See the Whites of Their Eyes: Difference between revisions

 

 

 

While current military organizations possess the technology to accurately target things over the horizon or out of visual range (most noticeably in the case of missiles and even in the case of [[Improbable Aiming Skills|snipers]]), most advanced civilizations have lost the secret. Those that ''do'' manage to retain the secret tend to develop the technology to the point of [[Roboteching]].

Although not exclusively, this presents a particular problem for armed spacegoing vessels, where the loss of this rather useful bit of technology invariably leads to confrontations and battles against other vessels at near-point-blank range. And God help you if your opponent is packing an [[Invisibility Cloak]]. This has also led to a common starship design configuration where most of the ship's weaponry is placed [[Space Is an Ocean|broadside-style]] along the flanks of the ship's superstructure. It has also brought about the need for super-advanced, highly technological warlike civilizations to engage in [[Old School Dogfighting]].

 

 

There are [[Justified Trope|four discernible reasons]] for this phenomenon:

 

See [[Short-Range Long-Range Weapon]] for more generalized examples of this trope.

{{examples}}

 

** At the same time, it's still a rather blatant anachronism. [[World War II]] tanks were often able to hit targets multiple kilometers away in combat just relying on their primitive gun sights. And most modern gun sights aren't radar based.

*** [[Minovsky Physics|Minovsky Particles]] interfere with ''all'' electro-magnetic phenomenon. In MS Igloo it was finally demonstrated that even visual sensors are impaired at great range.

* Averted largely in ''[[Starship Operators]]'' where the trainee crew who mans the ship for the majority of the show stress the ranges involved in combat early on. Several of the enemies ships play with this concept, running in stealth mode (drifting into a "no miss" range and attack angle, featuring extremely advanced stealth) or just just plain running in (featuring a nigh invincible bow designed specifically for ramming other ships).

 

 

== Film ==

* The ''[[Star Trek]]'' films, where most ship-to-ship combat took place with the captains of each vessel within spitting distance of one another. The inherent superiority of visual targeting is illustrated perfectly in ''[[Star Trek]]: Generations'' where a Klingon warship locks onto the ''Enterprise'' by using what looks a lot like a ''periscope''.

** "[[Stealth in Space|The thing's gotta have a tailpipe!]]"

* ''[[Star Wars]]'', where it seems impossible to target a Star Destroyer with a superstructure one ''mile'' long unless you are able to see it out the window. Missiles are restricted to fighter-sized starships, are deployed only at visual range, and tend to operate in a [[Cool but Inefficient]] manner. Advanced missile weapons (such as proton torpedoes) have insufficient targeting accuracy to hit anything more agile than a freighter ([[The Force|unaided]]).

** This is generally [[Hand Wave|hand waved]] in the books as a result of having much better ECM than targeting systems. Missiles are tricky because they only carry so much fuel, and if they go ballistic are trivial to intercept with counterfire. Missiles don't tend to be carried on capital ships because heavy turbolasers pack a similar punch, can't be shot down, and don't have to worry about ammo.

** The trope is justified a few times as well, such as in ''[[Revenge of the Sith]]'' where the attacking force was attempting to invade the planet (see "tactical justification" above) and in ''[[Return of the Jedi]]'' where the objective was to obtain protection from the [[Wave Motion Gun]] obliterating their ships. The battle in ''Attack of the Clones'', with the two armies no more than a few hundred meters apart and ''charging'' at each other, however, is right out.

** Averted partially in Tyrants Test, specifically the Battle of ILC-905, where missiles are used, and barrages do manage to allow a few to penetrate the flack. Justified over normal tactics due to the enemy ships being very resistant to standard weapons.

* ''[[Starship Troopers]]'' (movie version), where futuristic humanity, in possession of portable small-yield nuclear weapons, prefers to send footsoldiers ''[[Zerg Rush|en masse]]'' into battle with weaponry largely incapable of hitting a target other than at point blank or very short range. On the other hand, this is only to be expected when you're employing the [[Redshirt Army]], all of whom are equipped with [[Cool but Inefficient]] weaponry.

** Completely subverted in the original book: Narrator states that the Navy can blow the planet into smithereens, but they need M.I. (Mobile Infantry) to make precision strikes against certain targets, an example being the main character (and narrator) a part of ''Scare them into cooperation'' battle in the beginning of the book and the main battle near the end of the book has ''Capturing enemy commander'' as it's only real purpose (it's clearly stated that they didn't even have to fight for this planet this way - they could just blow up the rest of the bugs using mass destruction weapons). Another thing is the fact that the book is a sort of manifest against [[Redshirt Army]].

** This troper got the impression that the aliens' tactics were based on the fact that [[Old School Dogfighting]] is fun when you're [[Deflector Shields|cheating]]. Until the humans exploited their lack of IT security, the only danger to them was that if they were careless they could crash into the ground.

* ''[[Transformers (film)|Transformers]]'' (movie version), and in particular the Decepticon known as Starscream. Whilst primitive Raptor aircraft employed by the US Air Force were designed with the capability to lock and fire at ground-based targets outside visual range, this advanced alien warrior apparently is unable to target and hit the Hoover Dam's power station unless he's ''stationary'' and in ''robot mode''. On the other hand, he's ''[[The Starscream|Starscream]]''. He may have just wanted to add a personal touch.

* ''[[Spaceballs]]'', where the crew of the Eagle Five successfully jam Spaceball One's radar by visually locking onto, and firing a giant raspberry jam jar at, the capital ship's radar dish. Having said that, this somewhat backfired given Dark Helmet was able to ascertain the jammers' identity from their choice of weapon: ''"There's only one man in the universe who'd DARE give ME the RASPBERRY ... LOOONNNNE STARRRRRRR--*clunk*''

** This scene [[MST3K Mantra|gets a pass]] because it's [[Rule of Funny|hilarious, and in a comedy]].

 

== Literature ==

* ''Note that in literature this trope is commonly averted, since it's relatively easy to describe in a narrative fashion the causes and consequences of interstellar warfare without actually showing it subject to the physics of the conflicts themselves.''

** In [[The Culture]] series of sf novels by [[Iain Banks]], this trope is deliberately [[Subverted]] and [[Playing with a Trope|played with]] in that the titular Culture, one of the most progressive and advanced interstellar societies, totally avoids the use of ground combat and traditional soldiery, and instead prefers to go to war with starships that are essentially big engines with weapon nodules at both ends, and which are capable of causing stars hundreds of light years away to go nova.

 

== Live Action TV ==

* Averted once in ''[[Babylon 5]]''. When the Narn fleet was ambushed by a team of Shadow Vessels, the initial salvos of the battle took place very far from each other. The shots were cleverly edited together to maintain the necessary sense of danger. By the end, they had closed to spitting distance, but a lot of Narn vessels didn't make it that far.

** To be fair, JMS does explicitly state in the DVD commentaries that he and the production team knew that space combat between large ships would realistically occur at extreme range but that they had to make some concessions to having an exciting TV show rather than a physics documentary.

* ''[[Star Trek]]'' uses and averts this a lot (particularly the latter in the Original Series). However, in many battles (especially big ones), a lot of fighting is done at extreme close range. As mentioned in the "The Wounded" example above, rendering an accurate battle in a visual medium that is in some way exciting can be difficult.

* Used and averted in ''[[Andromeda]]'', where on the bridge, they call out the distances and mention distances measured in light seconds, and have unexciting displays where symbols fire at each other. However, the CGI battles are usually done up close and personal.

** May be somewhat [[Justified Trope]] in that Cylon ECM is usually enough to make any kind of guided Colonial munition worthless, necessitating a close-in gun battle.

** Also Justified by the presence of FTL that cannot be jammed or traced. As demonstrated by the Colonial fleet surviving multiple Cylon attacks by the simple but effective tactic of jumping away every time the Cylons show up. In such a situation the only realistic option for an attacker is to jump in practically on top of their target, so they can hit them before they jump away. Since both sides rely heavily (but not exclusively) on fighters which must be launched and then get close to the target (presumably since their own guns have unspectacular muzzle velocity) this means positioning your capital ships very close indeed. Of course all of this assumes your target will want to run away (and you want to prevent him), but if he thinks he can fight back you may want to reconsider your attack anyway.

 

== Tabletop Games ==

** By contrast, in ''Battlefleet Gothic'', a space combat game set in the same universe, the main batteries of larger ships have ranges of several Earth diameters. Needless to say, model and "ground" scale differ!

*** Yes and no. The game often featured multiple planets on the (2 dimensional) field of play, so presumably the distances were in light minutes. Depictions in text have them fighting at much smaller ranges. Occasionally, less than one kilometer.

* ''Star Fleet Battles'', the tactical tabletop adaptation of ship-to-ship combat in the ''[[Star Trek Original Series]]'' universe, regularly uses this trope. Well, they don't ''make'' hexsheets in "square lightyear" sizes, do they?)

** Hexes are 10,000 kilometers wide (the earth takes up a three-hex diameter sphere), no ramming allowed and practical combat range is under 20 hexes (one planet at a time on the map).

***** Earth plus atmosphere is a single hex. Maybe you were thinking of the small gas giant?

**** More like [[Acceptable Breaks From Reality]]. The designers know this (and that ships don't 'orbit' at light speed and that moons are normally more than 10k km from the planetary surface...)

 

== Video Games ==

** That said, distances in the battles are measured in tens to hundreds of kilometers. The Mothership itself is something like four to six kilometers on its longest side, for goodness' sake. So this might actually be an aversion - visual range is just a freaking long distance.

** Not even close, hundreds of kilometers is nothing in space.

** The prequel, ''Total Annihilation'' is much more forgiving about this sort of thing past the first tier, although tank battles still escalate to a mass of tangled metal if their respective armour is sturdy enough.

** Actually, Supreme Commander was notable for avoiding this trope. Even the weakest weapons have a range of half a kilometer. Additionally, conventional artillery pieces have ranges exceeding one kilometer (for example, the UEF's Duke cannon has a ''minimum'' range of 3 km).

* In ''[[EVE Online]]'' the range of ship weapons varies depending on the size and type of the weapon. Small ships usually have a max weapon range of few dozen kilometers for long range weapons and a few kilometers for short range ones. Large battleships can potentially hit targets from several hundred kilometers away (although their close range weapons still require getting very close, especially for such slow and hard to maneuver ships). Large scale space battles tend to consist out of two large groups of ships about 100 kilometers from each other, blowing up the other group by focusing fire to one ship at a time.

* ''[[Star Control]] 2'' has some spaceships that can hit enemies from the other side of the map (Earthling, Druuge), and a few who can only hit at what's effectively ''melee'' range (Zot-Dot-Pik, Ilwrath).

* ''[[Sword of the Stars]]'' can go from BVR combat where the enemies are only visible through the sensor display to close-in fighting where ships maneuver around each other. According to [[Word of God]], though, this is merely an abstraction for the players' convenience. Everything actually takes place at stellar ranges and even "knife fights" with small mount weapons don't actually take place in WVR. The sequel will further avert this as weapon ranges will now exceed sensor ranges, requiring the use of battle riders as scouts/spotters.

* ''Universal Combat'' is perhaps one of the best arguments for why this is a good thing to have. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R94jmLqtc6I Behold!]

 

 

* During [[The Vietnam War]], American jets carries carried the [[wikipedia:AIM-7 Sparrow|Sparrow missile]] which was designed to shoot down Russian bombers ''beyond visual range''. Unfortunately, due to a fear of friendly fire, commanders instructed fighter pilots to only fire on a hostile aircraft after ''visual'' identification , completely negating the technological advantage of the long range missile. The missiles were completely ill suited for tracking maneuvering targets in a dogfight and achieved a kill rate of under 10%.

** Which was still far better than [[The Scrappy|the AIM-4 Falcon]].

** This was most likely caused by the very long reloading time. Shooting at very close range was could maximize enemy losses and even probably break the enemy before the close quarters combat started, still leaving defenders time to put bayonets on. In time required to reload an XVIII-century musket charging soldiers could cover about 200 meters, roughly the whole practical range of such weapon.

** This was also the basis for 'thunder fire' tactics of XVII-century Swedish musketeers who preferred to fire at very close range but with three or even four ranks at once. With such firepower they were able to break even the charge of heavy cavalry.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Eye Tropes]]

[[Category:Action Adventure Tropes]]