I'm stuck on a realism thing here. One of those situations were a quizzical expression forms on my face as I consider what I just wrote. This isn't an especially high quality concrete floor. The antagonists in my story gathered around something on this floor and smashed it with sledgehammers for about half an hour. Pulping it, essentially. I'm wondering what the state of the floor would be, if it was totally flat to begin with. Would chips and gouges be noticeable, or is it not possible to inflict that kind of damage with only manned hammers? Would the handles of the hammers break long before the floor does?
Concrete chips easily. A sledgehammer would chip up the cement leaving pitting at a minimum. At a maximum it would destroy the floor, one sometimes uses a sledgehammer to break up and remove a concrete slab.
It would depend on the type of concrete and also what the object is composed of. I'm assuming you are talking about a foundation slab. If this is the case, a few missed whack with the sledge (8, 10, 12, 16 lbs?) would flake some bits off the floor with not much damage. With all of the rebar and and melded wire mesh in a foundation, you are not likely to tear up the floor without pneumatics. If the object is made of a substance stronger than the slab, it would chip away with every whack if it had sharp edges. If this is taking place on non- reinforced concrete like a sidewalk slab, you can tear one of those up in no time with a sledge.
Thank you both! I just needed to know if the damage could be perceived, and it looks like it easily could.
Ditto to what the others said - if this was just a plain concrete floor, it wouldn't take more than a few minutes for a few people with sledge hammers to do a lot of damage. Here's a YouTube video to demonstrate: Hope this helps. -Frank
