Friday 2009-11-06 Screenshots Update discussion thread

[TheGrunch]

Originally Posted by Oleg Maddox

With the small angle it is all clear, however with angles of 30 to 60 degree is also possible ricochet - it is very well visible on some videos of WWII time.

Are you sure this isn't due to the shell ricocheting just past the crest of a wave in heavier seas? It seems to be a bit too complicated to model with a high degree of accuracy without huge amounts of processing power, though, apparently :
"Naval gun and armor
manufacturers use very powerful computers with computational fluid dynamics
programs to get approximations of how artillery rounds will perform against
ships and other hardened targets.
As you have learned empirically, angle and velocity are important factors
in ricochet, but there are many others; mineral content of the water,
temperature, shape of the projectile, rate of spin of the projectile,
hardness of the bullet, any deformations or imperfections on the surface of
the bullet, etc."
I tried searching my university's ejournals selection but unfortunately the most relevant study was that of ricocheting a 9mm bullet from shallow water, but I believe it was more concerned with the depth of penetration before the ricochet occurred. Another study was concerned with ricocheting of non-spinning projectiles. I can dig those up if you guys want.