Grrl Power #1299 – Hell hath no fury like a cornered sniper
I’m sure some people will be tempted to comment on Peggy getting a headshot at 300 (?) yards on a moving target after both her and her rifle tumbled out of a crashed helicopter. Not to spoil anything, but that is addressed on the next page. I can only fit so much per page. Also, you don’t know what she was even aiming at. That could have been a terrible miss. I mean, it wasn’t. Just saying it might have been.
It’s a good thing that hardcase wasn’t locked. One thing I wouldn’t like to have in my pockets if I had a job that involved hitting the ground and crawling to cover on a semi-regular basis is a bunch of keys. Maybe military people who do have to carry around a bunch of key have some special “key sheath” that prevents gratuitous poking.
Panel 6 – Peggy is just daring Sydney to say something flippant about “The Rapes.” Sydney’s just thinking “Why is she being so intense? Does she think I have something to do with “The Rapes?” Surely she knows I’m against “The Rapes.” Wait, am I on record one way or another? Maybe I should jump up and blurt out my position to avoid ambiguity… oh wait, she’s continuing her story.”
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It varies by individual and duties, but military personnel frequently carry a +5 Key Ring of Thundering.
I once had 5 pounds of keys in my control, and a special reinforced frog on my belt to secure them, because the carabiner was slowly destroying my uniform belt.
Could be Peggy was aiming at the driver and nailed the passenger instead. Still could be a great shot lif it convinces the driver that they need to be somewhere else right now.
I may be mistaken, but generally the driver is not the commander of such a unit.
I think she nailed exactly the one she wanted…
Dosnt mater if the driver is the commander they are the one consoling the vehicle. At worst your enemy has to get out and travel by foot giving you more opportunity to shoot them at best the vehicle crashes hurting all people inside it to the point they can’t fight.
She can’t move.
At worst she locks the car exactly on the path that will hit her.
Slightly below that, it might still drive all the other walking guns closer to her. Also not something she wants.
She wants the car to get distance to her. Which works a lot better if the driver is still around. And fearing for his live.
In addition they don’t know she can’t move… yet…
Putting a shock and awe headshot of a passenger thinking they were in command is enough to make you think the car is no longer safe. Time bought.
also the gunner on top probably will spray and pray because he can’t see the sniper yet. and if someone one shot’s someone in the cab it’s time to take cover
Ain’t no car “locked” on a straight line when it’s driver gets killed. Never mind rotational momentum of the tires has vehicles all wanting to drift, cause you DO need physics in real life, their body, slumped over and bouncing around, cause of rough terrain, is gonna have it turning and flipping. Never mind said rough terrain will mean it ain’t “locked” in any case. As it hits rocks, divots, hillocks, all those pesky things nature leaves laying around when you don’t have paved roads.
It’s still better to hit the driver, military units from Muslim countries function very well without command, and hitting the driver stops the truck, or could even make it hit something and solve 90% of the problem right there.
They typically hit the engine block first if the enemy is a fair distance out and the soldiers are protecting a designated location, since that’ll for sure stop the truck. Then they light everything else up since it’s now a stationary/vastly slower target.
If you want to avoid a fight, it’s best to leave your opponent with the option of leaving. Especially if you are bluffing. Which Peggy is, as she’s trying to convince them that they would be foolish to try and attack whoever is left alive in the helicopter.
Hitting the driver would result in the truck becoming much more unpredictable however. If she’s planning to simply follow up by shooting the rest of them to ensure they don’t continue on foot, better to shoot the driver last.
If you’re trapped somewhere and don’t know when you might get help, giving presumably the only enemies that know your current location the option to leave and come back with more people is an objectively terrible option. If you’re gambling with your life either way, better to be against three than against a dozen.
Oh, you aren’t the one I was trying to reply to
Uhm…no. Military units from Muslim countries often don’t function AT ALL beyond shaking down the peasants and looking good in uniform. These being (iirc) Afghan PARAMILITARIES (because they don’t have an army yet), they do function somewhat better than most Arab Armies, but a sniper shot is a sniper shot, and they don’t have a good eye on their target…while their target has eyes on them. Meaning they’ll more likely back off because Afghans are not STUPID.
Peggy was aiming at the driver. However, since this was a British Toyota i.e. steering on the right-hand side…. But I agree, still a brilliant shot either way considering.
She was aiming for the right-hand side. But she forgot that since she was upside down, the right side was on the right side. IE, a truck coming at you has their right side on your left side when you are both right side up. But a truck coming at you has their right side on your right side when you are upside down. Making that call while injured and making a free-hand shot at 300 yards was a bit much even for her.
Form that range it would be really hard to tell who is driving that car. However even if she didn’t hit the driver, having your buddy’s head blown off is excellent incentive to be somewhere, anywhere else.
Only 1 in 6 cars has the steering on the right-hand side. As such 5 out of 6 times that shot would have taken out the driver, which is always the best strategy when dealing with an oncoming vehicle (especially when it’s traveling at speed as evidenced by the Toyota-Vroom sound effect).
Priorities perhaps. Who’s more of a threat? The one shooting at you, or the one driving towards you? Take out the one shooting, and the driver would have to drive 1-handed to shoot unless someone else is in the truck, but otherwise taking out the immediate threat of 5.56 stingy bits.
If she had shot the driver instead, there’s other risks, such as the shooter is still active and the car may be out of control. Shooter may be active and the car is stuck coming straight at you pinned on the ground. After driver is out, car hits a bump or something which means the shooter is no longer an immediate active risk. Etc. I would say taking out the shooter first is a good call to make.
Oops. Didn’t see the other guys in the back. Still, I’d probably go for the ones shooting before hitting the driver and perhaps having it ram into me on the ground.
7.62 more accurately on a designated marksman rifle…
At about 275 m ( 300 yards) on a 45 km/h ( 28 mph) – they are on uneven terrain with potholes with two standing in the bed – 12,5 m/s it’s a good shot … even in nominal position with the bipod.
Yeah I had 5.56 nato in my head for some reason, you are correct that the Ak-47’s they have use 7.62. It definitely was a hell of a shot with all her current issues and positioning :)
Also worth noting that an AK is usually chambered in 7.62 Soviet, also known as 7.62x39mm, which is an intermediate round. While Peggy’s gun is most likely chambered in 7.62 Nato, or 7.62×51, a dedicated rifle and machine gun round. The difference in power and accuracy between the two rounds is significant.
Yep yep! 7.62×51 if the label on her case is accurate. Also a semi-auto Marksman Rifle (Sniper) that is still in use within the US military but not as widely used as it once was.
You have 2 type of 7.62 soviet the 7.62×39 mm for AKM , and the 7.62×54mmR for SVD Draganov and SV-98
In my country the standard infantry rifle is the HK-416f in 5.56 NATO
the DMR the SCAR-H PR in 7.62 NATO
FN Minimi in 5.56 NATO as standard support machinegun
And Hecate II as sniper and countersniper rifle 12,7×99 mm aka .50 BMG… but it’s a bolt action 37,5 lbs rifle with a 54.3 inches length…
Generally, you want to hit the driver FIRST to get them to have an accident, but having them shart themselves and stop several hundred feet out is good too.
It’s very impressive she could hold it like that; fear+pain+despiration is pretty cool. (Also she might have gotten the person BEHIND the target. There was a “comics are unrealistic” comment about this some time ago…)
Peggy is USAsian, so she was probably aiming at where she is use to the driver sitting, except they sit on the wrong side in the US (correct side is on the right)
Incorrect, Only 1 car in six has the steering on the right-hand side. So Peggy’s aim would have been correct in most cases.
Not *quite* a disassembler round, but good Splorch! nonetheless…
Shooting upside down at a distance is incredibly difficult. Everything (optics alignment, training, instincts, etc.) is based on the bullet first moving upwards to cross the straight optics line, leveling of, then eventually falling back down through it again at a known distance away. If upside down the bullet crosses the optics once then keeps deviating. I guess this is where Peggy being “super-adjacent” comes into play.
She’s a lot closer than she’d like to be.
For her, 300m would probably be considered ‘close-range’. Now if it was me, it would be not-close-enough range for a rifle. But I am a terrible shot.
You’d be surprised. I took a long-range shooting class using a Barrett 0.50; I had never touched a rifle before but it was still essentially impossible to miss the bullseye at 300 yards, and even at 600 I could hit a torso-sized area consistently. Granted, I was firing rightside up from prone, but with a sniper rifle this distance simply isn’t an issue. All the other aspects of that shot are incredibly impressive but the range isn’t.
Maximum range for me is around 500m with any accuracy. 250m or so I can reliably hit my target 90% of the time. Sitting with rifle on a bipod. Using my brother’s old 30-06 bolt-action and iron sights. But this was years ago…and my eyes are more for pistols now, alas. But that cannon was a beauty. I miss her.
The *shortest* range in GPS rifle shooting competition is 300m, with iron sights on bolt-action .308 or .303 rifles.
Everyone in the team was able to hit a head-sized “snap” target at that range, but maybe not quickly enough to complete the course of fire, considering the sequence was “load, fire, eject and reload” and had to be done in 4 seconds to be ready for the next target exposure. Hitting the target when it has sideways or “hidden” didn’t count.
The “funny” reactions from other shooters at the range when they found out we were shooting out to 800m with iron sights while practicing for competition, were always good.
For a high-power and high-quality rifle (such as hers), 300m is likely within “point blank” range. Just aim at the center of target and the bullet will hit +/- a few cm vertically. There’s even a site-in technique known as “max point blank range” vs zeroing in at a round-number distance, though she probably uses the known-distance zero to make long range calculations easier.
It’s only at longer distances where you have to holdover (aim above target for quick shots) or manually adjust the scope.
But again, these numbers are for normal shooting. Inverted shooting would reduce the point blank range to less than 40m with a very rapid bullet drop past that point.
Depends on the sniper rifle, but effective range for a sniper rifle is considered to be 600-100 meters for US rifles at least. This would risk the target actually being even more difficult due to being too close. When it comes to longest shots, current record is a Ukrainian solder at 3800 meters. Presumably Peggy, being good enough to be equal to supers, is around record levels. So the 300m shot is the sniper equivalent of knife fighting range.
Agreed, that was a “commander” shot, but it’s debatable whether the priority would be the commander vs. the guys standing in the back actually shooting at her right now. Shooting the driver would be a risky gamble. It might cause a wreck injuring them, but probably not all of them and rest could hide and sneak up on her. Plus they’re already within AK-47 range. She’d be much better off doing exactly what she is doing, picking them off while they are in the vehicle.
The closer they are, the worse the situation is for her. She’s demonstrably much better at engaging at a long distance than they are, so keeping them away would be a good idea. My guess as to why she opted for the commander rather than the driver is that a) the commander is likely the one with the comms, so taking him out prevents them from readily calling in backup (she only has to deal with a truckload of AQ) and b) he’s potentially better at thinking on his feet and could potentially grab the wheel and keep the truck on course (and/or get it behind some cover to avoid follow-up shots) after the driver’s head exploded. Personally, I would have gone for the driver in hopes of causing them to wreck and keep them a distance away, but I can see why she’d opt for him. As for the dudes in the back, they’re unlikely to score a hit any time soon (she’s a tiny target, laying supine as she is, and they’re using their grandfathers’ old burnt-out AK’s), so the other two – the commander with comms (and the guy with comms is almost always the most dangerous foe in a squad, because he can call in more goons, artillery or airstrike if applicable, etc; with AQ, it’s probably just reinforcements, but another RPG to the ‘copter would likely prove fatal for Peggy) and the driver – get prioritized. I’m not sure about the power of her rifle vs the engine block, but she may be better going after that than the driver – yeah, less chance of dramatically flipping the vehicle than blowing the driver’s head off, but also guaranteed to stop the vehicle some distance away when the engine craps out, buying her time to pick off the rest of the squad. At least, that’s my amateur opinion on the whole thing.
7.62 NATO is not as good at breaking an engine as a .50 BMG, even for a Sniper Goddess. Odds are even if she dumps the entire mag into the engine and radiator, it wont stop permanently until it reaches the chopper, (Especially a Toyota Hilux)
She’s quite better off dinging the oxygen thieves manning the pickup.
OK there’s a few things I know a lot about, and one of them is engines. The engine in the HiLux wasn’t very powerful, but it would run for several minutes to hours without oil. Taking out the radiator would kill it faster, but not by much.
Her DMR is a semi auto follow shot are probable, and quicker than a bolt action rifle. She have a 20 rounds magazine if she use 7.62 30 if she use 5.56.
She is one a trained professional , al queda and ISIS are in majority inexperienced fanatics.
She is more steady under fire , an advantage , an more capable …
She is wounded , she is outnumbered …
For outgunned it’s debatable , the AKM are perhaps in dire condition ,and less precise …
If the driver had any situation awareness driving for cover and making a bypass from the other side of the chopper could be effective.
1 – Take cover behind terrain
2 – Use binoculars to evaluate situation .
3 – To counter snipe switch from the AKM to the SVD…
So, typically, the order of operations is: Radioman, Commander, Medic.
You eliminate the enemy’s ability to call for help, disrupt their command/response structure, and then remove their medical support, which both cripples ability to recover trigger-pullers, and breaks morale.
I know this, because as a one-time USN Hospital Corpsman, this is what I was taught by the USMC, who learned it the very, very hard way from the Viet Kong. Basically, from the moment of contact, these three people’s life-spans can be measured in seconds. This is why I was trained to get under cover immediately, any time the radioman seemed to be compromised; because I had approximately seven seconds before a few ounces of high temperature, kinetically enriched, high density matter very suddenly increased the localized entropy in a part of my anatomy.
Short version, Peggy picked the right target.
I suppose it would help that the commander would often be close to the radio. To be a little bit gross, splashing the commander with the radioman may well also reduce the commander’s effectiveness for at least short while.
7.62 vs. engine block = depends on ammo. Standard ammo – not a good chance of an instant stop but a decent chance of a forced stop within a few minutes (likely by draining some important fluid such as oil, coolant, or transmission fluid). If you get an instant stop it’s because you got lucky and hit something like the timing chain or a battery cable.
Armor-piercing ammo – if you hit the block there’s a good chance of cracking it and getting an instant stop.
Thing is if she’s mainly kitted for anti-personnel, she’s not going to have AP rounds handy.
Given her situation, and the fact that her targets are moving, I would say taking the first shot that lines up is the way to go. She has no guarantee of getting a second shot and honestly I’m not sure if I would want to shoot the driver of a truck that is aimed at me when I can’t move.
If they’re shooting on the move they would only hit her by luck.
My mind hates me sometimes, and I’m not female, but “The Rapes” makes me immediately think of the SNL Celebrity Jeopardy sketch with “Sean Connery”.
“I’ll take ‘the rapists’ for $300.”
“It’s *therapists*!”
Sydney’s brain may work similarly…
I think that Peggy’s severely underestimating Sydney’s ability to understand when things are serious.
There’s a time for making therapist jokes; this is not one of them.
I was thinking of the Benny Hill sketch with a therapist outside his newly-painted double doors trying to get prospective patients inside.
One on door was painted “the” and on the other was painted “rapist”.
The therapist was holding the “The” door open with his body and was trying to get passing females to come into his office by unknowningly pointing at only the “rapist” part of the sign.
This is not related to the current page, but something I’ve been thinking about recently and haven’t seen discussed previously:
Maxima has tactile telekinesis, where she can extend her forcefield over things she lifts so they don’t break from the strain.
Could she use that to protect squishy team members or civilians (or valuable but fragile items) from damage? Lift them up so the force field strengthens them, allowing them to resist incoming damage such a a fireball or a shockwave.
Perhaps, with the right mindset and sufficient training, even just touching them will be enough?
Has that been established? I know tactile telekinesis has been discussed in the comments, but I don’t recall it coming up in the comic
It’s demonstrated early on when she lifted the ambulance by just the bumper.
More specifically, it’s called out during the comic’s very first edition of Dabbler’s Science Corner!
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-dabblers-science-corner-1/
if she has time to do that, she likely has time to just GTFO with them. but I can’t see why that wouldn’t work.
This depends on how it works. If it makes the target more resilient, such that it can withstand supporting its entire weight on the surface weight of her hand, then she could probably protect a target by grabbing it (although whether the ability works on living things may be in question – there are plenty of “only works on non living objects” vs “only works on living objects” powers, after all). If instead all this does is lift the object from its entire surface at once, that only protects it from the lifting (because now its weight is distributed over its entire surface), it wouldn’t provide any protection to the object. The fact Vehemence was able to readily punch through the column she was using as a massive oversized pestle implies to me it’s more the “lift all at once” variety rather than the “make it more resilient” variety. If her forcefield is involved, I’d say it’s only a rather thin layer of it that gives minimal protective value – it might be enough to prevent .22LR from hurting the target, but I doubt it would protect much from anything beefier (it may not even protect against .22LR, instead being merely BB-proof). It’s more like lifting something in a sturdy bag than a thick metal box.
I feel it would be more likely to only hold the person together than to actually prevent external damage. In an extreme situation it might prevent the person’s body to collapse from the impact, but they’d still be a slurry of bloody…just a well contained one. It could be used to keep their remains from splashing everywhere I guess? Honestly just getting in front of them would be better considering maxima is faster then conventional projectiles (as exemplified by her stated ability to fire a bullet and then catch it the moment it leaves the barrel).
Sydney overthinking things and missing the moment is peak her.
Retired Emergency Services person here. Yeah, Cops and Firies particularly have to carry a fair number of keys and key like gadgets like security tap ‘keys’. They usually have either a stiff leather back piece that the bunch of keys rub against, or a leather cover that can be slid up a hanger to expose the keys when needed but otherwise is pulled down over them so they don’t rattle or sparkle (attracting attention from the ill intended) or jab them in the butt. Or both.
Even when I worked in Fire Alarm Install that was something we used. So many keys for so many buildings. My company had a closet (only accessible by the dispatcher) that was just wall to wall keys with little metal tags saying which building it was for. So when we had a job, we’d get the keys for that site, run the rings onto a carabiner, and slot it through a leather cone to keep the keys from rubbing a hole in our side during work.
Same here, I had a key ring that would tear off belt loops, so I had to buy a slide-on metal hanger for my belt. I was the senior mechanic at a factory so I had extras as well. It sucked, I always felt “off” when I took them off at home. Every time I had to train a newbie they always asked “why so many keys?” “you’ll find out” Don’t ask, I’ve forgotten what all I carried. It was funny when one my sons (as toddlers) would fetch my keys for me when I’d get ready to leave, they ALWAYS dropped them! “daddy they are so heavy!” lol
Why would I question Peggy’s sniping skills after witnessing Math? It’s a fantasy comic about supers and humans with crazy non-super powers. Also, as an avid Anime watcher I’ve seen crazier things happen. :-)
Why the quotation marks
Trying to get the alien translators confused so they think she’s talking about Brassica Napus, which has a quite unfortunate name in English. (Should have anglicized the Greek name instead of the Latin one, so that it would be rhaphe instead. Those extra ‘h’ help.)
In this case, I assume it signifies verbal stressing of the words involved. It’s the oral equivalent of firing a warning shot over Sydney’s bow, letting her know that this is NOT a time for her to pull a riff on some nightclub joke she’s got buried in her brain.
The word “the”, in particular, means she’s not talking about sexual assault in general, but the weaponized form that a number of militaries, militias and terrorist orgs use when they manage to capture a female enemy combatant. (In some specific incidents, ‘female’ was optional. I think it was Rwanda where male rape was deliberately used as a demoralizing tactic.)
It may also be euphemistic in nature since women soldiers caught by middle eastern terrorist groups (also civilian women, but even worse for soldiers for not being in their ‘proper’ role as a woman) will do quite a bit more than a standard rapist. Up to and including torturing them to death with the rape being a prominent feature of that torture. There’s a reason intelligence personal get such good psychology related health benefits. No one lasts long processing those reports before they have to be rotated to something else.
She was aiming for the helicopter. Good thing she was concussed!
Sydney: “what did I do and/or say that got me this comment? do I have an evil alter ego?”
I don’t see why you’d use a silencer. It’s still gonna be loud as f*ck, they still know where you are, and you’re just adding weight where you don’t want it esp. shooting upside down.
in this specific case: Expediency. The suppressor was likely already attached, so it would have taken time to detach it.
It was probably already installed when she pulled the rifle out of the case, and she didn’t take the time to remove it. She is rigged for ultra long-range stealth snipping, not close engagements. This is close range for her and not ideal.
Mostly because when I searched for “USAF DMR” all the pictures I found had those attached. For all I knew they were built in. Which doesn’t really make sense for a rifle supposedly effective at 800 yards, cause the suppressor’s got to take some muzzle velocity out of the rounds, but honestly, what do I know? Maybe someone figured that having a suppressor on a medium range marksman rifle means that they can empty a magazine before having to relocate instead of slinking away after the first shot?
Actually, unless the barrel is already a certain length, a suppressor won’t take away from the muzzle velocity – if anything, it might add to it since the bullet is spending more time with the gasses pushing it rather than escaping out. Yeah, it’s not as good as more actual barrel, since it’s trying to catch the gas in its baffles, but it’s better than open air.
A sniper rifle can kill at 3800 meters (current record). The effective range is just the distance where you’re likely to hit the target in this case. So the reduced velocity just means their head will be slurry slightly slower. Even more so if it’s a gun designed for anti-material purposes. That will turn a head to slurry through a concrete wall.
On the other hand, if she survives she would like to still actually have hearing. “Silencer”? No such thing. “Suppressor” is more like it, and for a rifle it just makes it “very loud” instead of “killing your eardrums”.
It may also act as a flash suppressor, which would make searching for the shooter rather harder. I don’t know enough about firearms to say for sure though.
What you said is all correct, so I’d say you know more than most people.
It won’t do anything about the supersonic “crack” of a high-velocity sniper round, and it’s much louder than the “pffft” sound you hear in movies and TV shows. But it will hide the flash and lessen the muzzle sound. This makes it much harder to locate the source of the shot.
Which is a sad commentary on most people’s knowledge.
– I’ve never shot a rifle.
– I’ve shot a pistol for a few magazines, one time. A bunch of us Canucks were down in Las Vegas, and we decided to rent one and see what it was like.
My knowledge is just being interested, and reading people who do shoot. E.g. Larry Correia (the Monster Hunter series of books).
For instance, suppressors are restricted in the US, but *required* in Europe for hunting. Why? Because they reduce the noise, and the hunting areas have people around them to be disturbed by the noise.
They also weren’t influenced by bad gangster movies in the same way.
Larry Correia’s books are firearm and small unit tactics manuals with a plot wrapped around them to keep things fun. I’m not surprised you’re beating the mean.
More likely, the silencer was already on there and she didn’t bother taking the time to remove it as those would be precious seconds she could be shooting, with the *Chak* noise most likely being her racking the first round into place.
engine shot that went high? To buy time, and as amazing she is, 4-5 guys on for is a much easier target than headshot on a moving vehicle. Normal people are thought not to try to shot at people in moving cars since it such a hard shot.
much better to disable Veichel, then pick them off. buy way more time for reinforcements as well…
A sniper rifle suppressor serves more than one purpose. It reduces (not eliminated, yes) sound (also reduces kickback which can increase accuracy, btw) and reduces or eliminates muzzle flash. When you’re trying not to be spotted, both are good.
Also, assuming she’s used to firing with the suppressor and it was already threaded on, it was quicker and one less variable to correct for.
Muzzle flash, if nothing else.
Statistically, 9 out of 10 people enjoy gang rape.
Ouch.
Yes, gang rape is a consequence of pure democracy.
More like a classic case of how gerrymendering voter choice causes democracy to go down the shitter…
Peggy shouldn’t feel special. They rape men, too.
Some do, some don’t. It was a huge factor in, I think, the Rwandan civil war. I didn’t get anywhere near as many stories from Afghanistan and Iraq (note: Not saying never, just that it wasn’t as systematic as it almost always is for female soldiers and civlians.)
And oddly, male rape of European and American soldiers operating in the Middle East and East Africa seems to be less common than the rape of men from those countries during conflicts. That is to say, Kuwaitis captured by Iraqi soldiers during the initial invasion were far more likely to be targeted for such than American soldiers later captured by Iraqi forces. I don’t know the why of this, but it seems to hold pretty steady, unless non-reporting is totally endemic.
Also note: A tragic downside of this disparity is that in those regions where systemic rape IS used, it’s almost impossible to get funds for treating/counseling male victims, even when the use of systemic rape is actually worse for men.
Final comment: America itself isn’t completely clean in this regard; the treatment of Iraqi POWs got gross and, if not including rape, at least entailed sexual humiliation, as was documented by some very brave US soldiers.
“America itself isn’t completely clean in this regard; the treatment of Iraqi POWs got gross and, if not including rape, at least entailed sexual humiliation, as was documented by some very brave US soldiers.”
Individual soldiers doing stuff and getting punished when it gets out is not significantly different than a civilian rapist raping and getting punished.
Even if their commanding officer turned a blind eye, it is still punished once it gets out (including the commanding officer in at least many cases).
For a sense of scale, “significantly different” would be what has already been described: systemic rape, fully public, and no one punished. The difference is MASSIVE.
Or, for just that extra little something, some regimes in part part of the world have been known to keep rapists ON STAFF, using “rapist” as a job title. (Yes, it’s been done in other dictatorships in many other places in the world, but not nearly as recently, as best I can tell. Yes, dictatorships are indeed quite amazingly evil, generally speaking.)
We are, once again, in “that’s a whole different sentence” territory.
She didn’t want to be captured for entirely valid and practical reasons. There was nothing about her being “special” in there.
Neat little detail with the driver’s seat.
wow the amount of badass of this shot is so great.
well I mean it could be a combination lock
“It’s a good thing that hardcase wasn’t locked. One thing I wouldn’t like to have in my pockets if I had a job that involved hitting the ground and crawling to cover on a semi-regular basis is a bunch of keys.”
I don’t expect keys to be in much use outside of the base.
The base has doors, you may want to lock/unlock. Having keys here makes sense.
But in the field? You will have someone doing armed security.
There is a dozen ways to loose access to your vehicle that doesn’t involve “someone driving off with it”. If they could drive off with your vehicle, they could have killed your entire unit by flaking it. So you require car safety a lot better then “needs keys”.
And in the middle of combat – if your designated driver has been offed – you don’t want to have to look for keys. So they are a complication that could actually get you killed.
Polite society and military service have very different car/gear safety requirements.
Agreed. When I was in, most of the older SMP vehicles didn’t even have keys, just a starter button although some had a padlock.
If you steal a vehicle on Base, you get charged. if you steal one in the field you get shot (assuming you’re OpForce)
Vehicles in the field have to be ready to be moved instantly, no hunting around for whoever has the keys when the mortars start coming in and that ammo truck needs to not be where it is anymore. Sentries are supposed to take care of infiltrators who might try to steal them, why they would is a good question, that only does you any good in the movies.
Most of the civilian pattern vehicles we used either had the keys left in them or a great big flourescent orange metal tag the size of a dollar bill attached to them and hung in a prominent place in the section. In the hangar all vehicles were required to have the keys in them for immediate removal in the event of a fire, especially the towing tractors so the A/C could be hauled out quickly.
Granted, she is in a combat zone and I expect her side arm would have been loaded but what is military policy for a firearm in a transport case. Is live ammo in the transport case normal procedure?
It’s her rifle and she’s in a combat zone, I’d imagine she carries filled magazines for it on her webbing at all times and storing some in the case would be expected, the case is mostly for protecting the optics in transit. if you’re expecting a fight then you need to have access to ammunition.
She checked for her sidearm back on page https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-1296-assets-include-sand/
Apparently, it fell out of her holster during the crash. But yes, there would definitely be ammo in her rifle, as well as at least one spare magazine in the case and on her web belts, and ammo for the pistol as well, if she can find out where the gun wound up.
It was most likely flung out the same time she was, my glasses were on the side of the road when I was ejected from the car I rolled. I landed 30 ft from the car, they were in the ditch about 20 ft farther. I’m sure that GI 1911 went even farther. Although, knowing Peggy, it would have been something much better… Like a 5/7 Rock with AP rounds…
“5/7 Rock with AP rounds”
The perfect rock. Beats the competition in strait sets and can be kept in an armor at home.
My son (34) had just ordered one, bought a box of ammo for it. He showed me the box and I took out a round, brass covered slug with a dark blue/black “paint” on the tip… ah yeah, do NOT head into the city with those in your mag son! We live out in the boon-docks, not too worried here. He’s a gun nut, last he said he has 9 handguns and 7 rifles of various sizes… Goofball likes to be prepared for the “zombie apocalypse”! Can’t tell if he’s joking or not…
Do they drive on the left side or the right side where she is? ‘Cause the car is for left-sided driving.
Apparently Afghanistan switched from left to right a while back. But most of the vehicles are imported from Japan via Pakistan, so they get to experience both sides :)
Yes, ‘imported’ :P
We’ve seen that her abilities with a rifle are off the human scale, close enough to being a superpower to be on a superpowered team, so the question isn’t ‘can she hit them’ it’s ‘who does she hit next ?’ Given that the chance of hitting something in the same county with a badly maintained and probably never properly sighted AK from the back of a moving truck is pretty near to zero, I think she made the right choice and the rest will follow. Sucks to be the guy in the passenger seat but somebody’s got to be first.
1. get rid of the one calling her location in hopefully hitting the radio mic he’s holding as a bonus
2. get rid of the ones firing in her general direction, easier shot with them standing and no windshiekld glare
3. wait until the truck is close enough for her to crawl to before getting rid of the driver.
A .357 will crack an engine block, a 7.62 has a LOT more energy, even a Toyota won’t take a hit there which is why they routinely armour the radiator grill and she probably knows that so the driver may be a better target.
She’s pinned under the copter; no crawling for her.
She’s gotta know the part of her leg trapped under the copter is a total loss, and we just recently saw her manage to obtain a cutting implement. Removing the immediate threat will buy her time to figure out how best to sever her leg at the knee so she can start crawling.
Welcome to war.
That’s assuming she’s strong enough, of the blade with remain sharp enough (especially since as dar as I know, it’s not a serrated blade) to cut through the bone. Granted that she can use the wires for a tourniquet so she doesn’t bleed out, but I’m think Max arrived before she had to worry about that.
I’d bet the cartilage between the bones would be easier to cut, so sever the leg at the knee. no time for a proper bone amputation.
I’m not sure “The Rapes” belongs in air quotes. Makes it sound sarcastic.
“oh shit, Mahomet, take the wheel”
Shooting with the rifle upside-down is even more impressive. To keep it simple, gun barrels, when you’re holding the rifle correctly, naturally inclined to account for bullet drop. We’re talking several inches higher at 100 yards. Then there’s the need to point the rifle higher the farther the shot needs to travel.
To shoot a rifle upside-down, you’re automatically shooting toward the ground, assuming you’re pointing at the same spot with the sights. At 300 yards, I’m not even entirely sure she would see the target through the scope with how much she’d have to raise the barrel away from the ground to even get the bullet to travel that far.
As for getting a head-shot in a moving vehicle. I would think it depends on how they’re driving. If it was smooth terrain and they’re heading straight toward Peggy, then ignoring things like wind speed and thermals rising off the ground, it would one of easier shots to make. You wouldn’t have to lead the target at all. I.E. Aiming toward where the target would be, accounting for distance, speed, etc.
If she was shooting upright, most Marines should have been able to nearly duplicate that shot, or at least the Marines of my generation would since we were trained to hit targets out to 500 yards from the prone position using iron sights, not scopes.
It wasn’t unusual for us at the rifle range to do headshots on the target at 500 yards on breezy days. Granted, we didn’t have concussions, banged up from a helicopter crash, pinned under said helicopter, and everything else that would be affecting Peggy’s aim.
In a world of supers, a highly trained soldier being able to make a 300 yard shot while missing a leg and suffering from a concussion isn’t all that odd.
What Jobe00 said. Matthias is able to hold his own against supers with martial arts. Why wouldn’t Peggy be able to pull off a “mere” 300 yard shot, even if she is suffering from a concussion, missing limb, etc?
What I’M curious to see is what will happen next. Is the driver going to pull over/accelerate/keep coming, as they start returning fire? Or is he going to say, “nope!” and turn around?
Also worth remembering she’s a Sniper Maxima *specifically* requested to be in Arc-SWAT. She might not have superpowers, but she’s still probably one of the best natural shots on Earth.
ANYONE ELSE getting a Gunny Leeroy Jethro Gibbs vs Drug kingpin in Mexico or Ziva Daviid’s captor vibes from that shot?
I do look forward to seeing the consequences of the results of Peggy being a D**MN GOOD shot, but bugger if I could make anything even close under those circumstances.
Remind me to not get into a sniper duel with Peggy.
There’s a band name or song title in “Gratuitous Poking” lmaoooo
https://suno.com/song/42f73fb4-aff1-4f75-a30c-29ba4f18cca8
there ya go
All’s fair in love and warfare.
Headcapping a guy in a moving target at that range?
Even if it WAS accidental qualifies on the “legendary” strike.
Makes you eligible for a tatoo bragging “I’ve killed more than second hand smoke” while changing your call sign to “The Black Death”
I’m not a good shot, barely qualified with the M-16 in the Guard. Main reason was I never could find my “anatomical landmarks” to get the same sight picture from shot to shot with the stock and high sights on the 16. On my squirrel hunting rifle with a custom stock and a 4X scope I hit a head-size highway sign at just over a quarter-mile. the difference between the two was like night and day.
Peggy didn’t take out the driver, but that was only her first shot and I expect it will not be the last to end a threat.
When you’re wounded and lying on Afghanistan’s plains / and the women come out to cut up what remains / then roll to your rifle and blow out your brains / and go to your God like a soldier
Some things just don’t change
I dont understand how the rifle is being held. She is upside down, holding on the underside which is on the top, what is keeping the barrel from dropping?
Good grip
I’m not one to question the plot beats of webcomics. Not anymore, anyway. I used to be, and the spirited discussions had about them is why I don’t anymore.
Anyway, I don’t care if it’s plausible, that was one badass headshot.
AK-47?
Wrong war.
So, the AK-74?
On another note: apparently when they were fighting the Soviets, there supposedly were some Afghani who could *make* rifles.
Not really sure if this was true, or if this was just cover for smuggling.
I’m sure there are a lot of machinists in the US with both the skill and the facilities to make rifle barrels that won’t blow up, as well as the appropriate alloys. Not really sure how much of that existed in Afghanistan during that war.
The people of Afghanistan have a long history of making rifles. Their rifles were longer ranged and more accurate than the British Brown Bess.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jezail
https://www.stripes.com/theaters/middle_east/afghan-musket-survives-as-symbol-of-insurgent-history-1.290546