Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Difference between revisions

[[File:bgthq2 8924.jpg|link=The Dog House Diaries|frame]]

 

 

When only the Bad Guys suffer from [[A-Team Firing]]. Also called The Principle of Evil Marksmanship. The good guys (the non-[[Red Shirt]] ones, at least, and sometimes even ''they'') can stand in the middle of the firefight and never get hit, and can pick off any bad guy with even the most casually-aimed shot.

 

{{examples}}

* ''All'' of the enemies on ''[[Noir (anime)|Noir]]''.

* Lampshaded in ''[[Excel Saga (anime)|Excel Saga]]'': Excel explains to the mooks firing at her that they'll never hit her because of this trope, and doesn't even bother to move.

** ''Macross Plus'' surpasses that: Myung is trapped in an elevator, and two security guards ''spray the inside of the elevator with automatic weapons... '''Not. Hitting. Her. Once.'''''

* ''[[One Piece]]'' tries to avoid this trope by having the navy use swords more often than using guns. Whenever the marines use guns on the Straw Hats, it's only against the stronger members that can easily dodge the bullets or disarm the snipers. If fighting the weaker members, they normally are too close and will be attacked by them or reasonably too far away to hit them.

* From the second ''[[Naruto]] Shippuuden'' movie, the ninja of the Sky Country have gatling guns that fire kunai. Apparently they're a deadly force, but they just seem to land by peoples' feet more often than not. One of them almost hits Shizune's foot as it just barely misses Tsunade, but she just has to stand there. Then Sai fights several of them in the air and just stands atop his giant bird thinking to himself while a volley of kunai fly over his head. But then, perhaps this also involves the [[Inverse Ninja Law]].

** The first ''Naruto'' film had similar devices, mounted on a train, mow down a crowd of [[Red Shirt]]s charging down a hill dowards it yelling ([[Values Dissonance|It was an honor thing]]). Our heroes are all appropriately cowed.

* ''[[Space Pirate Captain Harlock]]'' episode 39. The Mazone invade the Arcadia. They are supposedly well-trained troops and are constantly firing. Arcadia personnel mow down hundreds of them with the number of friendly deaths being at most in the single digits, and except for a single named character (whose death is foredold in the episode title, who is the only one to get a dramatic death scene, and whose death is the only one that makes an impression on the crew), none of those other deaths are even confirmed.

 

* Amusingly enough, in the comic book crossover between ''[[Spy Boy]]'' and ''[[Young Justice (comics)|Young Justice]]'', Robin actually asks Spy Boy's team if they indeed took the Stormtrooper Marksmanship course—never realizing that HE was also displaying Stormtrooper level of accuracy.

* Parodied in an old ''[[Heavy Metal (animation)|Heavy Metal]]'' magazine where the heroes of the story are escaping from an enemy castle and none of the archers are able to hit them. One of the archers becomes fed up, takes aim, and proceeds to kill all three of the heroes with the next three shots. His celebration is cut short when his commanding officer reprimands him for the deed, stating that they were all missing on purpose and that the story couldn't continue now that the protagonists were dead.

{{quote|'''Stormtrooper:''' Wow, so you guys actually used to, you know, ''hit things'' with your guns?

'''Clone Trooper:''' Oh, yeah. Jedi, droids, small children... One time I hit the broad side of a ''barn!''

** Another ''Lucky Luke'' story, ''The Rivals of Painful Gulch'', features two feuding families who's been fighting for ages, but never wiped out each other since they were all such bad shots. At one point, the town undertaker even pleads for the hero, if he cannot bring peace between the families, to at least ''teach them how to aim'' so they can finish each other off.

*** In the beginning of that story, the mayor is showing Luke around town when they come to a place where one member of the feuding families was cornered by three members of the opposing family. They had been firing at their victim for 15 minutes, but not a single shot hit. The wall at the spot is riddled with bullet holes everywhere, except for the place where their target stood.

* Anyone who tries to fire at [[Tintin]] will either miss or only graze him. If they graze him, they will only ever graze his skull, and he'll be unconscious/in hospital long enough for them to make a plot-relevant getaway.

* The ''[[Mad]]'' parody "Bat Boy and Rubin!", from back when it was a comic, lampshaded a since-forgotten subtrope of this, where the heroes charge straight at villains who miss them with every shot:

{{quote|'''[[Parody Names|Rubin]]''': Poor fools! Don't you know us comic book characters are always missed when we run at the guns?}}

 

* ''[[My Immortal]]'': Ebony shoots at Snape and Lupin "a gazillion times" and fails to cause them any actual harm beyond making them fall off their broomsticks and break their camera lens.

 

* ''[[Star Wars]]'' is the Trope Inspirer. The Imperial Stormtroopers are notorious, even among casual ''Star Wars'' fans, for their inability to hit the heroes, particularly in ''[[A New Hope]]'' or ''[[Return of the Jedi]]''. In the prequel trilogy, the standard battle droids are arguably even worse than the Stormtroopers, while, oddly enough, the Clone Troopers (predecessors of the Stormtroopers) tend to be much better shots than the Stormtroopers. A lot of ink has been spilled on this subject, both in official [[Expanded Universe]] publications and by fans and critics, either [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshading]] or attempting to rationalize this shoddy marksmanship. [[Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy/Analysis|Click here for a more detailed analysis of the issue.]]

** Also, from the special edition, [[Han Shot First|Greedo misses Han while he is sitting from across a tiny TABLE]]. They tried to fix it later by having Han dodge it, which raises all kinds of other issues.

* Eric Kriegler from the [[James Bond (film)|James Bond]] film ''[[For Your Eyes Only (film)|For Your Eyes Only]]''. An Olympic biathalon competitor, who gets the drop on 007 with a rifle, and ''still'' can't hit him.

{{quote|'''Dark Helmet:''' I knew it! I'm surrounded by Assholes! (slams his visor back down) ''Keep firing, Assholes!''}}

* In ''[[Equilibrium]]'', which features a fair number of demonstrations of the Academy's graduates in action. In one particularly (in)famous scene, protagonist Preston stood still in the middle of a crossfire while his opposition opened up and failed to hit him anyway. This was [[Hand Wave|explained away]] by virtue of the fictional "[[Gun Kata]]" martial art, which teaches its practitioners to seek locations with minimum probability of getting fired at.

* ''[[Judge Dredd (film)|Judge Dredd]]'' justifies this to a certain extent in an early scene, with Dredd pointing out to the other Judges (who are hiding behind cover while Dredd is out in the open) that despite the large quantity of gunfire coming down around him, apparently they're well beyond the manufacturer-listed "lethal range" for the guns that are being used, and so Dredd doesn't see the need to hide.

* In the [[Blaxploitation]] film ''Three The Hard Way'', the three heroes, armed with single-shot cap pistols from a considerable distance, defeat a larger group of men, who are armed with fully automatic machine guns, killing all but one of them (whom they capture to interrogate). One of the heroes gets a small flesh wound, the others are untouched.

* The Predator from ''[[Alien vs. Predator]] 2'' has really bad aim when trying to hit aliens with his double shoulder cannons, at one point accidentally blowing out the power to the entire city. He does better with his pistol however.

* Everyone who tries to shoot at [[The Blues Brothers]]. Especially Carrie Fisher's Mystery Woman. In fact, the character with the best aim (although an example of [[A-Team Firing]]) was Ray Charles...

* In George.A.Romero's ''[[The Crazies]]'' the soldiers seem to completely ignore all military training and very rarely take cover and can never seem to hit poorly trained Civilians even when the soldiers drastically outnumber them and have better rifles.

* Stephen suffers from this at the beginning of ''[[Dawn of the Dead (film)|Dawn of the Dead]]''. He gets better as the film goes on, though.

* There was an urban legend that went something like this: In 1971 a marshal and a general in Uruguay decided to settle a conflict the old fashioned way; with a gun duel. After standing back to back, they walked twelve steps, turned around, and started shooting. First once. Then twice. Nothing happened. They ended up firing 37 shots each '''without''' hitting each other before the duel stopped by itself due to the lack of ammo. The explanation the men gave? They forgot to put on their glasses, apparently.

** Another variation of this story has an alternate ending: After seeing that all their shots missed, they decided to call off the duel and shake hands. As they were approaching each other, one of them let out a yelp—his foot had been burned by stepping on a mass of lead where their ''[[Improbable Aiming Skills|bullets had hit each other and fused together]]''.

 

== [[Literature]] ==

** Since, unlike guns, wands can do more than just kill, there's a ''Harry Potter''-specific corollary to this trope, which we shall define thusly: "the more deadly and/or permanent the curse is, the less likely it is to hit its target."

** Also Dawlish is easily dispatched by Hagrid and later by Augusta Longbottom the latter requiring him to be sent to St. Mungo's despite being a fully Qualified Auror. It's become a running gag that every time he appears or is mentioned, he gets hexed or something similar.

 

== Live Action TV ==

* In the short-lived TV show ''[[Police Squad!]]'', Frank and a villain are shooting at each other on a street, each using a trash can for cover. The camera pulls back to reveal that they're hiding behind opposite sides of '''the same trash can'''; they're shooting at each other from handshaking range and missing. (Note: The show was a [[Parody]], so jokes such as this are normal).

* One ''[[Monty Python's Flying Circus]]'' skit had a bicycler eventually wind up in front of a firing squad. They give the order to fire, and everyone misses. They try a few more times, and everyone misses again. The officer tries to give advice about how to aim, but they still miss. The last time, the Russian soldiers just decide to bayonet the man, and he survives, although the audience doesn't know how, because the scene cuts to a title card labeled "Scene Missing" followed by the bicycler exclaiming [[Take Our Word for It|"What an amazing escape!"]]

* In the pilot episode of ''[[NCIS]]'', the would-be-terrorist brings a machine gun to bear on Gibbs... firing it single-handedly, starting from the hip and going up. The distance he misses by is almost the width of the Air Force One corridor they were in. (Gibbs, by contrast, puts 2 rounds from a semi-auto square in his chest, dropping him to his knees, followed by a third to flatten him. Game over.)

** Truth In Television: firing a fully-automatic weapon from the hip, especially if you don't have expert trigger control, will result in the vast majority of your shots going into the ceiling. There is a reason they invented the three-round burst setting. Gibbs, on the other hand, is an expert marksman firing a pistol at short range, and is also actually ''using the sights'' instead of hipshooting like some Hollywood idiot, and so can reasonably be expected to hit a man-sized target three out of three. Especially since he's using a proper Mozambique Drill. (Two quick shots anywhere into the torso to turn the target into a stationary object, then one carefully-aimed shot to finish him off.)

{{quote|'''Robert Wisdom''': Hire burned spies and blind gunmen. [[What Could Possibly Go Wrong?]] }}

* On the [[Syfy]] series ''[[Warehouse 13]]'', this was brought up as the agents had target practice. Steve said something to the effect of "It's not this difficult to fire a ray gun in movies" to which Pete replied "Actually it's very difficult to fire a raygun in the movies. The stormtroopers hardly hit anything."

 

== Video Games ==

* Goofing on this trope, the ''Star Wars'' [[First-Person Shooter]] games often feature the Stormtroopers' blaster rifle as the least accurate weapon in the game. Some [[Lampshade Hanging]] in ''[[Dark Forces Saga|Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast]]'': troopers can be overheard talking about how difficult it is to see out of their helmets, how badly designed their rifles are to control recoil, etc. "I'd like to see you come down here and try to hit something while you're wearing this damn helmet so I can sit in an air conditioned office and tell you how stupid you are!"

** [https://web.archive.org/web/20100829173309/http://graphjam.com/2008/04/18/funny-graphs-stormtroopers-hitting-any-given-target/ We now have numbers.]

** Oddly fitting, considering [[Meaningful Name|his title.]]

* A group of smugglers with automatic weapons in ''[[Wapsi Square]]'' [http://wapsisquare.com/comic/noplacelikehome/ can't hit Monica] at all, even at rather close range. {{spoiler|We later find out that there is a slightly more complicated reason than just bad aim.}}

 

== Web Original ==

* Church from ''[[Red vs. Blue]]'' was bottom of his class at the Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy.

** Church managed to empty a pistol clip at a soldier standing two feet in front of him and miss every shot. That has ''got'' to take some kind of skill.

* ''[[G.I. Joe: Resolute]]'' had a particularly bizarre example in episode 6: Duke and Scarlett are walking down a corridor when they trip an alarm. Some COBRA troops come out of a door at the end of the hallway, and our heroes walk backwards to take cover behind some pillars while bullets miss them by feet. The second they make it there, the pillars start taking hits from the COBRA forces. Strangely, neither Duke nor Scarlett are able to hit the [[Mooks]] either, despite sniping several outside minutes before, and the troops being backlit and standing in the open. Scarlett actually notes that she and Duke are pinned down.

** The even more egregious instance of a Cobra Trooper missing Snake Eyes with every shot from a long burst of his SMG, starting at less than a dozen metres away and steadily decreasing as Snake Eyes runs ''directly towards him'', not even managing to place a single shot on target when the other's gotten close enough to kill him with his sword.

* In Legendary frog's ''[[Code Veronica]]'' flash, Alfred Ashford is shooting at Claire with his sniper rifle but keeps missing, and when she's right in front of him he shoots at her several times point blank and misses every shot, including one time when he hits the wall behind him. In fact, the only time he hits his target is when he shoots at the ceiling to make a point and a piece of the ceiling falls down and hits him on the head.

* LifesBlood Labs in ''[[LG15: the resistance|LG 15 The Resistance]]'', especially in chapter 12.

* [[The Angry Joe Show|Angry Joe]] in ''[[Kickassia]]'', which eventually got lampshaded by [[Atop the Fourth Wall|Linkara]]:

{{quote|'''Linkara:''' Excellent job, Mr. Joe. Except for the fact that you ''missed''. }}

* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ic3GxQ6VmyY This] [[5-Second Films]].

 

== Western Animation ==

* An episode of ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'' ("Homer of Seville") is a stark example: After Homer becomes a famous opera star, a fanatic of his attempts to kill him after being rejected. At one of his performances, Marge is able to stop the would be killer with her own poison dart. Then Chief Wiggum gives the go ahead for the Police Department snipers to fire. Each sniper fires multiple times—none of the shots hit her. She even looks at her watch for a moment.

** Another episode has a hitman storming the retirement castle with an assault rifle to kill Grampa and missing every shot before a nurse drives him off.

* Most police officers in [[Superhero]] series. Surely ''some'' police officer would think of just shooting Joker as soon as he shows up and giggles. (Especially given that he's a known cop-killer and mass murderer.) Granted, killing him would [[Joker Immunity|kill the series]] but most of [[Batman]]'s enemies are not bullet-proof. Theoretically, it would take just one person with a good shot. (Or an NRA member.) In an episode of ''[[Batman: The Animated Series|Batman the Animated Series]]'', Batman himself realizes that he's been very lucky in avoiding death, and wonders aloud if The Joker, Two-Face, or "some punk" will get lucky someday.

** In many episodes, thugs armed with Thompson machine guns will fire nonstop at a hero or innocent and still miss every shot. True, the Thompson has horrible accuracy, but when the target isn't moving, has no cover, and is up against a wall....

** Hold up the Thompson doe not have horrible accuracy. Sure its no sniper rifle but the thing was designed for clearing out trenches so at least some of your shots with it will hit as long as your within 50 yards or so of your target.

* Nobody on ''[[The Boondocks]]'' ever gets hit by bullets (unless their name is Gangstalicious).

** Very much [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] when a gang tries to execute Gangstalicious and shoots him up at point-blank range... only to ''still'' miss every shot prompting this exchange:

* In one episode of ''[[The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog]]'', Sonic is made sheriff of an old-western town and is set up to participate in a shoot-out with some of Robotnik's robots. However, Sonic reveals that he's a real poor shot - he can't even hit the broad side of a barn! It takes some quick maneuvering for the hedgehog to take out his foes.

* Lampshaded in an episode of ''[[American Dad]]'' where three [[Triads And Tongs|Chinese Mafia]] members fail to hit Stan. One remarks on how unlikely it is that they'd all miss, and another says that not killing people is his New Year's Resolution.

 

== Real Life ==

** Taken to hilarious levels during the execution of Andreas Hofer, who was sentenced to death for his rebellion against Napoleon. After the first salvo of the shooting squad barely wounded him, [[Gallows Humor|he even mocked them for it...]]

** The real-world [[A-Team Firing]] can at least partly attributed to the widespread use of automatic weapons—the recoil from multiple cartridges tends to push the gun barrel upwards and toward the shoulder the buttstock rests against, resulting in an overall decrease in accuracy.

*** Note: the battle took place at night. The rangers were firing from concealment in the house, and the dealers were firing from cover, and both were essentially shooting at muzzle flashes. Also The Rangers may have also been attempting to avoid killing anybody; if they had actually shot and killed one of the dealers, then they might have been faced with murder charges.

** When you think about it, a gun is a metal tube that you put a projectile in, backed by a very fast burning (NOT exploding) fuel. You pull a trigger, a complex set of machinery is set into motion, and this super-fast burning fuel produces intense gas pressures that send the bullet flinging away like shrapnel in an explosion. It's a small miracle that it hits ''anything'' you intend it to.

** During the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, [http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/us-forced-to-import-bullets-from-israel-as-troops-use-250000-for-every-rebel-killed-15050027.html it was estimated that troops were using over 250,000 bullets for every insurgent killed]. This includes bullets fired during training, suppressive fire and other activities that are less likely to kill.

* In a surprising example of [[Truth in Television]], take the story of Mr. Thomas Martin McGouey, who left a suicide note in place for police to find, painted a target on himself, and stood in the center of a clearing with a [[Suicide by Cop|drawn toy gun pointed at six police officers]]. After the resulting hail of twenty-eight bullets, Mr. McGouey found himself with a single minor wound to his shoulder, requiring only outpatient care—it's harder to hit a guy if you're trying to do so without killing.

{{quote|"Nice shooting, Elmer Fudd."}}

** He then goes on to mention a hard aversion of this trope where "A Kid in Detroit a few years ago, shot 8 bullets, hit 9 people."

* [[Truth in Television]]: most people (including a number of experienced ''cops'') sincerely believe that [[More Dakka]] will instantly reduce targets to hamburger. Burning off too much ammo at once blows accuracy. Inexperienced and/or overconfident law enforcement officers regularly empty their badge-granted leadspitters at unarmored targets at less than five meters, and don't put a scratch on them because they forget to ''aim''. And police forces that rely on intimidation never really get enough weapons practice. Add all that up, then order the poor, doomed mooks to hunt down somebody with actual combat experience. [[Hilarity Ensues]].

** ''Experienced'' soldiers and mercenaries... not so much.

** The ability to reliably hit and kill enemies while under fire is a slow-to-develop and difficult skill to master. Accuracy can decline as much as 50% during stressful, timed events such as 3 gun matches where nobody is shooting back at you.

* This trope is actually averted fairly often when civilians use firearms to protect themselves. Civilians who shoot in self defense both tend to hit their target more frequently than the police do, as well as being five times less likely to shoot the wrong person by mistake!

*** At the same time few armies learned to at least adjust for slopes in broken ground which ''could'' be done whether with volley fire or independent fire. Wellington's men did this to some degree which gave an advantage.

* The inaccuracy of early gunpowder weapons was one of several reasons why imperial China did not develop the sophisticated rifles of the West. Contemporary crossbows were much more accurate, as well as easier to manufacture and use, and proved much more effective against the various cultures of the northern steppes, who often used quick, lightly armored horsemen. Meanwhile, the full armor of European knights encouraged the development of gunpowder weaponry as an equalizer.

* In Richard Marcinko's autobiography ''Rogue Warrior'', he mentions how his highly trained SEALs in Vietnam could hit paper targets with ease yet missed a moving target. After that he began training them with a moving target. He also noted the tendency of shooters to become twitchy and inaccurate when they were in a pressure situation where their hearts would be pumping and adrenaline surging, so in training, he made his men sprint to their positions before firing - he called this "stress shooting".

* Non-gun [[WW 2]] example: submarine torpedoes used by all sides of the war (except the Japanese) were badly engineered to an almost comical degree. Most of them ran too deep, and would thus pass harmlessly under their intended targets. The early German ones would stubbornly refuse to detonate unless they hit their target at a precise 90° angle, while the American ones on the other hand would ''never'' detonate at that angle, despite the skippers being extensively drilled for such shots and getting chewed up by the brass should they deviate from them. This was true for good torpedoes - a staggering proportion of them were just plain duds. Even worse, some torps would get their rudder stuck right outside the firing tube and ran in a perfect circle, blowing up the sub that launched it; this could also be caused by cold temperatures affecting the steering gear. This is how [[wikipedia:USS Tang (SS-306)|the most successful US submarine of the war]] met its fate. At least two U-boats are reported to have sunk themselves with faulty acoustic homing torpedoes, and Karl Dönitz was known to complain quite publically about the various British ships he could have sunk if his torps worked properly.

* One [[Darwin Award]] Honorable Mention featured the story of some undercover soldiers getting into a shootout with plainclothes cops over a case of [[Mistaken Identity]]. Over 100 shots were fired across a busy intersection, and none of them hit ''anything''.

* A few years back, a Baltimore Ravens player had someone break into his home in the middle of the night. He exchanged gunfire with the robber ''in the confines of a narrow hallway'', and despite police counting over 30 rounds fired by both sides, there were no injuries.

* [[Justified Trope|Justified]] by [http://www.cracked.com/article_18858_the-biggest-star-wars-plot-hole-explained-by-science.html this Cracked article]. It doesn't always have to do with the guns, but with the men firing them.

* According to [[George Orwell]] in "Homage to Catalonia," everyone involved in the [[Spanish Civil War]] exemplified this trope: “In this war, everyone always did miss everyone else, when it was humanly possible.” The most sensational story he tells of this kind is of how he was accidentally shot at by a Republican machine gun “pointed directly at” him. It still managed to miss him entirely. [[Ernest Hemingway]] seems to contradict this in his fictional depiction "For Whom the Bell Tolls" where nearly every shot hits its mark.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Guns and Gunplay Tropes]]

[[Category:This Index Is Expendable]]

[[Category:Esoteric Trope Names]]