I don’t really know what level of force it would actually take to do this, I assume it’s easier to do at the elbow than at the shoulder.
I don’t just meant tearing the ligaments so that it hyperextends but actually doing enough traction to tear the flesh and muscles connecting the humerus to the radius/ulna in half as if it were cut by a sword and it starts gushing blood and you’re holding a ripped-off piece of bone like how you would tear up a chicken wing.
The angle of force needed to do this would rotate about 90 degrees so the classic arm bar position probably wouldn’t be ideal for this, instead you’d probably do something like plant your feet in a guy’s armpit and be trying to deadlift his wrist.
Obviously this isn’t something that’d happen in MMA, am mostly curious about the force for adapting it to dice games like GURPS, since people want to know stuff like “how superhumanly strong does my cyborg/demon need to be to rip off a guy’s arms like Jax in Mortal Kombat?”
A chimp might be able to do it.
If you look up the amount of torque generated by an alligator or crocodile death rolling after it clamps on to something, that will give you a starting point of what amount of torque will do it.
Or, you could get some livestock after it was slaughtered but not yet cut up, and get some equipment with measurements, of how much force was required, on those surrogates for a human arm.
I’ve cut a lot of lower legs off of White Tailed deer…
No way a human is going to singl handedly without a lot of additional leverage just twist that joint off. Even if you break it , the skin won’t get torn by human strength.
A fresh chicken leg, same thing. The skin will be a bitch. It might tear off the meat, but you won’t rip a cut in it with your bare hands.
Cut being the operative word.
Even when horses were used to draw and quarter the condemned or dead to send a message, often the limbs were given partial cuts first.
Field-dressing and quartering medium and large game provides a good analog, to the OP’s question. If you have never skinned an animal, you are likely clueless.
First, let me state that a dead animal is NOT a resisting opponent. Any second-week white belt in BJJ can tell you that resisting in the wrong way helps the other player.
For skinning, I use a gambrel. That is, I use a block and tackle at 2:1 or 3:1 ratio to hoist my prey into a vertical position (usually from a stout tree limb), hind legs up. I then use a sharp knife to separate the coat near the ankles, and start to work it down. It’s easiest to use a knife on the internal connective tissue, until you reach the back. Then, you can use your body weight to rip it, until you get to the front legs, where your knife will find utility, again. Or, you can wuss out and use your knife the whole way, but that takes more time and finesse.
But, none of that would be possible easy without the initial cuts. A compound fracture (i.e. bone protruding through the skin) could provide the “cut.”
By bodyweight, I mean my entire meager 150-ish lbs. supported by the cadaver.
