Blade has a weapon that launches syringes filled with a UV-luminescent liquid.
edited 18th Feb '14 11:29:00 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"It all depends on the vampires in your mythos.
Some are well-nigh ludicrous - indestructible machines against everything except some odd-ball Achilles' Heel(s) - while others are more "plausible".
The Revenants/Vampires I came up with for one of my Wi P were vulnerable to a lot of things that would kill any living creature:
Starvation (you've got to fuel your body, regardless of how invulnerable it is and if you're expending vast amounts of energy healing from wounds or performing superhuman feats, then your dietary needs probably exceed those of less capable lifeforms.)
Beheading or sufficient damage to the brain (remove that and functionality departs pretty quickly.)
Drowning/suffocation or any other means of incapacitating the lungs (the laws of physics/chemistry dictate that if you can't oxygenate your food to provide the requisite energy, you die.) This includes having your lungs destroyed by a suitably-sized weapon.
Fire. 'Nuff said.
Thirst (everything needs water to function properly).
Destruction of heart (if it can't pump blood/nutrients around the body, the body stops working).
The key being complete destruction/removal of brain, heart or lungs - a serious wound that would incapacitate or kill a human may be survivable if there's enough function left to survive long enough to heal (and they heal fucking quickly).
To which is added: "allergy" to certain plants (garlic, rose, ash, white oak and hawthorn) the juice/sap of which can cause serious aggravation of any wounds, increasing damage received as well as impairing the healing process considerably.
A stake through the heart would seriously impair them (it'd kill most things) and would prevent healing until such time as it was removed (which is usually easy for a large stake - grab and pull). A stake of rose, ash, white oak or hawthorn (or has been soaked in garlic oil) would cause a wound that takes longer to heal after having been removed.
Other than that, Holy Water would only make them wet and religious symbols are only effective if you make them from garlic, rosewood, ash, white oak or hawthorn...
... then somehow force the vampire to eat them.
In the case of my vampires/revenants, a gun that fires bullets that have garlic oil in them would do serious damage. A shot to the heart or brain would be quite devastating and potentially lethal to them, especially if it fragments nicely and scatters highly motile oil throughout their vitals causing aggravated damage.
Traces of garlic oil getting into the bloodstream and being carried throughout the body wouldn't be pleasant, either.
Then again, a 12ga full of steel bird shot to the heart from about 4-5 yards (at 1" spread per yard, roughly) would probably stand the same chance of killing them - that crater where their heart used to be would be "problematic"...
But if your vampires heal from the most ridiculous wounds because of some dark magic, then you may need something with more "oomph".
edited 18th Feb '14 12:48:25 PM by Wolf1066
In. Skulduggery Pleasant, the Vampires have none of the normal weakness, and instead have an allergic reaction to seawater, which closes their throats and suffocates them.
Enough bullets to put down a rhino on PCP also works too.
Then again, they act a lot like hairless werewolves anyway.
Seawater closes my throat and suffocates me too. If I immerse myself in it for a long time. In that regard it's little different from freshwater, or indeed any other liquid.
Now if you mean they have an anaphylactic reaction to it... yeah.
edited 19th Feb '14 7:15:30 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"It really does depend on how various substances affect the vampire in question as in what mythos.
Packed bullets are indeed not all that reliable to varying degrees but then again packed bullets also give us polymer expansion tips. The biggest concern though is round balance. If a round is poorly balanced it will tumble shortly after exiting the barrel and become increasingly inaccurate over distance.
Wood is kind of an odd choice for a bullet. It can be amazingly hard but under the kinds of forces fire arms exert on projectiles rather fragile and the hardest woods are not the most dense woods.
IIRC correctly the most dense wood in the world is Black Ironwood it is more dense the Lignum Vitae. However the plant that produces it can only produce small amounts of lumber. It has a wood density of 81 lbs per cubic foot. But it only has a Janka Hardness of 3,660 lbf. The Lignum Vitae while less dense is harder with a Janka Hardness of 4,390 lb. The hardest of hard woods is a species of iron wood found in Australia called Allocasuarina luehmannii
You need to strike a balance between density and hardness. Something similar is done with bullets which is part of the reason why jacketed rounds exist. The copper is harder then the lead but the lead is more dense. So maybe the answer is a composite round.
As for incendiary rounds. Here is the catch. Most incendiary rounds are very lousy at setting people on fire. They are designed specifically to set vehicles, fuel, munitions, and other very flammable things on fire. They don't reliably ignite a targets clothing either. The (pyrotechnic) Dragon's Breath round is lousy as an incendiary weapon as well.
If you want reliable incendiary effects against personnel you have a few options. The traditional burning petrol chemical mix. Usually splashed or sprayed by any number of devices like flame throwers or Molotov cocktails or aerial munitions like Napalm bombs.
The next option is white phosphorus. As long as it has access to air it will continue to burn and can burn people down to the bone. It will keep burning until smothered sufficiently or no more phosphorus remains. There have been a large number of anti-personnel munitions including a type of grenade, rockets, bombs, and artillery shells. It tends to coat a large area and also generates a fair bit of smoke.
The final option is something the Russians specialize in. Fuel Air Explosives. These weapons are classified as incendiaries for a good reason. The weapons have two primary effects. A very intense thermal flash followed by a powerful shockwave. Close to the center of the explosion it is possible for people to be vaporized. Further out they become severely burned with blast injuries. Further out it is all blast injuries and injuries from flying debris. They have made FAE munitions that can be packed into a round as small as 25mm and still remain lethal.
Incendiary Rocket launchers replaced the bulky flame throwers with their short range and very limited fire time. The Russians moved over to mostly FAE weapons like the RPO-A while the US created the M202 Flash which uses something similar to napalm but enhanced with aluminum accelerants.
Either one would be nasty and likely would get the job done.
A consideration for the bullets in general I forgot about. A saboted round could be viable. A sleeve rest around the projectile, which is often designed with aerodynamics and balance in mind typically a dart with fins, this provides the grip the barrel needs and the sabot takes the brunt of the forces of firing. The round will be going down range pretty fast. Combine that with drunks idea of a solid metal core for mass and you can make round with a "wood jacket" that you can fire with some high velocity.
There are other crazy things you could try. Like fine wood powder/dust bound with a strong epoxy polymer. You could even incorporate silver and other metals for mass and even add powdered garlic into it. It would be a frangible type round though meaning body armor will stop it cold but it should in theory perform well.
edited 19th Feb '14 5:05:27 PM by TuefelHundenIV
Who watches the watchmen?Yeah, it all really depends on what kind of vamps we're talking about here. If they sleep in coffins during the day, you might not even have to bother with making custom bullets. Just plant a homemade bomb on the coffin and run.
Of course, if they're the immortal unless you hit them with their weaknesses type, the bullets might be a good idea.
edited 19th Feb '14 5:34:46 PM by majoraoftime
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Vampires are normally more susceptible to fire than normal people. That implies to me that they are more flammable than your average Screaming Alpha fire.note Though as noted, I'm sure it does vary based on which universe you're talking about.
It's not that they are more susceptible, necessarily — fire kills normal people quite well too. They are just not resistant/immune to damage from fire like they are from most other things.
Now, if there are some depictions of vampires where touching them with a match makes them ignite like they were covered in gasoline, that's definitely an extraordinary susceptibility. You normally associate that kind of vulnerability with mummies, though, as mentioned previously.
edited 20th Feb '14 8:24:21 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Any kind of shotgun round to the face would be lethal for most vamps. Decapitation kills.
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Exaggerated, yes. Invented wholesale, no. It's not a clean decapitation like you'd get with an axe, but it can still do it.
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.

Didn't Blade use similar bullets? I remember him mentioning it in one of his movies.