Posted In: comic
– Hi everyone. Welcome back to Modest Medusa! I took much needed week off to rest, visit my Mom and do some writing. It was a nice break, but I’d be lying if I told you I actually feel very rested. Still, I’m happy to be back to work. Thank you all for your patience and thank you all for your support.
Welcome back, Jake! Hope you’re well.
Holy crap that’s terrifying! And also humiliating. Like, seriously, getting mauled to death by sheep is really a terrible way to go.
That said, he might be fine. He’s wearing armor, and his thick hide should take a long enough time to chew through that he might be able to get away before that kid slaughters him.
That said, I’m starting to feel sorry for these black fairies. #blackfairylivesmatter
They’re eating his armor
Oh snap! You’re right! Like… how?? And why isn’t Prince using them in his own army??
Seriously, let’s think about this for a second. In order to puncture armor like that, then the jaws of those sheep need to be able to produce enough force (pounds per square inch). Their teeth also need to be stronger than the armor, and razor sharp.
Here’s a website I hit on my first Google search:
https://myarmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=25576
What’s surprising is the the force required from an arrow is listed as less than a bullet. Wouldn’t they require the same force? Or is it saying a bullet has less mass, thus requiring more speed? I’m so confused.
But the other sites I’ve looked at talk about thickness of armor coming into play. The fairies appear to be wearing very thick armor, at least 2 millimeters. This is going to be a heavy factor. (Pun intended.)
Here’s a better one:
https://goo.gl/I7vneP
Says here you simply “cannot cut through plate.” This means that these sheep, as has been obvious in previous books, are performing some miracle exemption to the laws of physics.
Either that, or Prince outfitted these poor schmucks with cardboard.
Typically in medieval combat you’d aim for the gaps of the armor, like when Shin murdered that first fairy by shooting him in the eye.
One of the videos in the second link show a sword technique known as “halfswording,” which uses a sword as a spear. It’s quite effective to targeting the gaps in the armor.
But I digress. I wanted to figure out how much force the sheep are producing with their jaws to bite through plate armor.
The “article” (I use the term loosely here) goes on to talk about the pollaxe, which had the ability to pierce armor!
To quote: ‘In all cases the rationale is the same – the points focus the force of the swing into a smaller point so as to ‘bite into’ plate instead of just glancing off.”
Precisely what I’m looking for! Biting!
Unfortunately, no numbers are revealed, and the video that accompanies suggests that the dag (the pointy end) aim for where the armor isn’t. The fella in black does admit, though that if you have a flat piece of steel and you struck it at 90 degrees with sufficient force you may have enough power to punch right through.
So even weapons designed to punch through armor don’t do it very well, so how are the sheep doing it?
Okay, scrolling down I found a video that talks about how much force is required to punch through munition armor, probably akin to what our poor fairy is wearing!
Looks like it takes the draw strength of about a 160 pound bow fired from 20 meters. Nice! We have numbers!
So, what does this translate to in pounds per square inch at point blank range? I don’t know, but I dare any nerds reading this to help figure this out!
Also, kudos where they’re deserved: Shin can in fact protect Modest.
You fool! The Prince can’t use sheep! Don’t you know sheep are the ultimate forces of Good in Yeld? They are the paragons of Truth and Righteousness, guardians of the Pure and the Innocent! They are wholly incorruptible by the forces of Darkness, and even the vilest of villains flee in fear before their baleful baaa-ing!
“Lamb of God” really hits differently in Yeld…
Scratch that! I found a video that does list the required force!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCtV_M1n38c
It’s low budget, but it cites sources making it quite professional!
The required force is… 200 KJ/m² (This is the fracture toughness.)
The video later says, and I quote, “Our historical breastplate, 1.6mm thick, with o.4% carbon, no heat treatment, could be given a 12 inch gash by a sword, IF that sword packs ~20,000 Joule impact energy into it!!!”
But what do these numbers mean, well, how much force does a t-rex put out?
Doing some Google searches and conversions, I’ve come up with this: 17,356.8 JOULES
(Sources: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/ist/?next=/science-nature/the-tyrannosaurus-rexs-dangerous-and-deadly-bite-37252918/
and http://convertwizard.com/12800-foot_pound-to-joules)
So there you have it! These magical sheep have nearly 3,000 more Joules behind their bites than a t-rex does.
KNOWLEDGE IS POWER!!
Good research! I guess magical is the keyword here. Don’t get anywhere near the front of a sheep is the lesson, maybe.
Thank you! The only question I have left is… why/how? Did these sheep evolve this way? Or were they made that way by some wizard? (“Wizard did it!”)
I can see that these sheep have razor-sharp teeth. Teeth like these are usually reserved for meat eaters, like piranhas or sharks. Real sheep, on the other hand, have flat teeth, made for munching on grass.
We’ve also seen these sheep reproduce asexually via forced mitosis. (When Jake chopped several in half with a butcher’s knife.) This also shouldn’t be possible for reasons that I’m not able to accurately explain (as I’m not a biologist).
So we have a self-replicating breed of monster that duplicates when you try to kill it, and can chew through carbon steel…
And Yeld still exists HOW?
See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_goo
Prince should stop employing fairies, and start guarding his castle with sheep.
The sheep (as I’ve said before) probably aren’t really sheep at all. They don’t even particularly look like sheep. They may or may not be native to Yeld. probably they’re monsters of some kind (which in Yeld means that they are unnatural, modified or magical in some way). Usually they’re pretty docile, or at worst easily excited (as we saw in the castle). These have been trained for combat and are much more aggressive than normal. Normal Yeld sheep are weird but fairly docile. These are badass veteran combat sheep.
Badass Veteran Combat Sheep – Epic name for a band!
“They don’t even particularly look like sheep.” Except for the fluffy wool, and the shape of the head, and that they walk on four legs…
“They may or may not be native to Yeld…” Really!? Now way! What a revelation maybe! 😉
“probably they’re monsters of some kind…” I can’t believe it. Really?! How surprising! 😉
“These have been trained for combat and are much more aggressive than normal.” Which makes me wonder if Prince is aware of their ability to bite through plate armor.
What I mean by that was that if you saw one you would recognize that it wasn’t a sheep, but only something that kind of looked like a sheep.
(Looks at them.) Okay XD
Probably also a good idea not to make your plate armor out of gingerbread cookies…
Holy shit, I honestly did NOT see that coming
Nice sheep they’ve got in Yeld… 🙂
Being a shepherd in Yeld seems like a seriously terrifying job now.
Yeld makes monsters of everything eventually.
So arrows won’t penetrate a faerie’s skin but sheep can bite through. No wonder everyone eats eggplant in Yeld; they’re all afraid that eating meat will anger the sheep.
or that their steak will bite back…..scratch that, that their food will eat THEM 😉
*Yakov Smirnoff* Back in Yeld, food eats you!
also, trying to cut them makes MORE.
which makes them worse to kill then the terminator – at least HE only survives, not multiplies 😉
Now I want to see their Alpacas
So that’s what would happen if Geoffrey Howe went to Yeld.
(Obscure eighties reference. You’re too young to get it.)
My name’s Bob the faerie and I’d like to accept this award on behalf of the Modest Medusa comic sti-
What? My friend gets shot in the eye? I get attacked by sheep? I thought this was an all ages comic strip!
Ha.
Ooooooohhhhhh deeeeeeeeaaaaar.
It reminds me about Soviet Russia. You see, you don’t eat the sheep. The sheep eat you!
Were the sheep in the castle able to do that?
Those weren’t trained and experienced. These are veteran combat sheep. But of course none of them are really sheep. They’re Yeld animals that kind of look like sheep.
I agree with the fairy.
“Oh god, no!” Aiieee.
Killer sheep !
Nobody counts sheep to get to sleep in Yeld.
Yeeeeahhh… turns out there’s a reason sheep in Yeld can only by tended by heroes of their personal choosing. Is there ANYTHING in Yeld that isn’t some sort of deadly monster? o.o
I’m also reminded of a bit from Discworld, about what in Fourecks isn’t dangerous. “Some of the sheep.” This is presumably what the rest of the sheep are like.
Wow, this comic never fails to please me.
Ship happens 😉
I’ve heard of being nibbled to death by ducks, but not by sheep…
Sheep are evil, in any world.
For some reason I had to think of the worms computer game.. where sheep are weaponized too. 🙂
Oooooh, lamb chomps!
In the trial of mankind, cows are the silent jury. Sheep, apparently, are the executioner.
There’s a bad horror movie about sheep who eat people.
Reminiscent of Black Sheep (2006)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sheep_(2006_film)
If you keep watch only for arrows, you get eaten by the sheep =p
wut…