Grrl Power #819 – Pew 101
As most of you predicted, Sydney did not bust the range record. Her HUD glasses did help though. Quite a bit, actually. Her previous record was hitting the paper 11 out of 21 times. Now she’s hitting the page with nearly every shot. She just has to dial it in a bit more to hit the actual target.
I’m not sure why I decided to write a page about shooting basics. I myself am far from an expert, and Peggy would have definitely covered this stuff with Sydney. Still, there’s something to be said for repetition, especially with someone who might not have absorbed it the first time. Possibly because she was busy picturing herself as the next John Wick or something.
Apparently Peggy has impressed upon the other “normal” super elite soldier that walking around with a bit more stopping power on their hips is important. I’m not sure .454 Casull is where it’s at, but, those guns can be chambered with specialized buckshot in addition to a variety of slugs, and when it comes to fighting supers, variety can be important.
Speaking of stormtroopers… it would be interesting to see a movie or some long form TV show where the rank and file soldiers aren’t laughably incompetent and are actually crack shots. I don’t know if it could actually be done. You’d have to either write any encounter with them where the heroes have some amazing tactical or technological advantage that lets them pull a victory out of their ass, or the heroes would have to be so good that they would have to be that universe’s equivalent of superheroes. I guess that could be done, but then what’s the point of having the canon fodder all be marksmen if the heroes are immune to gunfire?
You ever notice that stormtroopers are all amazing shots when they’re shooting at a Jedi who is holding a lightsaber? It would be harder to deflect shots if every other shot was coming at your legs, or just barely close enough to your side that you’d risk a scorched elbow, but when a Jedi is holding a lightsaber, every stormtrooper in the world can hit center mass every time. But if the Jedi holsters his saber, the troopers all automatically shoot wide. I guess they like aiming at the bright thing.
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It looks like Sydney’s workouts have been effective – a S/W .454 with a 5″ barrel, fully loaded weighs about 5 pounds… when she first arrived, I seriously doubt Sydney would be able to hold it out at all
Not so sure. She’s trembling a little there, and I’m not sure that’s just fear.
That’s a Taurus Raging Bull with the 8 3/4 inch barrel. 1.87 kg empty.
eh, 1.78… number flipped….
The only movie I know of where the enemies are legit marksmen is Shooter. The lead just doesn’t give them a chance to shoot (well, mostly). I watched the related TV series but all I remember is that it wasn’t nearly as good as the movie.
Nailed it!!
Although it should be “ Pew! Pew! Pew! BANG! “ leave the Booom for the bigger stuff
Only Marksmen, that is a rather low state, I made Expert, which was 74+ rounds on target. Up to 400 YDS away.
Then by that standard the lead and several other characters are expert and many of the remainder are sharpshooter. Though again the latter is implied since most of them never get a chance to shoot. Most who do shoot, and have line of sight, they get a hit or a kill. There’s one scene where the attacking team is probably marksman since they’re not accurate while shooting from a moving helicopter. In an earlier scene the guys in a different heli get a kill far more quickly.
I was RSO for a civilian/military club on the Base I was serving at and we had a 4’10” 85 lb female learning to shoot.
Our ‘house rule’ was that you had to be able to put 6 out of 10 shots from a Ruger .22 into a six inch circle before going to centrefire.
She eventually, after much Sydneyesque trials and tribulations, did succeed and was allowed the .38 GP-100 with wadcutters.
She shook her head defiantly and said ‘NO!!, I’m shooting yours”
I thought this was a good learning opportunity and loaded my S&W 1917 with the hottest 240gr loads I had.
She fired the first one and the recoil most definately surprised her.
Then, a look came over her face that can only be remembered, not described and she rapid fired the next five like Jerry Miculek .
The group, at fifteen yards, could have been covered with a playing card.
I foresee something similar in the offing ;)
Oh, and it’s been explained that the Stormtroopers had a hard time hitting the heroes in Star Wars because they were using the force to deflect the shots, with the ‘blasters and blades’ part coming when they wanted to send some shots back at the poor Troopers or demoralize them a little.
You… do realise, in ANH, there was only one Jedi (who never saw combat, other than Vader) and a farm boy who had only a few days’ worth of flailing with a big glowy-stick that he had ‘inherited’ only a day before?
I remember looking it up once in the old sourcebooks – the trip from Tattooine to Alderaan was…4 hours. The galaxy is a small place.
But Leia has some instinctive command of the Force….
…Wasn’t there something in ANH that the stormtroopers were ordered to NOT KILL and only DELAY the group with Solo and Luke?
Exactly so, and so often forgotten! In ANH (the first Star Wars movie), Vader had put a tracking device in the Millenium Falcon, hoping it would take Leia straight to the Rebel base and thus give away its location. Which is exactly what they did. The stormtroopers were supposed to herd the escapees toward the Falcon (making sure they didn’t go for a fallback plan like stealing an Imperial shuttle). Several laid down their lives selling that ruse, too.
The clue that that was what was going on should have been Obi Wan commenting on the shot groupings on the Jawa landcrawler and saying “only stormtroopers are so precise.” They actually are highly-trained and generally known for having precise fire discipline and shooting skills.
Unfortunately, the person most likely to have called BS on all the times the stormtroopers missed got killed by Vader. Luke stood on a ramp, out of cover, in front of a dozen or more stormtroopers at close range, firing at Vader, and still never got hit. And no one thought that was improbable. To be fair, most of the audience didn’t, either.
Another missed one was when Han bragged about the Kessle run Obi Wan just about rolled his eyes at him. It was supposed to be an empty brag.
I need to amend that “person most likely to have called BS” to “person most likely to call BS and be taken seriously. Leia does say that their escape seemed suspiciously easy. Han’s ego led him to believe he was just that good, Luke was basically in shock, and the non-humans never really get treated with real respect (heck, Chewie doesn’t even get a medal at the end, and even Han doesn’t seem to think that’s screwed up).
Well, you ARE talking about a society that accepts slavery of sentient beings. And I’m not even just talking about the droids, which obviously are sentient. It’s basically a feudal society living in the ruins of a prior super-technological society that apparently collapsed.
Think of it as a few generations past Mad Max, and in space.
Sapient, Brett. (Sorry, you hit one of my pet peeves.) Sentient means “possession of consciousness or sensory awareness.” By that definition, an amoeba is sentient.
Sapience, on the other hand, is “the ability to apply knowledge or experience or understanding or common sense and insight.” That includes droids and wookies.
Fair enough, I did confuse those two.
The point of sentience is the ability to feel and interpret things subjectively. It means the organism has a way to interpret its actions and respond with a different action based on non-mechanistic feedback. For example, a dog learning to go to the kitchen when it hears a can opener.
By your definition, the only thing required is a mechanistic feedback loop, so anything living should qualify as sentient. The robot arm at a factory (non-AI) would also qualify as sentient. If we take your definition literally, even a rock can be sentient since its atoms expand or contract in response to heat. “Sensory awareness” can’t include an amoeba because its ability to adapt isn’t based on subjective reasoning; it’s based on mechanistic responses to its environment. Just like the rock.
Where do you draw the line on sentience when the bar is set so low? The logical problem this creates is akin to how “literal” can be construed as “figurative.” A language’s ability to provide context is eroded when its descriptors are loosely defined. In making this “correction,” Mark, you’re actually muddling English.
Don’t argue unless you can provide a logically complete[1] definition that also doesn’t include rocks and doesn’t use the word “living” or “soul” like some kind of magical bifuricator. If you do I’m just going to ignore your reply. I’m not in the mood for bullshit right now, okay?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Completeness_(logic)
And that carried right into the sequel movies where Han announces to Chewie upon boarding the MF “We’re home,” never seeming to even consider that Chewie might have plans of his own. Or when Han just takes Chewie’s crossbow-rifle in the middle of a firefight, leaving him weaponless. A weapon by the way which is physically designed for a larger, more massive user, and yet Han is able to fire it without any awkwardness in holding it, and is accurate on the first shot.
That’s because Chewie owed Han a Life Debt: where ever Han went, Chewie went with him, Chewie didn’t have any other plans than to ensure Han lived as long as possible
The stormtroopers were under no such limitations when they were trying to prevent the Millennium Falcon from leaving Tatooine. Yet during the fire fight at the spaceport a dozen stormtroopers failed to hit anyone or anything critical. Not a shining example of their so-called accuracy.
or at Hoth, or endor. no stormtroopers are just that bad of shots.
Clone troopers are much better, though their grasp of tactics is positively napoleonic at times. which honestly would explain Obiwan’s remarks about the sandcrawler. he probably wasn’t aware that empire had switched to masses of human recruits instead of highly trained copies of Jango Fett.
i’ve always figured that the troops on the deathstar weren’t under any particular orders to let the intruders go, but rather that Vader, having pulled off tons of such chaotic rescues when he was anakin Skywalker in the clone wars and knowing that obiwan was something of an expert at such scenarios, anticipated that his troops would fail to recapture the intruders and thus ensured that even if hey escaped the empire would benefit. and that the only concession to an easy escape was the sending of only 4 TIE’s to pursue the Falcon after it flew off, rather than 4 squadrons.
Going by wookiepedia et al, Luke, Leia and Han were all ‘force sensitives’ whether they consciously knew it or not.
Han was less so (but not so low) which let him activate Luke’s lightsabre to cut him down and also explained his piloting abilities and ‘luck’ ;)
Right, they were wearing Plot Armor.
They were wearing plot armour in a film that was literally “traditional fantasy hero’s journey IN SPAAACE!”
“but not so low” I see what you did there.
I regret nothing :)
You realise there is nothing special about the sabre itself, right? It’s just a Jedi (or other Force Sensitive) was able to handle it at a level where they didn’t cut their limbs off while flailing it about
The core component of a Lightsabre is a crystal that responses to the presence of the Force. It requires Force sensitivity to turn a Lightsabre on.
Then why do they all have buttons that turn them on and off? o_O
For comedy effect, this is probably gonna land Sydney on her back.
And where’s your eye and hearing protection, range officer!
Mmmm, churro….
^ All of this.
a) Liking the Galactus target model.
b) Seneca is one of Those People who can eat sweet, bready food constantly and not gain weight, isn’t she? I mean, yeah, she’s in the military, and probably burns those calories, but still. I do like how she has an extra-dimensional space she can seemingly pull snacks from at a moment’ notice, though.
c) Predicting that Casull(sp?)’s gonna punch Syd in the face. Also guessing her new glasses are gonna soak the punch and take no damage.
That… wasn’t the target Sydney was aiming at last page :P
Think the last target was Darth Vader or Cobra Commander.. but at least they know how to motivate Sydney?
Please. She’s so afraid of that thing she will lock her elbows and wrists and over grip it so hard, the only thing that could possibly happen is that it will pivot around her shoulders and straight up. She might lose her grip at that point and have it fly backwards from over her head, but that’s far from certain.
….Well that is one way to write Sydney’s new glasses out of the story.
They’re damn gonna bust. along with her nose here.
Oooor they’re not gonna bust if they would be hit by the SHOT from that gun.
Ooo, didn’t notice the shaky red lines near the barrel in panel eight at first
She should have a little ‘shake’, nobody, not even a bodybuilder, can hold a heavy weapon perfectly still at arm’s length.
What she should concentrate on is good sight alignment. Nothing else matters as much.
With the sights aligned properly, the ‘shake’ shouldn’t move her groups even a quarter inch due to muzzle travel, while a small angular movement of the front sight from being centered in the rear sight can drift groups as much as a foot at 25 yards.
It’s trigonometry in action and Sydney should be able to get a grip on that ;)
Trigger pull and breathing pale beside sight alignment, even if you ‘snatch’ the trigger and the sights somehow stay aligned, you will still hit, but if you pull the sights off target with that trigger pull you won’t.
Wait, I thought she was firing at Darth Vadar, not Galacticus. I guess she could have fired at Vadar, then for the next grouping, she fired at the Galacticus target instead.
What, you’re not even going for a Dirty Harry reference? I’m disappointed!
That’s a Taurus Raging Bull in .454 Sydney was handed. The 4 slots at the top tell it is an 8 3/4 inch barrel. So that’s a hunk of 1.78 kg. That thing kicks like it’s namesake, but Seneca was nice to just give her that and not something even slightly larger like something in .450 S&W or a .500 S&W.
The next step down would be a Dirty Harry S&W 29 .44 magnum.
Frankly what I learned on the range was that most small females do not have the wrist strength and thus the recoil hurts them. Sydney has been doing PT and is used to wielding her orbs, so I suspect it is all good.
Well, I’m a guy, obviously, but I have small female sized hands, (I have the same glove size as my 5′ 80lb petite wife.) it’s a marginal birth defect. AND I seriously sprained both wrists in college, leaving me unable to do pushups with flat hands. (I have to do them on my knuckles.)
So I’m basically screwed on wrist strength, but have no trouble with large caliber revolvers.
It’s mostly a matter of expecting it, and holding the gun right. Not really a lot of strength involved.
Donald, is that you? ;-D
Check to see if he’s wearing any trousers
Nope, but my hands ARE positively Presidential!
Is that target pattern a cyberman?
I’m pretty sure that’s Galactus. I never actually watch Doctor Who but I think that the Cybermen had asymmetrical heads based on some of the book covers are call going through for the few Doctor Who stories I did read and that one comic Star Trek Doctor Who crossover where they were dealing with the Borg in the Cybermen joining forces
Yes, my first thought was Mondasian Cyberman, but I suppose that just proves that cultural background is critical in picking up references. Cyberman are symmetrical, or at least were until last week’s episode when at least one became Borg-on-the-cheap. Sigh. Doctor Who/Cybermen did the whole dehumanizing horror earlier and better, but now everything has to be like somebody else’s blockbuster. Ignore me, I’m just a grumpy old man.
In the last 13th Doctor episode, the Doctor and the Master both reference the fact (within the show-verse) that Cybermen appear in various cultures, on various worlds, at various times. Any culture that takes a certain path with automation, computers, and medicine can end up becoming cyborgs. It’s a form of Singularity, and (according to Gallifreyan cultural bias) an evolutionary dead end.
To a Timelord, the Borg would be just another variant evolution of Cybermen.
Good point!
Galactus from the Fantastic 4.
Pew Pew is more of a sci-fi. You mean bang bang.
Sydney’s capable of dealing multiple tanks worth the damage yet she fears the power that has been put into her hands. Bright girl that one
If I recall correctly, Obi-Wan comments that Imperial Stormtroopers are *incredibly* precise when they discover the wasted Sandcrawler, but the reason they all seemed to miss Luke and the others was actually because Vader WANTED them to. Unless I am not correctly remembering my lore, Vader wanted the “honor” of catching/dispatching the Rebels himself, and the troops knew that, so they would purposely flub the majority of their shots. Furthermore, recall in ANH, when they boarded the Rebel ship, they were quite proficient at sniping the Rebels, even through smoke, and again their accuracy was commented on regarding the Jawas. They only really lost their targeting proficiency around the plot arm- I mean main protagonists.
You are mostly correct. The reason they were such bad shots on the death star was that Luke and the others were supposed to escape. A tracker had been paced on the Falcon and it would lead the empire to the secret rebel base.
Sydney is gonna break her wrist firing that with her arms cocked like that. Either that or she’s gonna hit herself in the face with the barrel.
Sweet of the day: churro.
I was always taught that you have more kick from lighter guns.
But, I guess if it has a high enough cartridge size…
More kick from a lighter gun, using the same cartridge. More kick from a larger cartridge, using equal-mass guns. Just another example of Sir Isaac’s a=F/m. Design will also be a major factor, but that’s far more complex.
ahhhhh she’s gone from the baby bullets to the FUN bullets. I used to pull that prank with my S&W 686 when I introduced shooting to some of my friends. mind you I did warn them beforehand and they expected it but it left them with a surprise and a laugh everytime. good times. ^_^
also, don’t pull the trigger Sydney, Squeeze the trigger.
Glad someone mentioned it, lol. Yes, especially for beginners, referring to it as a trigger squeeze really helps with the muscle memory of actually using a firearm. During Basic, they really drilled that terminology in, too…almost to the point of getting screamed at for saying pull instead of squeeze.
One option to offset crack-shot rank-&-files that would actually work for a TV show or movie would be to give the good guys a lot of expendable troops to get killed by the sharpshooters.
I’d actually pay money to watch a TV show where you pit Star Wars Stormtroopers vs. Star Trek Redshirts….the ultimate bad shot vs. the ultimate dead meat.
A stormtrooper couldn’t hit the ground if they tripped, but a redshirt somehow or another is doomed to die every time they touch a planet surface or encounter a random anything in space. How would a whole series of this work out?
Actually, if you look at percentages, red shirts have a higher survival chance than blue or gold! According to the Star Trek: Star Fleet Technical Manual, there are 239 redshirts on the Enterprise, 55 goldshirts, and about 130 blueshirts.
25 of those redshirts died. That’s about a 10.5% chance of death. 10 goldshirts died, that’s 18.2%, and 8 blueshirts died, that’s 6%. So if you want the best chance of surviving, wear a blue shirt. If you want the best chance of dying, wear a gold shirt.
You do know that the reason why the redshirts tended to die on away missions, is because they were security, it was literally their job to be first into dangerous situations
Thank you for that, always believed Kirk was the only one who wore gold, and blueshirts were the medics, which meant they were usually at the back tending the wounded and not on the ‘front lines’ becoming wounded
In the original series, blue was science, medical, and other specialists, gold was command staff, and red was technical and security. In broad (and snarky) terms, blue = thinks for a living, gold = talks for a living, and red = works for a living.
Can’t remember seeing anyone else wearing gold in TOS
Kirk also seemed to be the only one to wear a shirt like his, everyone else was wearing matching uniforms to each other, he seemed to dress differently (always figured that that was because he was the captain, along with the colour)
Oh right, yes, Mr Spock wore blue as well, didn’t he?
Was there ever a green? Or was that “Captain Scarlet”?
Sulu & Chekov both wore gold as well. Fun fact, the first time Uhura was seen on screen, she also wore gold. Guess the racist/sexist studio execs couldn’t handle having a black woman wearing command colors *IN ADDITION TO* being on the bridge.
(this is only partly my IDGAC sense of humor….Roddenberry did actually face a lot of flak from the studio for having a woman on the bridge of a military ship, & a black woman at that. They tried to force him to get rid of Nichols, but he stuck to his guns & ‘hired her as a day-cast actor’, or something like that. Ironically, the studio actually paid Nichols more than they would have because of this, due to union rules).
Aside from the rank insignia at their cuffs, their shirts were pretty much identical, though Kirk did end up with a slightly more ‘decorative’ captain’s shirt for a few episodes.
Yes, Spock wore blue….I guess the logic there is that he was on the duty roster as the ship’s science officer rather than as first officer? *shrugs*
& finally, no….red, blue & gold are the only ‘canon’ colors in Star Trek. Though there have been uniforms of other colors in less common media & in fanfic, these are not officially part of the ST universe.
The ridicule Stormtoopers get is uneaned. All because they were unable to stop the Millenium Falcon escape from the Death Star. They were instructed to let them escape. If they were serious about not letting them escape, why did they bother installing a tracker? The tracker was installed because they wanted them to escape and lead them to the rebel base. Stormtroopers are deadly. As Kinobi said: “only Imperial Stormtroopers are this precise.”
This is how people accidently kill themselves on a gun range. Large revolvers are very easy to doubletap
Pull the trigger, gun rocks upwards possibly backwards towards the shooters face, then starts to drop and when the weight is enough on the trigger, out comes a second shot. Bad news, the barrel is now pointing up or back and sometimes hits the shooter.
I’d have removed all but 1 round.
confirmed- stormtroopers are like cats- they direct their attention to the moving light flailing around. no light, and they go all over the place having lost their focus
Gonna whack her with a bloody nose!
21 shots? So Seneca is having Syd fire a full magazine plus one in the chamber?
As seen in panel 7 of the last strip.
Weapons are either fully loaded, unloaded or need to be reloaded.
This needs to be adhered to at all times during practical applications so it becomes instinctive,
unless initial stoppage drills necessitate partial magazines.
Or if certain drills like firing ‘sighters’ only need a fixed amount for consistency.
Otherwise it’s ‘fire and move, reload as required’ and deal with IA’s and stoppages as they occur.
The only time you would load a partial magazine on the two-way range would be if that’s all you had.
Star Wars’s Imperial Stormtroopers are not bad shots. What they are is capable of feigning in competence while chasing a few Rebels around a moon sized/shaped space station to keep them busy while a team installs a tracking device on to the Corellian YT-1300 Freighter that brought the Rebels to said moon sized/shaped space station.
That’s why they’re such good shots when shooting Jedi, because they’re good shots. Obi Wan Kenobi said it himself when talking to Luke at the scene of the Jawa slaughter., “only Imperial Storm Troopers are so precise.” Also, remember, Leia expressed concern about how easy it was to escape the Death Star when she said “they let us go, it’s the only explanation for the ease of our escape.”
So here’s what happened.
Vader captures Leia.
Vader tries to extract the information about the location of the Rebel Base from Leia.
Vader fails to extract the location of the Rebel Base from Leia.
Rebels show up to rescue Leia.
Vader sees an opportunity to get the location a different way.
Vader orders the Storm Troopers to chase the Rebels, but not harm them. Make it just difficult enough to make it seem like the Storm Troopers were trying, but not easy enough that the Rebels catch on that they’re just being stalled.
The Storm Troopers miss every shot on purpose.
A crew installs a tracking device on the Millennium Falcon.
The Rebels lead Vader back to the Rebel Base.
The fact that stormtroopers hit center mass on a lightsaber was discussed in length for years. It was explained, at some point, that Force users can ‘suck’ the blaster bolts to their lightsabers so that they can redirect them back where they want to.
Nice Galactus target XD
There ain’t no way in hell Sydney is going to handle that big ole gun, she’s gonna be flung back and her glasses are gonna break cause of it.
the storm troppers were not aiming poorly. they were aiming amazingly.
they were all told to allow them to escape the death star so they could track them back to the base.
they were in fact extremely disciplined. Force to fire back, but not hitting while taking fire and loosing people.
Storm troopers were awesome
Casull? Sounds familiar…
Knew a guy who had a .44 mag handload detonate on him, destroying the Ruger revolver and breaking his forearm bones in 7 places.
I was about to say that she had a better shooting instructor now. But then said shooting instructor went and put a .454 in the hands of a girl who is still figuring out how to handle a 9mm might weigh 110 soaking wet. That’s just mean. Sydney is about to be a feature in a YouTube video of gun bloopers. If she’s lucky she’ll avoid getting smacked in the face by the barrel, but Syndey isn’t lucky.
A .454 caliber is not a combat revolver, is power is compensated by lousu rate of fire due to recoil , combat firearms are compromises:
You must arest an hard target use FN 5.7×28mm -for pentration-
A soft taget but necessing lot of damage like a bear use Frangible bullets -glaser safety slug for exemple-.
If you want a combat revolver it’s More like a Manhurin 73 with a 2.25 to 4 inches barrel …
.357 is powerful but recoil is manageable and weigth is 880 g (31.0 oz) for a (2.5″ canon) and 950 g (33.5 oz)for a (4″ canon)
For accuracy a 4″ Manhurin could group in 7,5 cm (2,95″) at 25 m ( 27,34 yards)
I’ll use a rather accurate revolver of heavy caliber rather tan an inacurate handcanon
Giving that kind of handcannon to a rookie shooter is a perfect way to cause new safety rules to be added to the range. It is, IMO, also a basic dick move.
Ok, I love this webcomic, and I even really like this particular page, but did you have to perpetuate that ridiculous “Stormtroopers can’t shoot” bullshit?
Their accuracy, as shown on screen, compared well with real world militaries, who often fire thousands of rounds for each one that hits. The idea that they couldn’t shoot was created by people with no actual military or combat experience, and it is a meme that should die and stay dead.
also the scene that spurred that meme the most was when they were escaping the death star.
where they were Supposed to flee.
The storm troppers were most likely ordered to not kill anyone to allow them to escape.
so they had to
1. not kill anyone.
2. remain under fire while making sure not to kill anyone, while loosing their own comrades to people they could not return proper fire on.
they were actually very good at what they did.
I mean, it’s there’s one thing that stormtroopers are known for at this point, it’s being bad shots.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1139331831554347009
https://pics.me.me/being-a-stormtrooper-would-suck-47436487.png
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/66/e6/0e/66e60e22e7b93468a902d47786848271.jpg
https://external-preview.redd.it/5lqsRbdryPfhI8k5k6e2tcr-xtR14kFufcOs-OO1jdk.jpg
Yes, people have pointed out that they were under orders to allow the MC’s to escape the Death Star in New Hope, but that doesn’t excuse the fact that they never hit shit for the remainder of the movies until Leia gets popped in the hip in Jedi.
+1 for the Stormtroopers.
Bu-u-utttt… Real world militaries. There was a time when infantry was there simply as walking targets. But warfare has moved on, and since about 1900-ish, the concept has emerged that lead-storms were a perfect method of getting people to not die unecessarily. This was then extended to Marching Fire as an assault tactic. The general strategic idea is that you don’t have to kill the enemy, only keep his head down, thus the “thousands of rounds for each hit”.
The next strategy was the use of personnel carriers, another story.
One of my favorite guns that I ever had the opportunity to shoot was a .50 Desert Eagle with an extended barrel. Yes, the thing had a lot of kick… but here’s the cool part. The sheer mass and weight distribution of the weapon, with the extended barrel in particular, meant that Isaac Newton’s second law took a little bit to take effect. So you’d take aim, you’d squeeze the trigger, the hammer would come down, the explosion would launch the bullet down the barrel… and THEN inertia would say, “oh! The gun’s supposed to kick back, right?”
By the time the weapon had started to jerk in the hands, the bullet was already twenty feet out of the barrel. Which made the weapon not only very powerful, but also extremely accurate. WONDERFUL gun…
.454…Less of a pew, more of a pow. The day that Sydney gets to try Peggy’s 50 cal. Barret, it’ll be more like Ba-Rooom! Sydney is learning the venerable martial art known as Ching-Ching-Pow.
I’d rather fire that Barrett all day than a couple of 25 round applications of 12ga high base buckshot.
Especially in a short barrelled shotgun like a Remington 870 ‘riot gun’.
Even timing the pump stroke to ride the recoil hurts eventually, with or without a butt pad :)
I took a Long Range Shooting course given by Barret, using the M82A1 50-cal. That weapon is *so fun*, and it really gives you a sense of what’s possible. Despite never firing a rifle before I could still put every shot inside a 4″ group at 300 yards (shooting prone, obviously). Even at 1000 yards I was able to hit a torso-sized area pretty much every time. I give all the credit to the weapon and the instructor (Jay Gibson, a Force Marine Recon sniper) because it sure wasn’t skill and experience on my part.
Are you aware, what Ching means in Spanish?
While it hasn’t had a TV rendition, and the movie was pitiful, the Barsoom series from Edgar Rice Burroughs features an entire race with perfect shot (able to kill with one shot from 20 miles away.) In case you’re not not familiar with the series, it’s also known by the protagonist’s name, John Carter.
In that series, the villain’s weakness is their lower IQ, large size (12-15′ tall), and lack of compassion. They’re a formidable enemy to the story’s protagonists, and are really only ever overcome with logic and reasoning.
I remember a video covering stormtroopers and compared them to rebellion soldiers. They are actually as accurate as Obiwan said they were in New Hope, it’s just that the main characters have plot armor.
Mmmm… Alucard’s favorite!
You all assume the revolver is loaded. Common trick is to put a dummy round(s) in the chamber(s). It becomes VERY apparent if you are anticipating the kick. Although, she might have checked the load off screen, Sydney is not shown checking it. Range instructor humor… as well as… instructive.
I think Sydney might end up with the Casull pointing skywards after that one “try my revolver” round.
There’s definitely a round of some sort in the chamber (brass visible at the gap between rear of cylinder and frame) next to Seneca’s thumb, but whether that’s a dummy or not is another question…
And those bronzy bits in the cylinder under Syd’s thumbs might be bullets? In panel 8…
And do I see both eyes open there? No squinting?
Actually, she is squinting, with both eyes, in panel eight
Maybe I chose the wrong word… No, but there’s no good synonym for it. And by definition, you’re correct.
But at least she has both eyes open, if squinted. And that’s the important bit. Now all we need is the moment of squeezing the trigger.
Had to look the word up to make sure :)
Yeah, it’s a difficult word to find: it’s not squint (that’s when one or both eyes are partly closed), and it’s not a wink because the eye stays closed
So common headcanon for why they always seem to miss is that the jedi are actually using the force innately to deflect the blasts slightly