Re: Is a man's fat/muscle tissue protects effectively against a melee attack ?

I believe that fat and/or muscle has little, if any, protective effects. Think kinetics. A knife or a bullet will have a lot of kinetic energy, and fat or muscle will offer very little resistance to such a moving object. Sharpness of the blade is an extra factor of danger.

The only case in which, in my opinion, a fat man would be prone to more protection would be being stabbed by a knife with a very short blade.

I can see no difference regarding the sensation induced by a punch in the abdominal wall.

Regarding survival in the desert, the issue is thirst, for which there will be little if any difference between thin and fat people. Fat contains nearly no water.

Hope this helps.

Luc A. Ronchi, MD
Anesthesiology
Centre hospitalier de Saint-Nazaire, France

Greetings from the Atlantic seaside