Please don't try what you're about to see at home.
We're what you call experts.
On this episode of "Mythbusters,"
Adam and Jamie are getting for two dual dilemmas.
Right in the belly.
First, is it true that you should
never bring a knife to a gunfight.
Then, in a samurai showdown,
does the fighter who move first actually lose.
I got a headache.
Meanwhile, Kari, Tory and Grent
go ballistic,
It's raining death from above.
as they fire up an epic retrorocket.
Let's get the bullet to shoot the arrows.
Was the ancient chinese fire dragon --
This is ten live rocket arrows inside fire dragon.
really the world's first two-stage mythical missile?
Three, two, one, fire.
Who are the mythbusters?
Adam Savage
I reject your reality and substitute my own.
and Jamie Hyneman
We're gonna have an adventure.
Between them, more than 30 years of special effects experience.
Together with Tory Belleci,
Come along with a journey.
Grant Imahara,
and Kari Byron.
Let's do it.
They don't just tell the myths,
they put them to the test.
What's with all the weaponry?
Well, we've got some dueling myths on the roster today.
Dueling.
Dueling, you know, two guys facing off against each other.
You were in a duel once, weren't you?
I don't want to talk about it.
Fair enough. The first one we got to test is the old west saying,
don't bring a knife to a gunfight.
Meaning that one of those always beats one of these.
the first one to move, will lose.
So, it's a dueling double bill and first up,
the guys are gunning for a classic cliche.
So, cowboys' advice is to never bring a knife to a gunfight.
Exactly. And honestly it seems painly obvious.
I mean if I am holding this gun and you're holding that knife,
we're like 20 feet apart.
I am going to shoot you before you can get to me and stab me.
Yeah, but what if I was to throw the knife?
Like Magnificent Seven.
That's the one and it might even the odds little bit.
Boy, it might.
I tell you what, why don't you be the shooter
and I'll go and get some experts knife throwing advice.
Then we'll meet at the corral.
You're on.
See you there.
If I'm going to go up against the gun with a throwing knife,
I'm going to need a little practice.
With that in mind, we've brought
in knife throwing expert, John Lava,
who's going to tell me everything I need to know,
including how to do the famous throw from Magnificent Seven.
So John, let's have a look at the overhand throw.
What's the trick?
Your basic trick is take your pinky,
put it on the radius of the handle.
Hold the handle like you would a hammer.
Ok, got it.
Then what?
You stand sideways to the target.
Bring the knife back over your head.
Go forward. Then you will hear
the knife slide out of your hand.
John makes it sounds so easy.
And with ten years of knife throwing experience, it is.
But for a don't try this at home novice,
I'm on side, pinky on the radius.
there is no cathing to the spin.
But Jamie tries,
tries and tries again until --
Look at that.
Despite hitting the bullseye --
Not bad.
it's not all good news.
Because this overhand throw is too slow to beat a gunslinger.
A Magnificent Seven here went under the knife.
And this lower blow is a much tougher throw.
So, let's cut to our shooter.
It's knife versus gun,
and I'm the one holding the gun against Jamie's throwing knife.
We couldn't find an old west gun that shoots paint balls,
so we went with a more modern version.
This one here.
But I am still going to wear a old vest style holster.
They don't make those,
so I'm going to make one.
Firing real bullets at Jamie is too dangerous,
even for the mythbusters.
So can leather makes nice pliable.
So a paint ball pistol complete with freshly fabricated holster
will be their weapon of choice.
I'm pretty pleased with that.
This is not a real gun.
I wouldn't put a real gun in my camera man. You get that?
And while Adam practices his quick draw,
Right in the belly.
Jamie's finally perfected his pitch.
Here we go.
I made this throw and actually hit the bullseye from 20 feet.
So clearly, with some practice, you can get pretty good at this.
But having a success knife throw
is about precisely knowing what kind of power you have to put in
at a specific distance to hit the target.
Now that puts it into an entirely different league
than using a pistol where all you have to do
is point the darn thing and pull the trigger.
Yeah, there is no doubt about it.
Firing a gun is easier,
but does that mean you should never bring a knife to a gunfight?
Next, it's out of the frying pan into the fire dragon.
All right.
This is going to be fun.
Because we have ancient weapon myth that
I think is awesome.
What is it?
It's called the fire dragon.
Now, this is from 14th century China
and rumored to be the very first two-stage rocket.
All right. I know this one.
It's supposedly a long tube with a dragon head on the end.
And according to the legend, it had the rocket on the outside
and propelled it up to the air.
Halfway through the flight,
the second weapon stage activates
and rocket arrows come shooting out of the mouth.
So, the kicker, nobody knows for sure if this thing worked?
Exactly.
The evidence is really, really poor. So it's up to us to test it.
Roaring to life in 14th century china,
the fire dragon was supposedly the world's first two-stage rocket missile.
Stage one used four rockets to get airborne.
Stage two would then fire off ten rocket arrows
directly towards its target.
But is this ancient anecdote accurate
or dismiss going down?
All right, so since this rocket is two-stage rocket,
I say we test it in two stages.
Go on.
First stage, we've got to see if this rocket design
is aerodynamic enough actually to fly straight.
Right I got to say right off the back,
I highly doubt this thing is gonna fly straight.
If you look at the the drawing,
it doesn't like aerodynamic at all.
Ok, why don't we make a miniature version,
take it to NASA and see,
if it is aerodynamic.
Then we move on to see if we get rocket parrel arrows
to fly out of its mouth mid flight.
I love it.
I've been doing a little bit research on the fire gragon weapon
and all the historical drawings look pretty consistent.
There's four booster rockets on the outside
and an open mouth dragon head
spits out the arrows inside,
and sort of a tail that makes the fins.
So I'm going to make the fire dragon rocket in small scale.
Take it to the NASA wind tunnel,
and see if it has a chance of flying straight.
If it doesn't,
we'll make a couple of modifications until it does.
Because historical pictures can be more propaganda than precision,
Not a dragon yet.
Kari's starting by sculpturing the ancient drawings in scale.
Richy, they have a fire dragon.
She'll then use this model to see
if the mythical could ever get off the ground in the first place.
One arrow breathing fire dragon.
And in case not,
she also builts a back-up.
I made an arrow breathing fire dragon based on the historical drawings.
But because it's not the most aerodynamic shape,
I also modified a head and made it a little more simple,
so that we take this to NASA,
if this isn't going to fly straight,
we have a small alternatives.
With the two creations carved out,
let the rocket science commence.
Ready to go back into the wind tunnel.
NASA and dragon seems like an odd mix, doesn't it?
Oh, you'll see.
Kari's traditional fire dragon exactly as depicted in all the diagrams.
You've got the set up in the wind tunnel.
Wind tunnel to 25 miles per hour,
and if it starts to turn
and does not self-correct back straight,
then we'll know, we're not stable.
This is test one, lateral stability of the arrow breathing fire dragon.
Go ahead, turn on the wind.
Under the watchful eye of senior siters Steve Smith,
the the wind winds up and then --
If I poke at it, we'll see how it diverges.
That's really not stable.
Yep, a stable rocket won't budge when given a nudge.
By flipping full circle,
the ancient fire dragon design is an aerodynamic disaster.
So it's off to Kari's plan B.
The head.
While thanks to some simple aerodynamic encouragement,
Internal model.
the mythical missile can still get fired up yet.
All right.
Round two.
This is more aerodynamic hopefully.
Arrow breathing fire dragon with fins and modified head.
Go ahead and start up the wind.
With the wind at speed, Steve knocks her up.
Yeah, that's really stable.
It's great.
And this time,
the rocket immediately bounces back.
A clear sign that this dragon is durable.
I think we have a design.
So we've had great success in the wind tunnel.
We have a stable design.
I know it doesn't look exactly like the drawings,
but believing me, if you saw this
flying over the horizon spitting arrows at you --
you'll call this an arrow breathing dragon.
Still to come,
the fire dragon breathes again.
But next, who will rule the duel?
Did I get hit?
You nicked my shoulder.
It's a classic cowboy conundrum.
But should you really never bring a knife to a gunfight?
What a great space.
Nice space for a shootout.
Let's have a showdown.
Okay.
First up for this showdown comes some mutual target practice.
Adam with his paint ball pistol,
and Jamie with a water balloon.
So I wanted threw my handing knife at Adam's head,
for some reason, nobody else thought this was a good idea,
so i've come up with a safe knife analog.
That's these water balloons.
They've felt such they got the same masses as the knife,
and if I throw them at the same speed,
they're basically identical.
Except they're none lethal.
You're feeling ready?
Ready as I'll ever be.
Let's do it.
So, here's our experimental set-up for replicating
the knife-against-gun showdown from the Magnificent Seven.
Jamie is the knife.
I am the gun.
We stand 16 feet apart,
and the signal to move is when Mike fires the starter pistol.
The minute I hear that bang,
I've got to get to Adam with my knife substitute
before he gets to me with his pistol.
I'm ready.
Let's do it.
Are you all right?
You got me in the -- crotch.
You got me right here.
- I got you - I shot you in the croth. I'm sorry about that.
And I think I got the shot off before you got the knife in.
However, still means I'm dead.
I'd be very unhappy.
This is a very interesting result.
I got my shot off long before the knife got to me,
but the knife still got to me,
so the fact is,
Jamie got his groin shot off and I have a knife in my chest.
In that one, I'd say knife wins.
But give us a few more times just to make sure.
So, cue test two.
That was it.
You hit me and I got you.
- Nice. - Good.
We've only had a couple of tries at this
and we're already getting some really interesting data.
You can see on the high speed camera
that my knife is halfway to Adam
before he's pulled the trigger of his gun
which means that unless he dodges,
he's going to die from the knife.
So, for test three,
the plan is exactly that.
Can Adam shoot straight then dodge the knife?
You dodged my knife.
Did I get hit?
I missed you.
Well, in a word,
no.
While he did duck,
doing so meant his aim was lame and Jamie survives as well.
Let's do it again.
In test four, Adam is accurate.
But this time gets hit himself.
You nicked my shoulder.
But in test five,
it all comes together in slow motion.
Mike fires the gun.
Jamie launches the knife.
Adam shoots Jamie square in the chest,
before he then ducks from death.
I hit him right in the chest.
And a whole bunch of subsequent tests.
I shot your leg off.
It's the same old story.
You keep ducking.
Bringing a knife to a gunfight
won't let you rule the duel.
I'm like spot on every time,
but you keep moving.
After our extensive testing,
Magnificent Seven knife-against-gun showdown,
here's how it shakes out.
Gun wins.
For a couple of reasons.
One, I was always able to squeeze a shot off
before the knife got to me.
Two, most of the time,
I had enough time after squeezing off the round,
actually dodge the knife.
You can't dodge a bullet. I think we've proved that one before.
So, is that it?
For knife-against-gun, gun just win?
Not by a long shot.
I'm not done with you yet.
Excellent. Let's go.
Coming right up,
will the fire dragon go ballistic?
Fire dragon is no joke.
The ancient fire dragon had a wind tunnel wipeout.
That's really not stable.
But their modify missile was a streamlined sensation.
I think we have a design.
So, what's next?
All right, so now,
it's time to focus on this mythical second stage of the fire dragon.
Yeah, supposedly mid flight,
ten arrows started shooting out of the dragons mouth.
Yeah, it's three things we have to figure out.
One, design.
How do we grip the arrows inside the body
to make sure they can still fire out accurately?
Two, timing. How do we get all ten arrows to fire on cue?
And three, size.
How big this thing gonna be?
I have an idea for arrow containment unit,
and a time fuse system.
But I'm not really sure about the size.
I think they have to be pretty big
because we have to accommodate a three foot arrow,
plus a fuse stage for the rocket.
So I think we're talking about a six-foot fire dragon rocket.
We're going to have to go out to the desert to fire these off.
Sounds good to me.
With the history books no help for the mythical second stage,
the guys have to tackle this part from scratch
as they redesign
and retime their ancient wartime weapon full scale.
Or at least Tory does.
I'm going to be working on the ignition system.
Now, this isn't going to be an easy task.
What I need to do is to get all ten rocket part arrows to fire out
right as the shuttle is coming down upon the approaching army.
Tory's first step for the second stage
is to turn the arrows into a rocket arrows.
Then he comes over all quiver.
What I'm working on right now is the quiver
that's going to hold the rocket powered arrows.
There's going to be ten of them
and they're going to slip inside the fire dragon.
We don't want all ten arrows bouncing around
as it's going on its fly.
Although it looks more gaveling gun than arrow holder,
Let's get the bullet to shoot the arrows.
it's this clever quiver
that should give the arrows a degree of accuracy,
provided they even ignite.
You ready?
This is second stage of fire dragon test.
Here we go. Three, two, one.
It may not look like it,
but this test could not have gone better.
The fuse system was a blast.
Igniting all arrows on cue,
and the quiver support
let those arrows fly straight and true.
The ignition system of the second stage of fire dragon worked perfectly.
The best part is,
the arrows embedded themselves in the plywood behind us.
So, that's means we have a lethal rocket power arrows.
I think all we have to do now getting timing
from the first stage to the second stage perfect.
And it's time to go to the desert.
Tory's right.
With the second stage firing on all cylinders,
next, the guys need to up the ante.
I love it out here.
Here comes the mongolian army.
Let's hit him with the fire dragon.
We've come out to the Mojave desert to test our fire dragon.
Now I've taken my small scale fire dragon,
which worked great at NASA and flew straight,
and brought it to full scale.
It's now six feet of pure rocket power.
All right, launch set complete.
But before any missile mayhem,
there's timer testing to be done.
One challenge we're facing is figuring out
when the second stage is going to happen,
so we're going to fire one of these
without a second stage.
See how long it goes.
Once we know that,
we can cut our fuse so our second stage
happens halfway through the flight.
Correct timing of the second stage is crucial.
Too short a fuse, the arrows will go nowhere fast.
Too long a fuse, and it will be just as inept.
The butter zone is the middle.
When the missile has reached its apex,
the second stage can deliver it's payload at full potential.
But how long to reach apex?
All right, so this is fire dragon test fire
to see how long it flies for.
Here we go.
In three, two, one, fire.
Fire dragon is no joke.
- Stop timer. - 12 seconds.
That's perfect.
The first stage of the fire dragon flew for 12 seconds
and flew straight.
Now, it's time to work on the second stage.
And we want that to happen in the middle of its flight,
so six seconds after it launches,
the fire arrows need to start shooting out of its mouth,
so I need to cut a fuse.
That happens at exactly six seconds.
This is going to be awesome.
Fire.
Now they know the fuse time,
the guys can now put the second stage to a proof of concept test.
With a new dragon, a ten rocket arrow wore head
and six-second fuse,
Fire dragon.
it's all set for the stage two showdown.
All right now,
listen, i need you to fly into the air and at six seconds,
I need you to start shooting your fire arrows out of your mouth.
All right, you got that?
Don't make me look stupid.
Okay, this is rocket test fully loaded with arrows.
In three, two, one --
Fins blew off.
I don't know about that distance,
but it looked like the rig worked.
Fuses worked perfectly, man.
It wasn't a textbook test,
but it was mission accomplished.
Moment after launch, the stabilizing fins fell off,
sending the rockets spinning.
But in spite of this,
the second stage ignited on cue,
and the rocket arrows fired.
And that's enough to take this myth into battle.
Please do not try what you're about to see at home.
We're what you call "experts".
Can't you tell?
Salute to your opponent.
Engage.
In duel dilemma,
Adam and Jamie are about to see
who lives by the sword and who dies by it.
You'll be all right.
It's only a flesh wound.
Next is the world of kendo or samurai.
He who moves first, loses.
So reaction is faster than action.
Right.
Perhaps adrenaline helps your brain react to something faster
than you could actually initiate it in the first place.
Well, looks like we need to get some kendo training.
Let's do it.
You should be noted here, neither Jamie nor I
are experienced swordsmen,
so we brought in an expert.
Mr David Nakanishi is a fourth-dan kendo practitioner,
and he is going to instruct us in the basics enough
to properly conduct this test without,
you know, hurting each other.
And once kit it up, the kendo class begins.
Full steam ahead.
You want to swing all the way over your head
and come down. All right.
And after three hours of being hit --
Wow, that hurt.
Again, again and again,
This isn't very pleasant.
the guys have apparently mastered the basics.
OK. So now we've learned different striking teckniques
and because while we like bashing each other on the head best,
we're gonna test that technique
and see whether in fact he who attacks first strikes last.
But before the "reaction vs action" battle commences,
Adam's got a rig to rig.
So, when Jamie and I go head to head,
we need an automated system that does two things.
First, it's got to randomly allocate who makes the the first move,
which is what this circuit box controls.
Nice.
And second, it's got to determine who wins.
For that, I've coated our helmets
and our swords with a conductive mesh
so that when you get hit, your helmet lights up.
If this works,
then my sword should light up Jamie's helmet.
It does! And Jamie's sword should light up my helmet.
It does!
We are totally ready.
Well, in that case,
it's back to the dojo,
which has had a makeover for both aesthetics and science.
Our set-up here is pretty straightforward.
Who attacks first will be determined by a little signal light.
There's one over Jamie's shoulder that only I can see.
And the same over my shoulder for him.
If I see my signal light go on,
I take a deep breath
and sometime between five and ten seconds later, I attack.
If I hit Jamie correctly, his lights go on.
If he hits me correctly, so do mine.
The high speed camera tells us who got there first.
We should make due note here that this isn't about wailing away
at each other until somebody gives.
This is one strike at a time and we're recording the results.
All right, Mr. Hyneman. Are you ready?
I'm ready.
Here I go.
Begin test one.
On cue, the randomizer selects that it's Adam who has to move first.
But who won?
So check this first shot out.
Classic Jamie. You give him a contest
and he only pays attention to the ultimate parameter of the contest,
which is I got to light up the lights on Adam's head.
You can see.
I'm actually going for a full hit and Jamie's just reaching out,
poking with his stick.
And what that means is test one's tie is invalid.
For test two --
Ready?
where the randomizer again selects Adam,
it's go big or go home.
I get hit with a two by four.
It doesn't feel good.
This time, with two sizable swings,
Adam's the clear winner, which is not good news for the myth.
For test three, Jamie's selected to lead.
And like test two, he who moved first actually won.
But the guys aren't giving up
on this myth without a fight,
as they breakthrough the pain barrier
in twenty separate bouts.
Jamie and I spent all day in that armor
smacking each other in the heads with those shinai,
and you should note a couple of things as we're going.
One, you can see clearly that we get faster as we go,
which means that doesn't hurt less.
It actually hurts more as we progress.
Secondly, the shinai that we're using,
they're wrapped in screen. They're about half a pound heavier each,
which means we're taking more force on our head
than the armor's been designed for
and both of us are going to feel it the next day.
Yeah. I didn't know when I signed up for this job
that it required impacts to the head.
I've got a headache.
So do I.
Let's go crunch our data and nurse our wounds.
Back at the shop with medication taken --
First mover, first hit.
That was you.
the guys review all 20 high speeds --
That was a tie.
and a pattern emerges fast.
Jamie and I reviewed many, many high speed shots of us
whacking each other in the head,
and it would seem that our injuries are not for naught,
because the results are pretty consistent.
We could not find a single case
where the second person to move
achieved the first hit.
And keep in mind, this is not about skill at kendo.
We broke this down to simple reaction time
and the first mover always won in our testing.
That's pretty definitive.
So definitive that this myth is busted.
In the middle of the Mojave Desert,
the MythBuster's missile has delivered its payload.
So to prove that concept worked,
all ten rocket arrows came out of the missile mid-launch.
We ramp it up.
We build ten fire dragons,
take them back out to the desert,
and have a real world ballistics battle.
All right. But before moving all out at launch,
let's fire one rocket arrow from the ground and see how far it flies.
Yeah, that's a great idea,
because a rocket arrow would have been
the most advanced technology of its time,
so in order to move onto the next weapon,
you would have to beat the old technology.
Sounds great.
Sounds like we have a lot of building to do.
Yep, with a dozen dragons to deliver
the guys divide and conquer
as Grant preps the arrows --
It's raining death from above.
Tory diffuses --
This is gonna be so awesome.
and Kari, the dragon hit.
Now, back in the day of the fire dragon,
they probably had lots of artisans
to make these heads.
We just got me.
So I'm gonna vacuum for me, 'cause we need ten.
And once all the parts are assembled,
the production line can begin.
All right, so to execute this experiment,
we've got a veritable fire dragon factory happening here.
We've got to get all of our fire dragon bodies built.
We've got to glue 100 rockets to 100 arrows.
We've got to get those put into our rocket holding tubes,
and get those tubes glued into the fire dragon bodies,
and then at the very end,
we've got to decorate everything.
We've got a big job ahead of us.
Dude, I think we're done.
These look great.
Let's go to the desert!
Let's go launch the fire dragons.
Back in the middle of nowhere,
the guys start by building a firing range.
OK, that is 100 yards.
Because first up are the distance tests.
You pack enough water?
Comparing a regular rocket arrow with a fire dragon warhead.
This is weird.
It's like we're the last couple on earth.
And with the range maxed out,
750 yards.
the guys retreat to the launch pad.
All right.
So, this is a single rocket arrow.
All right, let's see how far this goes by itself.
That was cool.
Sky riding a little bit, and now it's falling to the earth.
As what goes up must come down.
650 yards away.
And that means it's time to unleash the beast.
So what we're looking for here
is to have the first stage of
this two-stage rocket fire off straight and stable.
And then here about midway through its flight goes its second stage.
the form of ten fire arrows.
The rocket arrows have to land at leat here,
750 yards away from the start,
thus extending the range of the arrows
for this to be a viable weapon in battle.
Grant's right.
If its arrows don't bear their control,
then this missile will bomb.
All right, the rocket is loaded.
In three, two, one.
Just as hoped,
the launch works perfectly and then mid flight,
the arrows are released.
But the key question here is how far do they go?
For this test, we have some good news and bad news.
The bad news is we haven't been able to find all ten arrows,
which suggests that accuracy is going to be an issue.
And the good news is that minimum distance they went was 800 yards.
That's well beyond the rocket arrow alone.
And that means the battle can commence.
In duel dilemma,
it's MythBuster's two, fight Fatal Zero.
I had it right in the chest.
Or is it?
Something's been bugging me about the
"don't bring a knife to a gunfight" test we've done.
What's that?
Well, we tested it in a quick draw scenario,
where both parties know exactly
what's about to happen.
Suppose it wasn't a quick draw scenario.
If I was running for you,
I could cover a heck lot of ground
by the time you got that gun out and fired.
Exactly what I'm thinking.
So, you're the shooter again and I'm just running straight at you?
Actually, you're going to start by running away from me.
How do you figure?
You'll find out.
OK.
So, it's "knife vs gun" part two
and back at Bout HQ,
Adam's readying to run rings around Jamie.
The myth is that it is foolish to bring a knife to a gunfight,
but if you were standing in front of me with a knife in your hand
and I've got a gun in my holster.
I think I'm in danger.
What we want to know is what is the minimum distance
at which a knife is about dangerous to a person with a gun.
This circle is how we're going to figure that out.
Jamie and I will stand back-to-back on this dock.
When he feels the muse,
Jamie will start to run towards the outside of the circle.
The moment I feel him move,
I pull up my gun, cock it,
pull the safety off and fire around.
The moment Jamie hears me fire around, he stops running.
The distance at which he's standing when he stops running
should be the minimum distance
at which a knife is dangerous to a gun.
You're ready to do this?
Absolutely. All right. Here we go.
Then how are you going to tell when I'm moving?
We go back-to-back like this,
we have to touch, unfortunately.
OK.
With the boys in their just-good-friends starting positions,
the waiting game begins.
Until --
I was a little slow on that one.
Not only was Adam slow, but Jamie was fast,
passing beyond the 24-foot perimeter
before Adam got his shot off.
I am totally blown away by what this test suggests,
which is that bringing a knife to a gunfight
might actually be the smart move
if the distance separating the knife wielders from the gunslinger
is 24 feet or less,
which is a heck of a lot more distance
than I ever thought it would be.
Of course, we don't know this for sure until we reverse-engineer it,
and had Jamie run at me from that distance.
We'll see who gets the first kill.
And to do just that,
Adam adds a full knife to his samurai switch box,
so it will make for some safe stabbing.
Here is how this goes.
I wear the hat.
I wear the shirt.
Jamie runs at me with a knife.
If he successfully stabs me, I die.
The lights tell you that I'm dead.
With both duellers dressed for success,
I feel conductive.
it's go time.
Now, this time, I'm not shooting at any cardboard cowboy.
I'm staring right at the face of Death's Hyneman
and he's running straight towards me.
Just like the time before,
I'm going to be starting at will,
running like crazy for Adam
and trying to stab him before he shoots me.
Perhaps now is a good time to say
don't try what you're about to see at home.
You ready?
I'm ready when you are.
Are you OK?
That had to happen sooner or later.
It's a spectacular result,
if a little unexpected.
Less true grit,
more blazing saddles.
And unfortunately for Jamie,
the high speed caught every last train.
Coming right up,
Jamie takes aim at revenge.
I've never heard you make that noise, ever.
And the fire dragon's finale.
In three, two, one.
Once upon a time in the west,
cowboys were coached to never to bring a knife to a gunfight.
And after test one, that seems like good advice.
I'm ready when you are.
But with Jamie reset at the 24-foot mark,
it's "kill or be killed" take two.
I nailed him right in the chest, good man.
That is terrifying.
Totally terrifying.
Yep, a sprinting,
screaming Hyneman is what nightmares are made of.
But at this distance, it was Adam who won the duel,
just barely.
So Jamie shifts the start line to 20 feet.
All right, my safety's on,
Gun is loaded.
Dude, I've never heard you make that noise, ever.
In this face-to-face test,
I've been able to shoot Jamie at both 24 and 20 feet,
although 20 feet was quite close.
But the fact that I'm able to make that distance shorter than I was,
for the other test makes sense to me,
because watching him run at me
while screaming is a fantastic adrenaline rush.
It is absolutely an incredible motivation
to get things in order to shoot him before I die.
But will it be motivation enough for a 16-foot showdown.
I'm dead.
I touched you with the gun
but I wasn't able to fire and you had the knife deep in my chest.
You're dead.
I'm dead.
Yep, at last, the Hyneman's the hero.
From 16 feet, Adam could draw and cock, but not fire.
A pattern repeated on subsequent tests.
I'm dead.
I'm dead. It's official.
I'm totally dead.
So, what does that mean for the myth?
When you hear the phrase "don't bring a knife to a gunfight",
it implies that if you're the one holding the gun,
you should feel completely relaxed in your superior firepower
against your opponent's stone age tool.
And I think we've totally busted that.
Here, we have demonstrated that at close quarters,
a knife is a very respectable and to-be-feared opponent.
Well, that is pretty definitive.
You're able to get to me between 16 and 18 feet.
Yeah. Let's call 18 feet a guaranteed death zone by knife.
That is shocking. I would not call it being that far.
Me neither.
Two-stage missiles have been used in warfare for decades.
But could they have a far longer history than that?
To find out, view the fire dragon finale.
Now it's time to put our fire dragon myth to the ultimate test.
We're going to fire ten rockets into the air.
We're going to see how it does in a battle situation.
We have our Chinese army and a castle.
We're going to put them out at 800 yards.
If attacking a distant enemy wasn't hard enough --
Good luck, man.
Here we go.
the wind is blowing again,
Come on, bring it on.
making this test the ultimate trial by fire dragon.
All right, men, we are going into battle.
Ready?
Charge!
Come on, charge.
Come on, you guys. Charge!
What are you waiting for?
With the targets ready to stand and deliver at mission control
Hail the arsenal.
it's time to ready the rockets.
So, we've got ten fire dragons, each with ten rocket arrows inside.
We're going to call this whole myth based on two things.
Death from the sky.
First, will all second stages fire off,
in other words, were the weapons reliable?
For me to charge, the golden dragon.
And second, will it take out a significant number of soldiers,
in other words, does it have any degree of accuracy?
They're so awesome.
Now, for this myth to be confirmed,
both those answers need to be "yes".
All right, here we go.
This is for real.
In three, two, one, fire.
Wow is right as all ten take off and then...
It's raining down!
They're just building now and they're building everywhere.
All right, we'll go check it out.
From the bunker,
the guys know that seven out of ten second-stages fired,
meaning 70 arrows deployed.
But did any hit the target?
Well, no.
So, we found maybe 40 arrows, but here's the thing,
less than ten are in the target zone.
Some fell early, at around the 400-yard mark.
But others sailed way beyond the castle,
to like 1100 yards.
Clearly, the wind didn't help.
As far as accuracy goes, this was a fail.
Ain't that the truth.
With not a single soldier struck down,
the fire dragons proved fickle.
All right, so where are we with the fire dragon myth?
Did it fulfill all the requirements?
Well, yes and no.
For one, the first stage fired off straight and stable;
two, the second stage deployed,
thus increasing the range of the arrows.
The problem is that it's not reliable.
We had ten fire dragons out there.
Not all of them deployed all their arrows.
If that were the case, we should see 100 arrows in this region.
We've only seen five or ten.
So yes, it's plausible that it might have existed,
but is it a practical weapon?
No.
All right!
What do you guys think?
We got it into the vicinity.
Yeah, but they're not accurate or completely reliable.
I mean you might still fear your enemy,
but not practical.
All right. So not really effective or efficient and overly complicated,
but definitely plausible.
All right, plausible it is.
That was awesome.
So awesome, let's see that plausible launch one more time.