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See the Whites of Their Eyes: Difference between revisions
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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]].
[[Trope Namer|Named after]] the [[Beam Me Up, Scotty|supposed]] famous quote of Col. William Prescott in the battle of [[The American Revolution|Bunker Hill]]: "Don't fire 'til you see the whites of their eyes!" This was justified at the time because they were using notoriously inaccurate 18th-century muskets and they had almost no ammunition, so every bullet had to count. In reality, the command was routinely given to soldiers in many battles: no army had very accurate guns or unlimited ball and powder -- or arrows, for that matter. The saying is famed, and associated with Bunker Hill, by Americans because it was the first battle of the nascent American nation.
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There are [[Justified Trope|four discernible reasons]] for this phenomenon:
* The trope is often a function of practical visual cheats by filmmakers rather than a mistake. ''[[Star Trek]]'' often refers to a vessel being "300,000 kilometers away and gaining" but still presenting a real threat to the ''Enterprise''. A representation of this actual distance is near impossible without some sort of visual trickery. Television is also a visual medium that emphasizes "[[Show, Don't Tell]]". In order to get a sense of the size of the two or more spacecraft they need to somehow be next to each other. The cheat may be required to get around logistical problems in portraying a situation accurately: in the case of ''[[Star Wars]]'', special effect technological innovations during the time of the original trilogy hadn't reached the point where one could plausibly represent the flight path of missiles through a vacuum other than in the most rudimentary way.
* Many filmmakers hearken back to [[Space Is an Ocean|naval or submarine combat as the closest metaphor for space combat available]], and consequently use visual devices and images consistent with the representation of eighteenth-century seagoing vessels shooting at each other to place space battles on film. Of course, they might do that just because they know [[Space Is an Ocean]]. As it is, naval vessels have had the capacity to engage with guns at ranges of tens of thousands of meters since the late nineteenth century, albeit it took a while for fire control to make firing at said ranges accurate rather than [[A
* Averting this trope probably isn't much [[Rule of Cool|fun]] to watch, as a battle between starships where the enemy ship isn't blown up right before your eyes can be a bit dull. In the ''[[Star Trek the Next Generation]]'' episode 'The Wounded', two ships fire at each other at a range of over 100,000 kilometers. The characters watch the exchange on a screen with little symbols representing the ships and the shots. The fight is, needless to say, quite boring. ''Andromeda'' uses this and gets around it somewhat by showing the eventual collision of the missiles with the ship (sometimes. Other times, the dot representing the other ship just disappears), or just showing the battle if they're close enough for Anti-Proton blasts (less than 5 light seconds away, usually).
* The trope may also have a tactical justification as follows, as drawn from ''[[Mass Effect]]'': most ships aren't going to start shooting each other in deep space for no reason; they'll start shooting at each other because one ship stands between the other ship and something it wants. For the ship on defense to actually ''defend'' its charge, it can't go anywhere. By contrast, space battles where the combating ships are the only factors will usually take place at extreme ranges. Some examples on this page fit this situation; notice that in the ''[[Babylon 5]]'' instance of aversion, the objective of the aggressors is to destroy the ''ships''. Of course, this is still an imperfect explanation when the setting features FTL independent of fixed nodes, which ''[[Mass Effect]]'' has in the form of [[Portal Network|Mass Relays]]. The example of aversion in ''[[Star Wars]]'' regarding the ion canon below illustrates this problem, where the Star Destroyer comes out of lightspeed anywhere it damn-well pleased, but the Star Destroyers or other ships in freeform-FTL settings still approach the target very closely instead of firing on the defending ships from afar.
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When the phrase is used, [[Hold Your Hippogriffs|is often changed to reflect the enemy.]] For instance, in ''[[Transformers]]'', it's "the wires of their optics".
See [[Short
{{examples
== Anime ==
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* 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).
* In [[Mass Effect]] 2, this is the modus operandi for [[Magic Knight|Vanguards]], [[Foe
* ''[[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!]
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