The Nightstar Zoo

I've been doing some thinking on unusual combat techniques and I've come across something that I'd like a broader perspective on: darts.

Not blowgun darts or lawn darts, but metal-tipped dartboard darts intended for the use of being thrown at a dartboard. A long, sharp, thin metal tip and a dense metal body and some fins to stabilize.

Assuming we're not expecting to hit someone in the eye, what's the extent of the concern of being hit by one of these? It would surely hurt and be distracting. I doubt in and of itself that it would cause an injury that would require any treatment of any kind - just pull the dart out and the wound would heal without any assistance.

What about having the dart in you while you're trying to move? Would a dart in your arm interfere with your muscles ability to move? Would moving strenuously while this is imbedded in your flesh cause more damage around the dart itself? Keep in mind I'm not talking about pinpoint accuracy to hit someone in a tendon or artery, just a quick flick to launch it into the body or a limb or some vacant real estate of the head. I'm also not talking about anyone using this as a primary weapon, but more as a trump card or dirty trick in what is otherwise supposed to be a hand-to-hand or melee engagement.

If I'm fighting you and I secretly have a dart and I get the chance to huck it at you, should I do it, or would there be better use of that time spent with my bare hands?

With all this said it would be pretty easy to load the dart with a small amount of poison or capsaicin or sodium or something and that would have an effect on the answer, but right now I am worried about what the dart can do on its own.

disclaimer: this is for fictional purposes and I will not be throwing darts at anyone

No and no.

I would say it's yes and yes . . . but not to any meaningful degree, especially since the first thing most enemies will do is pull the dart out.

It might make the enemy mad, but that's about all.

--FreeFlier

Primitive tribes who used blowgun darts for hunting always poisoned the tips of the darts. That should tell you all you need to know about making a dartboard dart an effective weapon. Otherwise they're a minor annoyance at worst, a brief distraction at best - the kind you take advantage of by running away while they're pulling the dart out.

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The MacNut
Artist and writer of The Vanguard, a space opera superhero comic.

"Ow, you DICK!! You're lucky I just had my tetanus shot, or I'd make you PAY for that shit!!"

If you're very, very lucky. Otherwise, expect to learn of a whole new world of pain.

Doesn't the MC from an anime called Future Diary use darts as his main weapon? Granted he did have really good accuracy and went for the eyes.

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Rule of thumb is that if you need to use a squeegee, they're at least Laz-4.

The other question I have here as well is "are the darts actually hitting skin in the first place"

I mean if everyone's got tickets to the gun show and they're giving out free wife-beaters, your chances go up I suppose.

But...leather jacket? Bulky sweater? Ironic sweater-vest? I'm not super-convinced that a 50 gram playing dart is going to get penetration at anything outside of "I might as well just stab him with a knife" distance.

Throwing knives start at about 200 grams, and even the light-end of that scale sometimes just get called "floaters"

Now, were you to use something like Lawn Darts . . .

--FreeFlier

I totally stuck one into a bikers shoulder once, through his leathers*. Luckily I was 14 and he was so drunk he thought it was funny.

Also, dude shouldn't have stepped in front of the dart board while a game was in play, he was lucky I tried to stop my throw (I saw him at the last second and tried to not let go but only threw my aim off), if I'd have been on center, he'd have taken it to the face.


And yeah, I said "no and no" because I've had darts stuck in my back and it didn't even slow down the assbeating I was handing out. I didn't even realize they were darts, despite the entire tip being buried in, I thought the guy's girlfriend was throwing ashtrays or cups or something at my back.




* I sunk darts into plywood, trees, logs, thick-ass linoleum, knocked chips out of concrete, broken glass windows, you name it, I've missed and buried a dart into it.

Your concern should be that I now have a dart.

That's what I love about this place. A wide variety of expertise in unexpected fields of study.

I suppose the amount of pain it would cause might be ignorable in the heat of a brawl.

I'm not terribly concerned about the enemy now having my dart because it's highly unlikely they've spent the amount of time I have using it in a fist fight.

The benefit of a dart over a knife is its volume; if the fletches fold in it takes up a lot less space and is much easier to conceal than a knife. The benefit of a throwing knife over a dart is everything else.

So, I'm getting that hucking a dart into my opponent's chest right before I close the gap and swing at his jaw might not be worth the investment because he may not even notice the dart.

Now, if I ground a fullerene into it and filled said fullerene with pure sodium I believe the juicy wetness of the target's flesh would cause the sodium to react. The capsaicin would certainly be a lot more noticeable than the plain dart but would probably take a moment to kick in.

A specially made dart made like a porcupine quill would be interesting but slow & would really take away from the core concept of cheap, replaceable, unconventional weapons.

If your purpose is distraction, literally anything flicked at the face (specifically towards the eyes) will do. Heck, take up smoking and flick your lit cig at their face. I guarantee even hardcore killers will flinch when a hot coal is spinning in at their eyes.