Law of Inverse Recoil: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

 

Naturally, this makes [[Guns Akimbo]] with automatic weapons wholly impractical in real life (of course, [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4nfZu8VqgQ impractical] never stopped anyone in pursuit of [[Awesome but Impractical|cool]]).

 

The other side of [[Blown Across the Room]]. See also [[Steel Ear Drums]] for another ignored part of guns being fired.

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* In the final chapter of ''[[Macross]] Plus'', when struggling against Sharon Apple and other threats, Myung has the common sense to arm herself with the submachine gun of a fallen guard (by itself, quite a rare occurrence) but wastes almost the entire magazine when she tries to use it in full-auto, being overcome by recoil and spraying bullets everywhere. She gets a few shots in the right direction, however...

* ''[[Blame]]'': In the manga, not only does Killy's [[Wave Motion Gun|graviton beam emitter pistol]] produce recoil, but on the first occasion when he [[Up to Eleven|turned it up to full power]] the recoil was enough to break his arm.

* In ''[[Gunslinger Girl]]'' all the weapons have realistic recoil, including handguns. The only reason that the girls can handle even large weapons, despite their own small size, is that they are [[Robot Girl|cybernetically enhanced]].

* ''[[Cannon God Exaxxion]]'': The manga features guns so powerful that they're just as likely to kill somebody standing several feet ''behind'' as well as in front of them unless you're wearing a suit of [[Powered Armor]]. This is often a source of dramatic tension, as the main character is trying to be as heroic as possible in a world far into the cynical end of the [[Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism]] & accidentally vaporizing innocent bystanders isn't exactly the sort of thing heroes do.

* ''[[Negima]]'': Negi uses the recoil from a magic arrow to avoid a blast by {{spoiler|his father}} during their fight in the Mahora Budokai.

** Batou's anti-tank rifle ([[BFG|"Your standard issue big gun"]]) features a realistic recoil dampener (a device to temporarily store the kinetic energy and then slowly dissipate it, converting the sudden "kick" into more manageable "sliding" action).

** In the movie version, most characters are cyborgs, but a mook must brace himself before firing hypervelocity armour-piercing bullets from a submachine gun. Said armour-piercing bullets [[Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy|effectively ruin the gun's accuracy]] ([[Explosive Overclocking|and the gun itself]]), leaving him open to summary beatdown shortly afterwards.

* ''[[Rocket Girls]]'' In episode 2, the protagonist, a lightly built teenage girl, is given a gun and told to practice firing on a shooting range. She doesn't expect the recoil and falls over backwards.

* Played with in ''Teki wa Kaizoku''; the main character jerks his wrists whenever he fires his laser gun like it's recoiling even though laser weapons shouldn't, but immediately after we first see him fire it he's called on that and he admits that pretending his gun recoils is just a hobby of his. Sure enough, if you pay attention in future fight scenes he keeps doing it but nobody else does.

* The manga adaptation of James P. Hogan's novel ''The Two Faces of Tomorrow'' has a scene where a [[Space Marine]] floating outside the space station in a spacesuit fires a particle beam rifle. Small thrusters on his jetpack fire to counter the weapon's recoil.

* In ''[[Princess Mononoke]]'', a village woman takes a shot at Ashitaka with a newly designed (and still relatively primitive) musket. The recoil blows her off her feet and through the crowd of people standing behind her. [[Lady of War|Eboshi-sama]] uses the same musket before and after this with much less recoil, although she is much more skilled in combat.

 

* A sequence in the [[DC Comics]] [[Miniseries]] ''[[Green Lantern|Guy Gardner]] Reborn'', parodying [[Marvel Comics|Marvel]]'s [[The Punisher]], has the title character burst into a room with [[Guns Akimbo]], and rapidly lose control of them, injuring himself.

** A very young Tulip is carefully taught about guns; a powerful handgun sends her slamming back into a deep snowdrift.

* ''[[Sin City]]'' monologues sometimes refer to the sensation of recoil but it's minimal.

 

 

 

== Film ==

 

* In ''[[Pirates of the Caribbean]]: At World's End'', the midget member of Jack's crew charges out of a cellar wielding what looks to be a cannon over his arm. He shoots it and is blown right back into the cellar.

* In ''[[Toy Soldiers]]'' when teenaged preppy [[Wil Wheaton]] picks up a full-auto AK and ''tries'' to blast the villains with it; about two bullets go in the right direction, the rest of the magazine goes into the ceiling. And he obviously would like to make the gun stop but can't.

** On the History Channel series ''Lock and Load'', it's shown to be completely common with the AK-47. Even the trained shooter had trouble keeping it on target at short range.

* ''Half Past Dead'' has a shoulder-mounted rocket launcher that pack enough recoil to launch a person back by a considerable distance. The immediate shot after then shows no recoil whatsoever.

* In ''[[Pineapple Express]]'', two deadbeat stoners without any previous knowledge or experience find AK-47s in the underground lair of the drug lord. Not only do they have all the knowledge necessary to load and use them, they are able to engage in a protracted firefight with the Drug Lord's [[Mooks]], while the guns are ''on full automatic'', without reacting to any recoil or blowing out their eardrums.

* ''[[Beverly Hills Cop]] II'' has Billy firing a LAWS rocket while holding it loosely in front of himself sideways as he reads the directions. "Extend here. Press here." click-Whoosh! It is correctly shown with very little recoil.

 

 

== Literature ==

 

** In ''Cell'' when one of the protagonists {{spoiler|is fatally injured by hit-and-run hooligans}}. Another character had picked up an AKS-47 assault rifle from a gun enthusiast's house, but when he fires 'Sir Speedy' it empties most of the bullets into the air.

* There's a non-fiction book in which it's pointed out that ''[[Rambo]]'' should have two spontaneously-dislocating shoulders due to the abuse they've taken from firing machine guns akimbo (he'd be deaf too, but that's [[Steel Ear Drums|another trope entirely]]). The fact that [[Rambo]] [[Did Not Do the Research|never used Guns Akimbo in any of the films]] doesn't detract from the author's point.

* In ''[[True Grit]]'', 14 year-old Mattie discovers the effects of recoil at the most inopportune time and place.

* In ''[[World War Z]]'', early on when a doctor is combating a zombie in his clinic during the early stages of the outbreak, he aims a Desert Eagle pistol at the zombie's chest; however, because he wasn't expecting the high recoil, the shot ended up in the zombie's head, which ended up saving his life.

* Pointedly averted in the book ''[[Patriot Games]]'' Jack Ryan gets his hands on one of the terrorist's submachine guns and fires on them. Before firing he remembers his military training and aims with his target in the upper right part of the sight to account for the recoil and make sure that subsequent rounds will still be on target.

 

== Live Action TV ==

* ''[[CSI New York]]'': A killer was identified because they weren't used to recoil of the revolver they used, and left a nice long scrape of knuckle skin on the brick wall they were shooting from behind, as well as a nick on the top of the gun's frame where it hit the attractive concrete handrail at the top.

* An episode of ''[[Psych]]'' has Det. Lassiter training a rookie detective who happens to be completely insane. When he takes her to the firing range, he comments that she isn't bracing herself properly to fire his gun, but she shrugs him off. The recoil from the gun blows it out of her hands.

* ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'':

** While Teal'c does do [[Guns Akimbo]], he is a [[Badass|truly exceptional individual]] from a [[Proud Warrior Race Guy|race]] of [[Super Soldier|bred warriors]]. The rest of the cast hold their guns with both hands, even when firing pistols.

** In the P90's case, this isn't exactly a bad idea, as its recoil is [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f76wGxg3fzw almost negligible].

* In an episode of ''[[How I Met Your Mother]]'', Robin takes Marshall to a shooting range to help him get over Lily leaving him for the summer. He picks up the gun, shoots it, and it recoils to smack him right in the face, knocking him on his ass.

** John Crichton uses a pulse rifle to [[Recoil Boost|propel himself]] from one spaceship to another in one episode. Whether an energy weapon would produce enough recoil to do this is another question entirely.

** In the Farscape-verse, pulse rifles are actually projectile weapons that fire highly energized pulses of a refined explosive oil (oh, you know what I mean). Guns have been shown to malfunction, sending the pulse a few inches before it nose-dives and makes a hole in the floor.

* A somewhat questionable aversion occurs in the second ''[[Quatermass]]'' serial, when an astronaut fires a submachine gun on an asteroid, and the recoil knocks him off the low gravity surface and out into space.

* ''[[Kamen Rider OOO]]'': The Birth Buster used by Kamen Rider Birth actually has a huge recoil, enough to knock an unprepared person flat on their butt. Like any weapon in [[Real Life]], it evidentally takes practice to use it untransformed (and according to its user, even transformed), as while Date (the primary user) has no problems with it, Goto gets thrown off his feet the first time he tries due to not having the proper knowledge of its use.

** This was done earlier in Kamen Rider Kiva and mixed with the above Noisy Cricket example from Men in Black.

* In a departure from the franchise's usual recoil-less BFGs, the Dual Crusher from ''[[Go Go Sentai Boukenger]]'' / Drill Blaster from ''[[Power Rangers Operation Overdrive]]'' knocks the user flat (and that's for morphed Rangers; it could be worse for someone untransformed). A special armored vest had to be developed to disperse the energies.

 

 

== Tabletop Games ==

 

** And this is despite the fact that Bolter ammunition is explicitly stated in several places to be self propelled. Probably the charge needed to actually get the bolt out of the weapon would not be enough to break somebody's arm..

* ''[[GURPS]]'', in its relentless pursuit of accuracy, avoids this at every turn and even tries to establish realistic recoil of weapons that don't exist.

* The ''[[Traveller]]'' science-fiction RPG has man-portable energy weapons (the game's [[BFG]]) that can only be fired while wearing a suit of ''[[Powered Armor]]'' that automatically locks your body into one of several safe firing positions.

 

== Video Games ==

* In the ''[[Halo]]'' series, automatic rifles, submachine guns, and even a semi-automatic shotgun capable of sending a charging Flood zombie flying two feet backwards if hit at close range produce no recoil whatsoever, to the point that you can fire them while in mid-air and not alter your trajectory whatsoever. Admittedly, though, the Master Chief does have superhuman strength and his armor is said to weigh half a ton, so perhaps it's more realistic than it seems. That, of course, brings up the question of why you can't [[Goomba Stomp|kill people by jumping on them]].

** The mass of his armor shouldn't have anything to do with it, those are the SAME guns that are used by the regular infantry, the amount of recoil they should produce should render them inoperable by someone less powerful than MC.

** Averted in ''Halo 3: ODST'', where automatic and semi-automatic weapons have much more noticeable recoil. For example, rapidly pulling the trigger on a pistol will result in significant muzzle climb, while slowing the rate of fire down will result in much more fire control. This is justified in the story by the [[Player Character|player characters]] not being [[Hollywood Cyborg|augmented]] and [[Powered Armor|power armor]]-wearing [[Super Soldier|super soldiers]], but elite unaugmented soldiers.

* Avoided in the ''[[Call of Duty]]'' games. The rocket launchers have zero recoil, the cannon on the first game's tank will actually make you move back a couple feet and all guns have as realistic recoil as possible. A notable and severe exception is the M240B in [[Modern Warfare]] 2 - it's a 7.62mm heavy machine gun that weighs 27 pounds empty. The recoil is severe to the point that the ideal firing position is from a tripod, and if the gunner doesn't have enough time he makes do with the built-in bipod. In the game, however, it has the ''least'' recoil of all the machine guns and can be fired easily from the shoulder. The worst part is that they could have done that realistically by using the Mk. 48, a much lighter and smaller version that ''can'' be fired from the shoulder. It still has a heft kick, though.

** To the point that a major selling point for the [[Cool Gun|Locust SMG]] in ''[[Mass Effect 2]]'' is how insignificant the recoil is.

** Other weapons are described as made for more durable races, like the Claymore or Widow. The tooltips describe how the weapons were remanufactured specificly to avoid breaking the arm of a human weilder.

* In ''[[Killzone]]'', all the standard rifles, pistols, and grenade launchers have realistic amounts of recoil, the rocket launchers have no recoil at all (which would make the Helghast launcher a bit of a game breaker in multiplayer if ammo wasn't almost nonexistent for it) and the really big guns, the chain gun and squad cannon (an anti-materiel repeater) have such high recoil (excluding the alt fire for the chain gun) and are so bulky that they require a steadycam-esque harness in order to be even wielded effectively.

* The tank cannon in ''[[Grand Theft Auto]] 3'' causes the vehicle to roll backward slightly if it is stationary when you fire. It's possible, when driving forwards, to rotate the cannon and fire repeatedly behind you, using it as a makeshift booster and accelerating the tank to huge speeds.

** It is possible to use the tanks recoil to make the tank FLY, turn it around, start firing while driving, go up an incline while constantly firing.

* In ''[[Far Cry]] 2'' the PKM has so much recoil that you'd get better range with a shotgun.

* Explained with a hand wave in the ''[[Hitman]]'' series. Forty-Seven, being a peak-human clone, handles any sort of gun with ease, minus the recoil.

* ''[[Lego Adaptation Game|LEGO Batman]]'' avoids this, as several firearms cause recoil, and shooting things from a small ledge is not recommended. Whether the developers did this to be realistic or simply add more [[Fake Difficulty]] is up to the individual.

** This is probably done for stylistic reasons. ''LEGO Star Wars'' has ''blasters'' kick upwards or back from recoil. The recoil from a blaster, which is a plasma weapon, would logically be imperceptible.

** Consider the Heavy's case with the lack of visible recoil from his minigun. It is somewhat justifiable by his enormous size and strength. Though we do see the gun jerk around a lot when it is fired.

** The Scout's Force-A-Nature unlockable shotgun takes knockback to its illogical extreme. It has ''so'' much recoil that [[Recoil Boost|a single shot can send ol' Scoutsy flying into the air.]]

** The RPG is launched using compressed gas, then the rocket actually ignites once it is clear.

** Then there's the M249 from Opposing Force, which will visibly push you backwards as it fires.

* ''Oddworld: Abe's Exodus'': A Slig's submachine gun has some recoil, and this is actually a troubling aspect in the game where you have to possess a Slig in order to kill around 50+ Slogs in order to progress, but you have to watch where the Slig is being pushed back, because there's an electrical fence right behind him, and touching those things is instant death.

** ''Bad Company 2'', however, seems to have fixed the climb issue, so one must be a tad more careful when aiming any automatic weapon. It's particularly noticeable on guns like the MG-3, which fires so freakin' fast that you shouldn't expect to hit much of anything unless you're firing in bursts.

* ''[[Quake]] 2'''s machine gun features muzzle climb as you hold down the trigger. It was usually a good idea to aim slightly below where you wanted the bullets to go, and let the muzzle climb rake gunfire up your target.

* In the 3rd case of ''[[Ace Attorney|Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney]]'', the fact that the murder weapon was a 45-caliber revolver is a high point of contention, as the feeling is that it could only be used by someone with a large enough frame to take its recoil. It doesn't prevent the idiots from accusing a blind, frail 10-year old boy in the first place, mind.

* In ''[[Jak and Daxter]]'' Jak's [[BFG]] actually does jerk back after firing. However, that doesn't stop him from running around and shooting everything in sight with a [[More Dakka|machine gun]].

* In ''[[Silent Hill 3]]'' Heather's wrists jerk from the recoil of her initial handgun, and she's thrown completely off-balance from shooting the shotgun.

* Played straight in many arcade light-gun shooter games, but averted in a few games (such as ''[[Time Crisis]]'') that have devices in the guns that produce some blowback. Then again, played straight in ''Time Crisis 3'' and onwards when the same amount of blowback occurs with each usable weapon - be it handgun, machine gun, or shotgun (or if the mechanism breaks and the cheapskate arcade owner won't fix it, or if you turn off recoil in ''Time Crisis 4'''s hidden options screens).

* All guns in ''[[Spelunky]]'' push the player back a few pixels, which can easily drop one off the edge on the slippy ice surface.

 

== Web Comics ==

 

* In ''[[Girl Genius]]'', when three Jaegermonsters [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20030430 attempt to fire a ] [[Humongous Mecha|Clank]] [[BFG|gun]], which sound effects indicate is meant to act like a machinegun, the one holding the weapon from behind is realistically enough slammed into the wall behind him.

** Of course, Jagers being Jagers, the one who did the firing recovered in short order with nothing more than a broken nose ("Oooh! Lemme see!").

** Klaus, on the other hand, has [[Badass|no trouble at all]] [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20070122 shooting one all by himself].

*** Possibly a different model of same gun. The one in the first example is so big it takes all three of the Jaegers to hold it up. While Klaus is so massive that he's very nearly as large as his own Clanks, the gun appears to be slightly smaller than it ought to (although it's otherwise identical, right down to the detailing).

 

== Web Original ==

 

* Averted in ''[[New York Magician]]''; Michel mentions at least once that firing his Desert Eagle, despite his extensive training with it, has still made his wrist hurt.

 

== Western Animation ==

 

* ''[[The Boondocks]]'': In the first episode, "The Garden Party", Ed Wuncler III asks Riley (an 8-year old) to shoot him with his SPAS-12 combat shotgun to prove his bullet-proof armor works. Riley gladly obliges, and while the armor works, the force of the gun knocks Ed over and out a second-story window, and causes Riley to fall over and suffer an injured wrist.

** Bart does quite well because he isn't given an SMG, but a multiple grenade launcher, a weapon with limited recoil (though how he adjusted for the grenade arc is another matter, especially the shot that destroyed Skinner's car when it was a several hour car ride away. Additionally, Lisa was given an M16 pattern assault rifle, and a full sized one at that, thus her difficulty controlling an extremely unwieldy weapon for an eight year old Girl with, as shown in a later episode, the physique of a gymnast (small, with the weight of her head off-setting her balance point to her torso rather than her lower body, meaning a much higher center of gravity than most of the recruits, especially Bart who has always had a gut reminiscent of Homer's (though no way near as flanderised, ironically, excluding the episodes when he was rendered obese via snack foods.)

* In an episode of ''[[Transformers]] Heavy Metal War'', Wheeljack tries his new "shock blast cannon", a shoulder-mounted bazooka-like weapon, out on an incoming Megatron - only to knock himself to the floor with the quip, "That's a shock, alright..." Kind of a justification, as Wheeljack built the thing himself, and as a [[Mad Scientist]], it probably wouldn't be the first time he'd forgotten to take into account something as simple as recoil.

* The recoil from Yosemite Sam's six shooters is strong enough to make him airborn when firing downward.

 

== Real Life ==

 

** A Recoilless Rifle is not the same as a rocket launcher. Rocket launchers fire fin stabilized, self-propelled rockets. Recoilless rifles fire normal artillery shells from a rifled barrel, but use special perforated cartridges and a Venturi chamber to proper the combustion gases out the back at a high velocity canceling out the recoil force. They are a modern evolution of the old back to back recoilless cannons of the 10th century.

** Note one exception to the "anti-tank explosive weapon = no recoil" rule: the British PIAT system. This was a shoulder-fired spigot mortar that used a heavy spring to launch its anti-tank bomb. The spring delivered a punishing kick to the operator's shoulder, which was just one of the reasons the PIAT was disliked by British troops.

*** Another reason was that the projectile was held in the tube by gravity. That's right: if you aimed it so the muzzle wasn't at least horizontal, the projectile would slide out of the tube.

** This, or the black eye mentioned above, frequently accompanied by a nasty arc-shaped cut right below the eyebrow, was a common injury suffered by first-time big-game hunters on safari in Kenya "back in the day", due to using big-bore, hard-recoiling bolt-action rifles like the .375 Holland & Holland or .458 Winchester Model 70 African with a telescopic sight with insufficient "eye relief" (the distance between your eye and the eyepiece when you are "locked in" to the 'scope and have the correct field of view through it). According to the late Col. Jeff Cooper, the professional hunters who led the safaris referred to this as "Kaibab eye", and few people who ended up needing stitches for the cut made the same mistake twice (most often, they took the 'scope off and used the rifle's iron sights exclusively after such an experience). The professional hunters, by comparison, rarely bothered with telescopic sights on their "working rifles" in these heavy calibers, as they would (a) usually only shoot to "finish off" an animal that had only been wounded, not killed, by the client's shot and (b) most shooting at heavy game such as rhino, Cape buffalo, etc., was done at ranges under 50 yards, where a telescopic sight was more of a hindrance than a help anyway.

** This is known as "scope bite".

** The recoil of Desert Eagle itself is actually depending on the cartridge: when using standard .357 Magnum, the recoil is light due to the [[BFG|sheer mass of the gun]]. But loading it with [[For Massive Damage|.50 AE or .44 Magnum/Cor-bon]] [[Artistic License Gun Safety|without proper training whatsoever]]...

* In basic rifle training it's not uncommon for a drill or other training cadre to demonstrate the M16's lack of recoil by firing it off their nuts. Yes, you can place the stock in your crotch and fire full auto downrange without injuring yourself.

** Civilian rifles designed for large cartridges (.308, .30-06, .45-70, 9.3x74) and the re-chambered by the factory in .223Rem (civilian version of the 5.56mm) or .243Win calibers may even dispense a recoil pad altogether and still not generate enough recoil to feel a distinctive kick, due to the gun's heavy weight dampening recoil.

** This can occasionally lead to situations where people with ''military training'' end up suffering some of the already mentioned injuries when they try to use a rifle that does produce a significant kick without specific instruction.

** This was one of the major advances in [[WW 1]], the development of recoil-compensation mechanisms for artillery allowed for fast, accurate fire, greatly improving the effectiveness of artillery.

* The AA-12 automatic shotgun was specifically designed to absorb most of its own recoil. Given the amount of recoil a shotgun produces from only one shot, this was necessary to begin with just to make it a practical weapon, but it would be a welcome feature on any gun, much less one as scary-powerful as this one.

* While not 100% this trope, there's a bit of this in handguns. Small, low caliber guns can often have more felt recoil than bigger, larger caliber guns even though you're dealing with more energy in the latter case. This is because the less mass also means less inertia to overcome and therefore more energy transmitted to the shooter. This fact is often a surprise to new shooters who assume that a smaller pistol will be easier to handle.

** This often leads to tragedy when parents give their children 'low power' pistol as starter guns. What begins as a well intentioned attempt to teach their children respect and safety in regards to firearms can quickly lead to sever injuries or, in some cases, the death of the firing individual.

[[Category:Laws and Formulas]]

[[Category:Guns Do Not Work That Way]]