Jonathan Jeckell busts the Stormtrooper marksmanship myth:
Clone Troopers used long rifles in their role as a mass land army during the Clone Wars, fighting engagements with the Droid Army in a variety of terrain that often called for heavy firepower and accurate long-range shots. But most Stormtroopers were issued pistols that fit their new role in short-range engagements, like fighting insurgents in cities or in the corridors onboard ships. Short weapons are handier than rifles for shock troops leading boarding parties fighting in confined spaces and also as lightweight sidearms for constabulary forces dealing with a few unruly civilians (or keeping the governor and other regional elites in line).
The transition from rifles to pistols has a profound effect on the range and accuracy of engagements. A rifle provides a long foundation to support the weapon to control where it is pointed with many opportunities to brace it to keep it steady. A standing shooter has control of the weapon in at least three points across its length. The non-firing arm holds the end of the barrel, the butt of the weapon is planted firmly in the shooter’s armpit, and the firing hand holds the rifle in the middle. The shooter may also brace against a solid object, which substantially increases stability and the ability to accurately hold the weapon on target long enough to fire.
Pistols in contrast are held by one point (or two in the case of the long pistols used by Stormtroopers). The shooter’s body has many joints between the pistol and the ground, all of which continuously jostle despite efforts to hold them steady. The short barrel means that even the smallest movement results in larger deviations from the target as the shooter struggles with a single bracing point, trying to hold many levers (all the joints in your body) steady without jitter.
To illustrate the difference, the maximum effective range of the U.S. Army’s Beretta M9 9mm pistol is 50 meters, which means that the average person will hit 50% of the time at 50 meters. Meanwhile, the maximum effective range for the M4 Carbine is 500 meters—10 times further.
This becomes even more difficult when the shooter must react quickly and under extreme stress. Many shooters who excel on the range fail to hit what they are shooting at in combat unless they also train in realistic stressful quick-reaction scenarios. Police and the FBI maintain more useful statistics for pistol engagements because they are all studied in-depth afterwards. The FBI has found that pistol accuracy suffers when shooting in a real engagement. FBI data from 1989-1994 shows that the majority of engagements occurred within 6-10 feet (yes, feet). Less than 40% of the engagements were over 21 feet (7 meters). 60% of the engagements were within 0-21 feet, 30% from 21-45 feet, and 10% from 45-75 feet. None occurred beyond 75 feet. The average defender fires three rounds against a single assailant. The bad guys shooting at police hit their target just 14% of the time, and 95% of the police who achieve a 1st shot hit survive. This drops to 48% on the second shot. Law enforcement officers average 75-80% missed shots.
This means that Luke, Leia, and Han make some really unbelievable shots with pistols (and the scope doesn’t help). Chewbacca’s bow is held like a rifle, so his shots don’t stand out as much on the battlefield as being extraordinary. This makes the Stormtroopers’ normal human precision seem inferior in contrast. We know Luke is a Jedi, which can explain his extreme long-range accuracy with a blaster. We also know Leia has latent Force powers, which explains hers as well. Han may not be a Jedi, but he may have latent force-sensitivity despite his skepticism about the Jedi and the Force. Despite laughing off the Jedi, his piloting skill surpassed normal human capabilities like one, even though he always laughed off the Jedi.
I estimate the distance from Luke to these Stormtroopers to be at LEAST 150 meters, yet he shot two in quick succession here, then shot a foot-square door control before egressing from the fight. Leia and Han regularly made many such shots throughout the series.
The standard weapon of the Stormtroopers is the E-11 blaster rifle, which, despite its name, is rarely depicted with a stock. It was based on the British Sterling Mk IV submachine gun.
What’s odd, I pointed out to Jeckell, is that the professional soldiers aren’t decent with their primary arms, but the rebels are skilled with the Stormtroopers’ weapons. It’s clear Luke is an avid shooter (and pilot), as a country boy, but I wouldn’t expect him to be much of a pistol shot. I have no trouble imagining Han and Chewie as avid shooters, with their own weapons. I like the idea of Leia being plucky enough to get her hands dirty, but pistol-shooting is only intuitive out to five yards or so. It takes tremendous practice to master.
It’s a trope of literature and movies that the pistol can make a long distance shot. I think often of Gus in the Larry McMurtry book Lonesome Dove who exhibits prodigious pistol shots. McMurtry hewed to historical accuracy, so I’m wondering if people were ever capable of such shooting.
I’m in a rural area where varmint control is crucial, and some people are just naturally good shots. The “force” is really with them.
Star Wars was a Civil War Western in space. The Rebels were army, accustomed to small arms, and the whitejacket Yankees were sailors who maybe got trained briefly in between all the stuff they had to do to keep their ship from sinking.
Long-range pistol shots have been a “thing” since the days of the Old West. I can’t remember where I read of a verified incident of a legitimate kill made with a handgun out to nearly 200 yards, but I think it was with the Texas Rangers, back when they had the original Colt Dragoon pistols.
Elmer Keith did some remarkable things, as well–And, then there is Jerry Miculek, who made a 1000m shot offhand with a 9mm revolver in 2014. Long range with pistol is doable, easily–Even off-hand. It just takes a bunch of practice, and a good eye.
Jerry Miculek, who made a 1000m shot offhand with a 9mm revolver in 2014
A bit gimmicky: multiple shots; elevation calculated ahead of time.
He is a far outlier in shooting ability.
“Jerry Miculek, who made a 1000m shot offhand with a 9mm revolver in 2014″
Unless you are using some sort of optical aid too hard to see the target at 1000 m.
Unless you are using some sort of optical aid too hard to see the target at 1000 m.
You are not familiar with the power of the force!
It was a white 3′x5′ metal plate; markedly visible.
On one of the message boards, a guy related that at 600 yards he would register one handgun hit every 15 rounds.
Bomag is closer than Bruce with respect to the key characters. Force-sensitivity aside, Luke (and Biggs) were most likely akin to rural farmboys with tens of thousands of rounds fired at small varmint-sized targets (womp rats are presumably the equoivalent of Earth prairie dogs or Belding’s ground squirrels) and such folks routinely outshoot military and cops by dint of sheer practice time alone. I have shot specialty pistols at human-head-sized targets out past 600 yards at the annual Boomershoot for more than a decade. That said, I spent a day of WY-SHOT in Wyoming this past year shooting ground squirrels and the folks I shot with were making what seemed to me unreal offhand shots at all sorts of distances. Seeing that sort of thing firsthand can make one believe in the Force.
Practice and dedication can accomplish some amazing things with regards to marksmanship skills. There’s this plumber I know, who shoots long-range sniper obsessively. The DOE security teams that came up to shoot against him and his fellow civilians at a tactical match were talking much shit about how they were going to walk away with the match prizes. They were eliminated from the competition in the first round.
Likewise, the guy I shot with on a small, home-town IPSC shooting league. He did it for recreation, being a dentist. That guy was phenomenal, and I’d have backed him in a practical shooting match up against a couple of guys who I know were Delta operators, in previous lives. Having seen all three shoot, I’d give the dentist the nod for being most likely to win a match. Real world? Dude shot three idiots who tried robbing his practice in suburban Chicago for narcotics, and did it so fast that his dental assistant was still on the phone with 911, asking for them to send cops: “…no, wait a minute… Send an ambulance, they’re all on the floor…”. The three idiots had all had their guns in hand, and none of them even got a shot off before he put center-of-mass shots into them so quickly that the guy in the next office suite was reporting machine-gun fire in the building.
Skill-at-arms resides in some surprising places, and it’s actually not that unusual to find out that the military/police complex does not possess what you think they would or should, in this regard. I can tell you this much–Where I was, in the Army, your marksmanship skills were pretty much a non-issue: If you didn’t have them, no big deal. The guys that were proficient? Mostly did it on their own time, and with their own weapons. Same with all too many cops I know.