Snake oil - a satire

Snake oil is a synonym for a fraudulent product in the English language, based on snake oil
products which were supposed to have wondrous effects and did nothing. It has to come to refer to any
product with questionable or unverifiable quality or benefit. Snake oil is a proper title for this
piece, for I will detail how to sell a product thats basically a scam.
Gun shields have been known since quick-firing guns were introduced in the late 19
th
century. An
early application of the concept on a machinegun was the Sokolov carriage for the Russian PM 1910
Maxim machinegun. The idea is simple; put a steel plate between the machinegunner and his
enemies but leave him enough field of view to see his enemies.
PM 1910 machinegun with shield, Stahlkocher
Its a very, very simple idea and a quick search for
patents reveals that the whole concept has been
thoroughly explored by inventors generations ago
already. There was a novelty in the last decade which
employed armoured glass instead of steel (on a vehicle-
mounted gunner position) to improve the field of view,
though. The increased weight was acceptable on
vehicles.
How could your small company still make a big profit on a gun shield nowadays? Especially you have
no really good idea how to improve on the concept?
Simple: Skip the military and law enforcement market; they have engineers who can evaluate your
design and expose any snake oil. Bet on individuals as customers instead. What you need is something
fancy, something to convince them that you have a useful novelty, something great, on offer.
Something never seen before. Such as a spring-based mounting for the shield, for example. Nobody
has introduced such a thing in over hundred years of gun shield history apparently. But you dont need
a good product: You merely need material to support a marketing drive. Preferably something about
rails. Rails are fucking sexy! All tacticool gadgets need to be for rails! And dont forget to mention
tactical in your commercial firm name. Tactical is still in fashion!
Oh, you ask what marketing drive? Well, you need a video, obviously. Then you need to talk a lot
about how you (supposedly) got input and critique from some of the best Tier 1 special
operations warfighters that our military has (!!!).
Maybe just maybe somebody dares to be skeptical about your snake oil. Maybe he points out that
its strange how nobody in a hundred years had thought such a simple principle would make sense on
a gun shield. Theres a simple response to this: Question his competence without knowing anything
about him, and refer to the demi-gods Tier 1 special operations warfighters as if such a claim would
actually lend you any credibility.
Maybe somebody will ask about the weight of your gun shield. Its quite inevitable, actually. Weight
is the reason why almost no rifle or machinegun has a rifle mounted unless its somehow connected to
wheels, after all. Well, theres a simple trick: Dont disclose the weight of the gun shield assembly.
Instead, at first only disclose the weight of the mounting. Right, disclose the weight of the mounting
not of the gun shield system. You need to have your gun shield separated in two pieces, of course. So
you need two gun shield mountings, and you only need to tell the weight of one such mounting instead
of two.
1.4 lbs sounds much less terrible than 2.8 lbs, after all !
Also, make sure not to mention the weight of the actual shield the armour plates anywhere close to
the weight of the mounting. And if pressed, only provide the weight of one shield, not of both. Same
reason as above; it doesnt sound quite as terrible.
3.5 lbs isnt nearly as scary as 7 lbs!
And heaven forbid, never, ever tell the weight of the whole snake oil gadget.
Because that whole gun shield system weighs 9.8 lbs!
Now that sounds scary. There are entire machineguns on the market which weigh little more (Ultimax
100: 10.5 lbs). The gun with which you show the gun shield assembly off in your video probably
weighs less! It would sound (and look) even more stupid if you pointed out that this weight is far
forward on the gun, making the entire gun front-heavy and a pain to handle.
Besides, almost ten pounds; dont even try to sell this to the military. They will laugh at you or they
will let engineers or soldiers evaluate it. And the evaluation may find the obvious: Nobody is stupid
enough to burden the overburdened infantry with so much additional weight far forward on their guns.
And if you really were this stupid and attempted to sell your snake oil to the military, at least dont be
stupid enough to release the video with a date stamp showing that your snake oil was already finished
more than two years before you went public with it. Somebody might deduce that you had ample time
to offer it to the government since then and ask about its evaluation results!
And maybe somebody calls you out. Standard drill in this case: Reply to him with an account not
linked to your company. This way you can talk shit, be inconsistent and threaten him! Anonymity in
the internet is so great.

Now lets look at a - not really hypothetical - spring-based mounting for a gun shield:








possiblebulletstrikedirections
armourplate
barrelsomewherehere
yoursupposedlyohso
greatshieldmounting
a
You will in your marketing efforts pretend that its the operator who matters, of course. Especially
your some of the best Tier 1 special operations warfighters that our military has who allegedly
advised you with their infallible wisdom.
We know of course that this is a simple mechanical device, with a simple geometry, a plate, a spring,
some attenuation clearly the specialty of mechanical engineers, not grunts. Thus lets look at how an
engineer sees this device (next page):








( F
1
, F
2
, F
3
and F
4
depict possible forces of impacting bullets.)

The mechanics are quite simple: The bullet has a kinetic energy (= mass * velocity * velocity). They
dont transfer the whole energy to the shield, though; instead, they transfer the impulse (= mass *
velocity). This means the shield hasnt absorbed the full energy after impact; some energy is used up
for deforming the bullet, some for deforming the shield and some kinetic energy simply turns into
thermal energy (heat).
The impulse transfer of an impact along the axis of F
4
would effectively force the plate to move
backwards. The plate cannot move backwards because its mounted on a hinge a on top, though. So
it rotates around the hinge instead. The spring in the system (its not really relevant where exactly it is)
can then store the rotational energy as it slows down the rotation to zero (assuming the plate does not
have too much of it) and afterwards push the plate back. Theres also some attenuation involved in the
real world, as no man-made mechanism is without friction.
So this storing of the original kinetic energy in the spring (and attenuation) is your basis for why the
mounting makes sense, supposedly. It doesnt prove that the mounting is worth its weight not even
relative to other, no more patent-eligible gun shield mountings. But thats not what matters. You can
now show a video of bullet impacts equivalent to the F
2
, F
3
and F
4
forces and how the plate rotates
back and forth.
Wait, what happened to F
1
? Oh yes, do not show that. Because theres not going to be any rotation
after a F
1
bullet strike. Oh, wait, maybe you still show it but your video would shows that theres no
rotation because theres no substantial lever, after all!

F
1

F
2

F
3

F
4

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red years,