A-Team Firing: Difference between revisions
Rescuing 1 sources and tagging 0 as dead.) #IABot (v2.0.8
(Rescuing 1 sources and tagging 0 as dead.) #IABot (v2.0.8) |
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This trope is often [[Truth in Television]], particularly after it was statistically analyzed in World War II. Officially this trope goes by the term [[wikipedia:Spray and pray|spray and pray]] as any sustained automatic fire from a hand held weapon will require divine intervention to actually hit its target. The causes for this trope are rooted in physics because the recoil from each successive shot from an automatic weapon will force the weapon's muzzle to [[wikipedia:Muzzle climb|rise up]] until all of the rounds are passing harmlessly over the target.
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 [[wikipedia:Suppressive fire|suppressive fire]] and maneuver, which use aimed shots to suppress, or pin down the enemy, to allow other elements to move in close for the kill. Back in the late 1950s, in [[Robert A. Heinlein]]'s ''[[Starship Troopers (novel)|Starship Troopers]]'' he points out that military histories show that it takes several ''thousand'' rounds ''per person'' to kill an enemy soldier (in today's era of machine guns that shoot hundreds of rounds of suppressing fire, it takes [https://web.archive.org/web/20110903123751/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-forced-to-import-bullets-from-israel-as-troops-use-250000-for-every-rebel-killed-508299.html at least 250,000 rounds to kill one militant in Iraq!]<ref>It should be noted that a large portion of those bullets were used in target practice and otherwise outside of combat.</ref>), even under normal circumstances; in combat, accuracy with small arms goes ''way'' down. Way, way down. It should be noted that long before machineguns and semi-automatic rifles like the WWII M1 Garand were developed, artillery was the big killer on the battlefield and still is.
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.
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