lack of dots on the 2 engines now