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{{trope}}
[[File:
{{quote|''"Well, that '''looked''' impressive..."''
|'''[[Ace Pilot|Norris Packard]]''' after dodging an enemy barrage by standing still, ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team]]''}}
The ineffective deployment of [[More Dakka]]. Bullets fly left, right and center, but no one is getting hit. Their remarkable ability to expend enormous amounts of ammunition without managing to hit anyone ([[Red Shirt|impor]][[Mook|tant]]) distinguishes them as honor graduates from the [[Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy]].
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Related to this is when the goodies deliberately miss their shots because they do not wish to kill anyone.
This trope is often [[Truth in Television]], particularly after it was statistically analyzed in World War II. Officially this trope goes by the term [
Since soldiers stopped lining up and charging the enemy head on, it has become much harder to actually hit your opponent, even with well-aimed shots. Targets that move quickly and stay behind cover are naturally harder to hit, and when they are returning fire one's own ability to concentrate, aim and shoot will be seriously impacted. Today small arms tactics revolve around [
Perhaps this trope is employed as an alternative to the opposite extreme of [[Guns Are Worthless]] and [[Annoying Arrows]]. A writer trying to be realistic about how dangerous both arrows and bullets are in the right hands would have to make the people firing them unable to hit the broad side of a barn in order to draw fights out for dramatic effect.
The real reason, of course, was the fact ''[[
The opposite of [[Improbable Aiming Skills]]. See also [[Bloodless Carnage]], which often motivates this trope. Compare [[Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy]], when this trope only seems to apply to the bad guys and the heroes' returning fire is picking off one Stormtrooper per shot.
{{examples}}
▲== Anime & Manga ==
* ''[[Trigun]]''. Because the main character can [[Dodge the Bullet|dodge bullets]] and refuses to kill or seriously injure his enemies, 99% of the bullets fired in the series accomplish nothing besides property destruction. In fact, in the teaser to the first episode, a bunch of criminals unload countless rounds of ammunition into a restaurant. When they stop, the whole building's been demolished except for Vash, the stool he's sitting on, and the little bit of counter in front of him, which are all completely unharmed.
** In the actual first episode, the reason that little slice of real estate is unharmed is because it was shielded by the tavern's very sturdy sign, which, when no longer propped up by the repeated impact of incoming bullets on one side, fell over. It wasn't so much that they all ''missed'' the target as that there was something bulletproof in the way.
* Akane from ''[[
* ''[[Black Lagoon]]'', on occasion, suffers from this trope. The best example is the gun battle between Revy and [[Ninja Maid|Killer Maid]] Roberta. Despite the fact that they fire countless rounds at each other without either taking cover (sometimes at near point-blank range), they only hit each other once, both times apparently only giving each other a minor wound. Of course, this was all necessary in order for them to have a fist fight. And to establish them as being roughly equal in skill; namely, that they're so good they can avoid just about everything the opponent throws at them.
** Revy is apparently incorporeal. Machine gun fire directly at her seems to miss entirely!
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* Neither the militant Library Task Force of ''[[Library War]]'' nor their pro-censorship nemesis, the Media Cleansing Committee, ever seem to hit anything despite their constant barrages of automatic weapons fire, making it one of the most peaceful (and legal!) civil wars ever depicted.
* The first episode of ''[[Burst Angel]]'' sees two opponents firing away at each other at point blank range (like, four metres) like no tomorrow, without a single hit.
* ''[[Xabungle]]'', like many, "many" mecha shows, uses this to a certain
* ''[[Zoids: Chaotic Century]]'' has this on-and-off, generally when the bad guys are shooting. This might make sense with some of the mercenaries and generic criminals seen earlier in the series, but it really doesn't make sense when there are a few zoids lined up to defend the {{spoiler|Imperial palace}} and the waves of zoids sent by {{spoiler|Prozen}} can't even destroy them, despite vastly outnumbering the few Mulgas, Gustav, Command Wolf, and Zaber Fang that are lined up holding them off.
* ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team]]'' allows enemy [[Ace Pilot]] Norris Packard to hang a lampshade on this by providing the page quote when [[The Hero]] Shiro Amada [[Alpha Strike|fires every weapon he has simultaneously]] at him without managing to land a single hit.
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* In ''[[The Walking Dead]]'', this is Tyreese's biggest problem. Even given lessons on a makeshift firing range, he can't hit the broad side of a barn. Good thing he's capable with [[Drop the Hammer|a hammer]].
* Doubly subverted in ''[[Largo Winch]]''. When Penny reminds him that Largo ordered them to do the operation without killing, Simon tell that there is no need to worry, because he has terrible aiming skill. Then one mook is shot, and Simon explains that this prove how bad he is, because he aimed at the roof.
* In ''[[
== Fan
* ''[[
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* ''[[Predator]]'' had the entire team opening up in full-automatic on their target. Only ''one'' shot actually hit the being. Kinda-sorta justified 'cause it's invisible and concealed in jungle.
** Only one guy actually saw it, the rest came 15 seconds later and started randomly spraying everywhere, not knowing what they were shooting at, just that he was shooting at something.
* In [[Tim Burton]]'s ''[[Batman (
* Battle sequences in various incarnations of ''[[Star Wars]]'' are filled with rainbows of laser fire, but rarely do any non-clone/non-stormtrooper/droid characters get hit. This sometimes leads to particularly ridiculous moments where multiple Jedi characters [[Talking Is a Free Action|casually converse with each other on ground zero]].
** Look at the Battle of Geonosis. In the mobs of the CIS and Republic armies you can see stuff being destroyed or soldiers getting killed. The [[Expanded Universe]] confirms that, yes, lots of Jedi also died in the battle.
* The [[B-Movie|lousy]] action flick ''[[Deep Rising]]'' has the good guy miss every shot while trying to blast a villain with a machine
* During the climax of ''[[Dumb and Dumber]]'', {{spoiler|one of the protagonists survives a shot to the chest and empties a pistol at the villain from a few feet away, prompting the quote: [[Lampshade Hanging|"Harry! You're alive!... And you're a terrible shot!"]] Justified, as Harry was at the time working for the FBI. They were only trying to arrest the villain, so might as well hire a complete idiot to do the job.}}
* Parodied mercilessly in the film ''[[UHF (
** Later on, an entire line of enemy soldiers fire upon Al, and he actually rolls his eyes before he turns around to take them all down with a single burst from his rifle.
* During the takeover scene in ''[[Air Force One]]''. The Chechen terrorists kill Marines and Secret Service agents without one of the terrorists being killed or, at least wounded, by governments agents, who are supposed to be the best-shots in the business.
** Slightly justified however, as the terrorists are actually shot by the Secret Service agents at some points but they are wearing body armour that they took from the armoury, which was able to protect them from the pistols used by the Secret Service.
* [[Justified Trope|Justified]] in ''[[Tropic Thunder]]'', where the protagonists, being [[Enforced Method Acting|actors in a movie]], have all their guns loaded with blanks.
* Also [[Justified Trope|Justified]] in ''[[
* In ''[[Pulp Fiction]]'', a random gunman takes the lead characters by surprise and unloads a large-caliber revolver at them, only for him to miss every shot and get gunned down after a [[Beat]]. [[Samuel L. Jackson|Jules]] interprets this unlikely scenario as divine intervention, and decides to give up the life of a gangster and [[Walk the Earth]].
** Divine indeed. The two bullet holes over the shoulders is just coincidental. As for one bullet hole that suggest a shoulder hit and another that suggest a punctured lung, these can't be explained by science.
** It doesn't help that if you look closely during earlier scenes, you can see the bullet holes are in the wall ''[[Special Effect Failure|before]]'' the gunman starts shooting.
* Used in the ''[[Der Clown]]'' movie ''Payday'', but not played too straight: The German version of SWAT can fire their machine guns without hitting anyone. The unarmored villains can mow down most SWAT members in body armor with machine guns and shoot through steel ropes with pistols, but fail to hit the heroes unless by accidentally pulling the trigger. The heroes' firing is apparently so bad again, combined with their constant lack of [[More Dakka|dakka]], that they have to resort on {{spoiler|blowing up an entire aircraft to kill the baddies inside}}.
* The gunfight in ''[[Support Your Local Sheriff]]'' demonstrated this trope.
* While an [[Averted Trope|aversion]] of this trope isn't usually notable, the fact that [[The
* ''[[Terminator]] 3: Rise of the Machines'': "Bullets fired: 999. Human casualties: 0."
** Echoing a scene in ''Terminator 2'', where John orders the Terminator to not kill anyone. Which leads to a scene where the Terminator fights off a small army of police with a ''[[Gatling Good|Minigun]]'', firing thousands of rounds and killing no one. The Terminator could have easily killed quite a few people, but he deliberately aimed to miss.
* ''[[The Hallelujah Trail]]:'' [[Lampshaded]] by Col. Gearhart, after the Battle of Whiskey Hills, in which there were no fatalites, nor was anyone badly wounded:
{{quote|
* In the Michael Douglas film ''[[Falling Down]]'', gang members attempt to get revenge on Bud Foster during a drive by shooting, but end up killing everyone else on the block but him; before crashing into a telephone pole and dying themselves
* In ''[[Godzilla (
* The 2007 Australian film ''Noise'' ends with a realistic shootout, and it shows a lot of in-accurate shooting under pressure.
* The two Michael Mann films ''[[Public Enemies]]'' and ''[[Heat]]'' have action scenes where the characters use lots of suppressive fire and fire and movement.
* Played with in ''[[X-Men: Days of Future Past]]:'' during Magneto's jailbreak, Quicksilver turns a realistic hail of bullets into a salvo of A-Team Firing by repositioning each shot individually to miss its target.
== Literature ==
* This trope is the reason for "Try Again" Bragg's nickname in [[Dan Abnett]]'s ''[[Warhammer
* [[Stephen King]]'s ''[[The Dark Tower]]: [[The Dark Tower
* [[Played for Drama]] in the [[Dale Brown]] book ''Executive Intent''. {{spoiler|A [[Kill Sat]] is used to try and take out terrorists who have commandeered ballistic missiles, but misses and kills many civilians.}} Things get worse.
* Seen in ''[[Malevil]]'' when the castle comes under siege. Discipline fails for both the defenders and the attackers. Malevil opens fire when the gates are breached but before the enemy enters the [[Death Course]], the invaders go prone and open fire despite not seeing any of the defenders. Both sides waste precious ammunition firing at ''nothing'' before their commanders can get them back under control.
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== Live Action TV ==
* ''[[
** They hit lots of glass windows, car tires, radiators, and other such things. They just never hit any people. (''[[Cracked.com]]'', the source of the page image, also [http://www.cracked.com/article_16433_6-supposed-action-heroes-you-could-probably-take-in-fight.html speculated] on "[[Inferred Holocaust|the hundreds of bystanders they likely gunned down with their hail of stray bullets.]]")
*** Guns don't kill people. People kill glass windows, car tires and radiators. And many a [[Memetic Mutation]] too.
*** At least one episode ("Say It With Bullets") saw the team set up an elaborate ruse by making their antagonist Col. Decker believe they were hiding in the guest house on an Army base; the team had rigged a stereo system to play, by remote control, a sound-effects record where one of the tracks was machine gun fire. When Decker is tipped and brings his convoy to the guest house to call the team out, Hannibal cues the stereo, making the soldiers think they are being fired upon ... and they return fire, heavily damaging the house. When nobody is found inside, Decker blows his stack, realizing that tens of thousands of rounds of ammunition had been wasted as part of a game played for Hannibal's amusement.
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** Subverted in the show itself, in that the times where characters did get shot on-screen, {{spoiler|Face and Murdock in different episodes, though they got better,}} only a single bullet is fired each time.
** [[Fridge Brilliance|To be fair]], if they didn't want to shoot anyone (which would legally count as murder) while firing off thousands of rounds, they would have to be ''pretty good''.
* ''[[
* ''[[Alias (TV series)|Alias]]'' used it for the first season and a
* Any enemy on ''[[Andromeda]]''. To be fair, in one episode, the crew of the ''Andromeda Ascendant'' were shown to be wearing "ECM Generators" that "play hell with smart bullets."
** This is worst when automated defenses are used. These will track dodging enemies, but walking straight at them is perfectly safe. These are the main ship defense weapons used by the heroes, too.
*** It got hijacked and used against them so many times in the first season alone that one of the characters commented something along the lines of: "Automated ships defenses. What kind of a retarded engineer had that put in?" while taking cover from said automatic defense turrets.
* Generally averted on ''[[Airwolf]]''.
* Ryutaros, who controls ''[[
** However, Ryu never misses with his finisher, which is a single, carefully aimed shot.
* Parodied in ''[[Police Squad!]]'', one of which was where the lead and antagonist are missing shots while 1 foot apart before ducking behind cover. Repeated in ''[[
* While being chased by the laser-zapping [[Monster of the Week]] on ''[[
* Usually averted in ''[[Stargate]]'', where the [[Redshirt Army]] at the very least show a modicum of competence.
* ''[[Threshold]]'': The government agents just stun the bad aliens with electronic bullets.
* Carlos Mencia once addressed the way [[Gangsta Style|gangstas stereotypically hold their guns]] (sideways, for no readily apparent reason). When taxed, one of them responded that he holds his gun like that when he shoots because it makes him look cool. He's astonished to find that the aiming guide on top of the gun lines up with his target when held the right way up. Then Mencia makes some remark about how only porn stars should look cool when they shoot.
* Everyone on [[Chuck]] sucks with their guns. Many of the fights devolve into hand to hand combat, and any stand off is solved just by either side having an extra gun pointed at the rest.
* The panicked wedding party in ''[[
== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
* ''[[Warhammer
** ''[[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]] Fantasy Battle'': Orcs + bows = roughly the same.
* In ''[[War Machine]]'', any [[Corrupt Church|Menoth]] unit with a ranged attack is guaranteed to have laughable accuracy. This is most notable in the case of the [[Suicide Attack|Zealots]], whose whole strategy is throwing remarkably unstable explosives at ludicrously short range.
* In ''D20 Modern'', automatic weapons get the shaft. 2 feats are required in order to properly use an automatic weapon, one for proficiency with guns, the other to not suffer a penalty when firing full-auto. And even if you have those feats, you target a 10-by-10 area with a AC of 10, to make the opponents have to make a DC 15 reflex save (fixed, with no way to modify, at least to this troper's knowledge) to take no damage; you use 10-rounds to attempt to hit at most 4 halfling-sized enemies with 1 bullet each. A third feat is required for you to be able to burst-fire, which is actually not useless. Without that third feat, you can target a single target with auto-fire, but it is a senseless waste of ammo because only 1 round (of the 10 fired) can hit. Some guns even have a 3-round burst mode, but if you don't "know" how to burst-fire, then tough luck, you can't use that mode (you can, but much like auto-fire against a single opponent, it's a waste of ammo). To summarize: Without building your character to fully use automatic weapons, you will quickly get to the point to where you can't do anything ''but'' spray-and-pray with automatic fire.
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== Video Games ==
* In general, the ''[[
** ''Call of Duty'''s success also ensures that all dumb-fire rocket-propelled grenades in games released since are incapable of hitting their target unless the shooter is close enough to kill ''himself'' with the explosion.
* Momo in [[Breath of Fire III]] was the only character in the game who suffered from horrible accuracy rates. Incidentally, her weapon of choice was a bazooka.
* Similarly to Momo, in the Super Famicom ''[[Tenchi Muyo!]]'' RPG, [[The Ditz|Mihoshi]] is the only character whose attacks can miss -- namely, her basic attack is a three-round burst from her gun. She even has an embarrassed reaction when it happens.
* Ideally, this is what you want to make out of your opponents in [[Bullet Hell]] games.
* Seen in the ''[[Battlefield (
** Results in numerous instances of soldiers circling around each other at arms length burning through their entire magazine without hitting a thing.
*** These are likely veterans of prior FPS games that emphasized movement over cover as effective defense. Network latency may also be to blame.
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** This actually works for you in the final level, where the enemy can (assuming you don't play Harkonen) have ''two'' such structures pitching missiles. If they were properly accurate, the mission would be unwinnable.
* Played straight in ''[[Final Fantasy VII]]: [[Crisis Core]]'' when Zack not only stands still when facing a hail of bullets but '''TALKS ON HIS FREAKING CELL PHONE!'''
** The incident takes place during a virtual training mission, so one wonders if whether the event was merely overconfidence on Zack's part, or whether something was wrong with the simulated opponents' targeting
* Play ''[[Empire]]: Total War'' for long enough and you'll be solidly convinced the Creative Assembly are fans of this trope.
** Which is a fair criticism, since in real-life muskets were noted for their extraordinary accuracy....
*** Try using cannons. They're so horribly inaccurate their only use is to break down walls. In this era roughly 50% of casualties came from artillery, in the game you'll be lucky if a battery kills half the number of enemies as a single (much cheaper and faster) infantry unit.
* A case of this afflicts Eliphas the Inheritor in ''[[Dawn of War]]: Dark Crusade'' at the end of the Chaos base assault (although this may be a result of the Warp portal). As his daemonic patron is telling him off, Eliphas flips out and begins firing his plasma pistol, apparently carefully aimed at a spot two feet to the daemon's left.
* In a subversion, this makes certain enemies in ''[[Descent]] 2'' harder than its predecessor. In Descent 1, all the enemies fire right at you, which means you can dodge their shots (which is difficult but still possible with homing missiles). In Descent 2, certain enemy robots simply spread a lot of bullets in your general direction, which means that even if you evade there's still something heading for you.
* All bosses in the ''[[
** Special mention for [[Baka|Cirno]] and [[Memetic Mutation|"Icicle Fall -Easy-"]].
* The ''[[Syphon Filter]]'' goons will never hit you, no matter how many shots they fire as long as the "Danger" meter doesn't get filled. Conversely, certain [[Elite Mooks]] will instantly spike the danger meter, especially on Hard difficulty.
* In ''[[The Godfather (
* This trope could easily be called ''[[X-COM|X-COM Firing]]'', given the terrible accuracy of rookies who go the route of [[More Dakka|Dakka]]. Fortunately, the aliens aren't much better hitting their targets.
* Definitely seen in ''[[
** Unless you get crits, in which case ''everyone dies''.
* Most unit firing in ''[[Company of Heroes]]'' falls under this. Especially with tanks and vehicles firing on infantry - mostly for balance reasons. Of course, the moment you enable the Direct Control feature for most vehicles by using, say a mod... and are, for example, controlling a Wirbelwind Flakpanzer (four x 20mm) or an M3 Halftrack with the Maxson Mount upgrade (4 x 12.7mm, aka .50cal) then infantry will get PULVERIZED by your attacks.
** The American and Wehrmacht Engineers epitomize this in the game - their chance of hitting enemies at long range is 0.1 with their submachine guns. Reasonable for long-range, right? Well, even if at kissing distance, their accuracy's best is 0.3. Moving multiplies their accuracy by '''0.15'''. They are unable to hit ''anything'' while moving, no matter how close. Standing still only makes them lackluster.
*** Though after spending a few munitions, they can get their hands on a [[Kill It
*** Lampshaded by the Rangers upon receiving the Tommy Gun upgrade: "Spray and pray, the SMG way!" However, since accuracy is inversely proportional to distance, they give up some medium- and long-range firepower (which is what Riflemen are for) for being absolute infantry-shredding terrors at short range.
* Played straight in ''[[Time Crisis]]'' and ''Crisis Zone'' with the standard enemies. In ''[[Time Crisis]]'', they're all armed with handguns (a world-threatening terrorist organization that gives almost all of it's members handguns. Riiiiiiight) and will miss almost every single shot, very rarely firing one that hits the player and often landing them more than two feet away. ''Crisis Zone'' has an even worse problem in that they're armed with ''assault rifles'', and yet fully-automatic fire at point blank range has a very low chance of hitting.
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* In ''Gods and Generals'' video game, the enemies miss at point-black range. Although this was rather accurate to real life.
* In [[Air Rivals]], most mook attacks that are based on guns/laser beams/rockets are unaimed, and in those cases, a simply strafing move will make them miss. It gets ridiculous in a case where the new nation defense systems (nation-aligned mooks that attack invaders only) from BCU are far worse than the old ones, simply because they use unaimed laser machine guns with a visible charging period instead of the quick, auto-aimed attack the old ones had.
* In ''[[
* ''[[Super Smash Brothers]] Brawl''. The CPU players tend to do this when armed with the Cracker Launcher.
* Intentionally invoked in ''[[Shadow the Hedgehog]]''. The two fighting forces you find on each level will shoot at each other, but none of them will hit anything. Of course, the second they turn their guns on ''you...''
* The MG-42 gunners in ''[[Medal of Honor]]: Allied Assault'' fire aimlessly for several seconds before actually hitting you, at which point they kill you almost instantly. Averted with the other games.
* In ''[[Soldier of Fortune]] II'', automatic weapons are wildly inaccurate at long range in the player's hands, [[Improbable Aiming Skills|but not so]] for the [[
** Conversely, in the first game, the enemies, excluding the snipers, tend to suffer from [[Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy]] syndrome [[Short-Range Long-Range Weapon|unless at close range]].
* In ''[[Sword of the Stars]]'', kinetics are generally inaccurate compared to energy weapons even at close range. Targeting techs help somewhat.
* In ''[[Metal Gear Solid]] 2'', bullets fired at Fortune always miss.
* The Assault Rifles in the ''[[Marathon
* In the ''[[Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six (
** The ''Vegas'' series allows you and the enemy to blind-fire weapons from behind cover. While it has protection advantages compared to popping out of cover to aim, it is horrifically inaccurate - the only two reasons you really have for doing so are to either suppress enemies (best done with a [[More Dakka|light machine gun]]) or to try and get CQB points to unlock new weapons.
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== Web Animation ==
* On a smaller scale, Church in ''[[Red vs. Blue]]''. A man that can point his gun at a guard, empty a full magazine from less than a foot away, and still manage to completely miss.
{{quote|
''[cue Wash staring at him for a moment, then dropping the guard with a single shot.]''' }}
== Web Comics ==
* ''[[
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*** In the same episode, Gangstalicious and his rival E-Dirt get into an argument in a club. They pull out their guns and... each of them proceeds to accidentally shoot himself.
* The [[Diniverse]] version of [[Batman]] frequently swung down to kick automatic-weapon-toting enemies, inexplicably not being hit by the massive amounts of lead coming his way. Bullets coming his way seem to vanish into the aether milliseconds before they should rightfully swiss-cheese him.
** ''[[
** ''Gotham Knight'' has some fun with this, where Bats tries to run straight at Deadshot while the latter is blazing away with a two-barreled automatic [[Arm Cannon]]... and connects. Cue Deadshot quipping about how this was the first time he had ever seen anyone try to dodge his bullets by running at them.
* In ''[[Zixx]]'', during the virtual reality/game sequences, the heroes will often be chased by [[Mooks]] ineffectively spraying laser fire at them. It tips over from [[Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy]] to outright
* [[Lampshade
** Subverted in another episode where the only time Stroker and Hoop actually manage to shoot someone is when their guns discharge after being dropped.
** They also shoot Hoop's girlfriend and David Copperfield.
* This trope runs rampant in the animated ''[[G.I. Joe]]''. The only exception is when shooting at a manned vehicle, wherein the people inside get to escape before the vehicle is destroyed... often making their escape before even coming under fire, let alone the vehicle actually taking any damage.
** ''[[Homestar Runner]]'' parodied ''[[G.I. Joe]]'' in [https://web.archive.org/web/20131026050452/http://www.homestarrunner.com/cheatcommando.html a commercial for the Cheat Commandos]. The Commandos and their perpetual enemies, Blue Laser, are lined up only a few feet from each other and firing like crazy, but no gets hit.
** Parodied in an episode of ''[[Twisted
** Also parodied in ''[[Robot Chicken]]'' series 4 where both Duke and Cobra Commander note that their respective "Walls of Honour" don't list a single name (aside from Junkyard the dog who died after eating too much chocolate)
* In ''[[Kim Possible]]'', neither Shego with her green plasma whatevers nor Duff Killigan and his exploding golf balls appear to do any damage at all ever, except to the background.
** More because Kim Possible is a cheerleader-ninja with [[Badass Normal]] dodging skills. And because it's pretty hard to hit a target-like a person with a golf ball, even exploding ones.
* Happens a lot in ''[[
* For all that they're programmed and trained war robots who've been through millennia of combat, the [[Transformers]] seem to have an awfully hard time hitting anything; particularly the Decepticons, especially considering that not only are they the military bots and should have the better hardware and accuracy, but also that their leader (Megatron) transformed into a gun himself.
** Check out [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-ItfWY3xMQ this fan video] to see a glorious [[Lampshade Hanging]] on the use of the trope in Transformers. It uses nearly every single clip of Shockwave firing his laser at the Autobots.
** In the latter half of the ''G1'' two-parter "Dinobot Island", the Decepticons not only succeed in hitting the Autobots, but essentially pin them all to the ground with a sustained round of gunfire. Apparently they just had their guns set to "ticklefight"... at least, until the movie.
*** During the aforementioned [[Transformers:
** This has been somewhat improved upon in recent years over the varying versions of the franchise, often through using robot parts for [[Getting Crap Past the Radar]]. ''[[Transformers Energon]],'' though, had [[More Dakka|copious amounts of laser-dakka]] getting sprayed all over the place to no effect.
** Subverted in ''[[
* In ''[[Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy]]'' episode, '''Know it All Ed''', the Eds has a standoff with the Kanker sisters with their “Canadian Squirt Guns”, which are really turkey basters filled with water. As the Eds firing their weapons at the Kanker sisters, they use all the ammo, {{spoiler| but missed every shot, as the girls just stood there. They aimed their weapons at the Eds. Eddy points out they only got their feet, only to learn it was rubber cement, which the girls used on purpose.}}
== Real Life ==
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** Trope was [[Inverted Trope|inverted]] during the [[American Civil War]] when the new rifles actually tended to hit what they were pointed at, with disastrous consequences. This was the result of infantry weaponry recently becoming more advanced and deadly, but the doctrine of their use was still based around that of massed volleys of musket fire.
*** To be fair, tactics changed with formations spreading out and happening at further ranges. Look at the positions of the Union and Confederate Armies in most battles after 1862 and you would be surprised to see just how far apart they became. The close in firing usually happened during assaults, which inflicted heavy casualties on the assaulters. The low rate of fire still meant that massed fire was the name of the game, but they began happening at greater and greater ranges.
* This was actually an accepted strategy for naval gunnery for the half century from the first armored warships in the late 1850s until after the construction on of the ''Dreadnought'' in 1906. Simply put, despite improvements in guns and propellants that allowed warships to shoot farther than in the days of [[Wooden Ships and Iron Men]], there was no way of guaranteeing that you could actually hit anything at ranges much beyond a mile or so. The initial solution was to fit large numbers of small but relatively quick-firing guns to supplement the handful of [[BFG
* Supposedly what separated First World soldiers from Third World enemies... although this has been unfortunately averted, and ''not'' simply by [[More Dakka|heavy volumes of fire that by chance happen to hit]]. (I'm not speaking of "Black Hawk Down" either.)
** Untrained militia in Islamic countries use spray and pray techniques. A lot.
** Third World fighters will also be stuck by the [[Boom Stick]] effect naturally assuming that the [[More Dakka]] will naturally kill anything without additional skilled input from the user.
** As a product of studies conducted since WWII, which revealed either the "reluctance" or "lack of skill" plus "shooting-under-stress" factors cited above, modern training practices for professional militaries now train weapon-handling drills into soldiers' rote-memory as a matter of course... though even with knowledge of proper aiming techniques, marksmanship standards do tend to suffer in nominal peacetime, when [[Obstructive Bureaucrat|bureaucracy and cost-cutting measures]] often mean troops aren't allowed enough live ammunition or range-time to establish/maintain proficiency.
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* This was the subject of a Ron White anecdote. He saw a shootout on CNN where a large amount of LAPD officers were firing on a man hiding behind his Suburban. After the shootout was over, the man still hadn't been shot. In fact, not even the Suburban got hit.
* During [[The Troubles]] in Northern Ireland, military intelligence agents and plainclothes police got into a shootout due to mistaken identity. Over 100 rounds were fired, and no one was hit.
* The NYPD is quite infamous for its poor overall marksmanship, hitting what they shoot at less than a third of the time, over all ranges. The closer the range, the more accurate they are, but even then accuracy is abysmal. Even compared to other police departments NYPD marksmanship is poor due to officers [[I Just Shot Marvin in the Face|not being trained enough to keep their finger off the trigger when not firing]]. The bureaucrat solution to this problem was, rather than ''train'' officers, make their guns require a massive ''12 pounds'' of force to fire (the average is 6.5).
** Police forces in general tend to lag far behind military or militarized organizations in this: police are generally meant to do mundane things like direct traffic and ticket people that (usually) do not involve cordite exhibitions. Police firearm doctrine absolutely dictates firing at center-of-mass until the person is no longer a threat, with the understanding that this is often coincident with the person's death or mortal wounding. Their typical poor marksmanship has a lot to do with the different conditions on which they're using their firearms - soldiers typically have rifles and rarely have a conversation with a person who inexplicably pulls a gun and starts shooting - and the understanding that their marksmanship is poor and their best chance is to focus on volume of fire rather than well-aimed shots.
*** Accuracy in any firefight is abysmal. Also, they don't train with their firearms as much as a front line unit would, which can be reasonably expected to be practicing, either in a simulation (EST systems are good for this), or with live ammunition on a more regular basis. The police are still far more accurate than most perpetrators though.
** Another factor is that most police officers use pistols which are not the most accurate weapons in the world, comparatively speaking. In addition, police officers tend to use ammo with poor penetration power (to prevent bullets from passing through a target and into something behind like civilians) and relatedly trained to be concerned with what's behind their intended target (to prevent missed shots from hitting something behind their target like civilians). And lastly, police officers are also trained to try and talk people down from dangerous situations first with gunplay as a last resort or defensive option (for themselves or others) - even SWAT teams will prefer to subdue rather than kill.
* This is one of the modern military
** Suppressive fire in general is expected to not hit whatever it's firing
* There are three main reasons for poor accuracy in a high stress environment: First, the instinctive reluctance for most people to use lethal force. Second, The stress itself ensures that you aren't steady while firing. And finally, recoil alone kills accuracy. As a note, Heinlein's factors to thousands of rounds to kill a single man are from studies done during the Second World War.
** The training methods used by First World military forces to train accuracy involves a number of factors to improve accuracy.
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*** Fourth, training in "accurate" un-aimed fire, or SRM. This is basically snap the weapon up, double-tap, snap it down. Ranges vary from service to service, but are designed to build the habit of bringing the weapon up and already having it aimed more or less towards center mass, without the aiming part.
*** The final part is the stress-shoot. Using physical activity, and possibly other factors, such as explosive simulators (which can be loud for the Artillery sims), to force the heartrate up and shoot accuracy to hell. It is also timed, and you are graded on accuracy and speed.
* In his book on the Congo rebellion, mercenary commander Mike Hoare defined "reconnaisance by fire" as "firing wildly at everything in sight to see what's not there"
* The North Hollywood Shootout in 1997 was considered the greatest shootout in Californian history between the police and two bankrobbers, with hundreds of rounds shot during a 44 minutes period. Although about a dozen people were injured, NOBODY was killed (except the two robbers, one of them actually commiting suicide).
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[[Category:Guns and Gunplay Tropes]]
[[Category:Truth in Television]]
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