Author—Gun Mistakes

[ernie8]

A 1911 would have saved the guys in Star Trek about 100 times .

[44 AMP]

I'm not so sure. IF they miss with a phaser (line of sight, no drop, no windage) I don't see them doing better with a 1911 or any cartridge pistols.

MARKSMANSHIP (training) might save them, but the Federation, even Starfleet isn't supposed to be about fighting.....

[ernie8]

I am talking about all the times the phasers did not work . Power drainers , ion fields , plant's magnetic field , Mr. Sulu not putting them back on the chargers after charging his personal devices .

[Jim Watson]

Kind of like kryptonite.
The writers give their characters and their equipment all sorts of capabilities, then spend the rest of the story looking for limitations.

Yancy Derringer's faithful sidekick Pahoo had a sawn off shotgun under his blanket that would deliver a dinner plate size pattern at about any distance. We know the pattern size because he hardly ever hit anybody with it and the "split buckshot" landed on the far wall.

Hugh O'Brian as Wyatt Earp had a sensible deputy who rode a mule and carried a long barreled shotgun. But Wyatt got in all the gunfights. Star power.

There was one otherwise forgettable story in which the remnant forces of good were armed with ARs set up to fire flechettes. Range was shorter than with a bullet but they had under barrel grenade launchers to handle the tough jobs.


Larry Niven said he wasn't going to write any more 'Known Space' stories. That what with hullmetal, scrith, and stasis field reinforcement, anything involving strength of materials was already solved.

[44 AMP]

I allow a lot of leeway in science fiction, but a lot less so in fiction ostensibly set in our shared reality and historical time.

Don Pendleton's Executioner series got most gun names and terms right, but what his hero could DO with them was well beyond reality more often than not.

Ian Fleming said a .32acp hits like a brick through a plate glass window and called a .38 snubnose a "cannon". Most Americans would disagree with that, I think.

Jerry Ahern's "Survivalist" was very good about guns and equipment, Ahern being a gun writer he got things right about that but after the first few stories, seems like every fight turned into the hero going through all his guns and ammo (rifle, three or four handguns,) and finishing off the last bad guy or two with his commando knife. Once, or maybe twice, ok. Time after time? sorry, too formulaic for my taste.

Frequently many writers are subject matter experts about nothing but writing, and include technical details to impress the reader, but when they screw them up, the impression is not a favorable one.

[ballardw]

Originally Posted by 44 AMP

and called a .38 snubnose a "cannon".

IIRC some period from the late 1940s to 60's "cannon" was for certain groups of "gangsters" a street slang term for any pistol of .38 or larger caliber. From a dimly remembered "detective" magazine story at my grandpa's house.

[Jim Watson]

good about guns and equipment,

Some are TOO good. They read like a catalog, diluting the flow of the story.

[rickyrick]

None of them have credibility because none of them mention launching a detent across a room into the great unknown.

None of them mention that unfired cartridge that you lost in a fender well 20years ago that’s still there today, unbeknownst to the current owner.

But on a more serious note, what is worse than gun inaccuracies, are some of the gunfight and battle scenes in these stories, some are very tedious and I want to just get back to the main plot.

[JohnKSa]

I've provided some input for a writer but ultimately there came a point where it was obvious that in order to make his story flow properly he was going to have to mess with some of the nitty gritty gun details.

I think there has to be some sort of balance. If someone's writing fiction, as opposed to history or a documentary, they get to play with reality to some extent simply by virtue of the fact that it's fiction. I think it's dumb to put manual safeties on revolvers or talk about the cylinder in an autopistol--there's no need for errors like that, but if the author needs a silencer to be whisper quiet to make his plot work, or something like that, I can see taking that kind of liberty with the facts.

I ended up giving him some good facts but telling him not to let the facts ruin his story line.

[Dfariswheel]

One error just grates on my nerves...... European history writers always describe Nazi pistols as "revolvers", even when it's clear they were armed with an auto.

Some of today's writers usually get guns right, but as above, too often it starts to sound like a catalog listing of dream guns and knives.
Jack Carr writes entertaining books and as a retired SEAL he should know, but he tends to the cataloging.

Larry Correia does some fun Sci-Fi and as a former shooting instructor and gun dealer he knows his guns.

It's funny that so much Sci-Fi has people running around in the far future hacking at each other with swords.
The sword, as an effective weapon of war ended with the American Civil War and the perfection of Colt's revolver.
The Union army found out just how much the sword's day was over when they did saber charges against Missouri guerrillas armed with multiple revolvers and got shot to pieces.

[rickyrick]

The Terminal List by Jack Carr was a decent set, but that’s one example of some parts of the stories getting bogged down by technical aspects, and you sometimes suspect he’s getting royalties for mentioning high end name brands.

I’m pretty sure that I recall “smell the cordite…” in there somewhere.

[44 AMP]

The sword, as an effective weapon of war ended with the American Civil War and the perfection of Colt's revolver.

The sword was still a quite effective weapon of war where ever the enemy lacked revolvers or other repeating arms.

The history of warfare, both offensive and defensive is a constant series of innovation, and counters. Somethings last for long periods of time before an effective counter is developed, and sometimes only a very brief period of time.

And obsolete weaponry can still rule a battlefield when one side does not have its counter.

The advantage can be in equipment, or just in tactics, but it is real and effective when only one side has it and the other does not.

also, the Nazis did use revolvers, more than a few though they weren't first line issue. Small factoid, the gun taken from Hermann Goering when the Allies captured him was a S&W .38 revolver.

Hideki Tojo shot himself to prevent his capture, with a Colt .32acp. But the bullet didn't quite reach his heart. The US captured him, nursed him back to health over several months, then gave him a proper hanging.

[Jim Watson]

One error just grates on my nerves...... European history writers always describe Nazi pistols as "revolvers", even when it's clear they were armed with an auto.

Or any handgun is called a "revolver"; seems a European standard. Any lever action, even a Marlin, is a "Winchester". Any .22 single shot is a "Flobert" even though not of any of his several designs.

There was the thriller in which a Mossberg model 500 shotgun was described as a .50 caliber weapon, based no doubt on the model designation.
And while VX is a potent nerve gas, VX-2* must be twice as deadly, so the terrorist procured some VX-10 which was really really strong. (His plot did not work out so he suicided by stomping on a bottle of nerve agent.)
*VX-2 may have been used as a designation for the binary formulation of the stuff.

[rickyrick]

Coincidentally, I just encountered a 1911 in a sci-fi set in the 25th century.
The starship captain put down a mutiny with a 1911 that his ship’s engineer had made for the captain from antique drawings found in archives. It was meant as a novelty due to the captain’s interest in WW2 history.
The mutineers had weapons that the captain had managed to disable through a back door in the ship’s control system.
He shot one of the bad guys and the loud noise from the pistol, and the gore from a headshot frightened the most of rest of them into submission. The weapons not functioning also played a factor.

[ballardw]

Another probably 1911 occurs in Robert Heinlein's "Beyond this Horizon" where it is described as a "point forty-five Colt automatic pistol". At which point the owner of the newly acquired pistol gets to answer the question "point forty-five what" and brief diversion into inches versus centimeters.

This may be on of the earliest books with the phrase "an armed society is a polite society".

Time frame not mentioned but appears to be several hundred years into the future.

[Jim Watson]

It is THE book that introduced the term, but you need the whole quotation
“An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life.”
Going armed in that day was a matter of honor, crime and self defense were not even mentioned; but dueling was accepted.

and
"The police of a state should never be stronger or better armed than the citizenry. An armed citizenry, willing to fight, is the foundation of civil freedom."
When a group of strong government theorists attempt a coup, armed citizens resisted them until the police could recruit enough volunteers to shut it down.

[SIGSHR]

I read accounts by Buffalo Bill, he referred to his "needle gun", which to me is the Dreyse rifle-the Zuendennadelgewehr. He was talking about his Trapdoor Springfield. Calling a handgun a "revolver" is more of a British thing since revolvers never really caught on in Europe and the British stuck with the revolver as their issue military handgun long after nearly everybody else adopted semiautos.

[44 AMP]

I read accounts by Buffalo Bill, he referred to his "needle gun", which to me is the Dreyse rifle-the Zuendennadelgewehr. He was talking about his Trapdoor Springfield.

The Dreyse "Needle gun" got its name from the long "needle" firing pin, which was needed to pierce the paper cartridge and strike the primer, which was located on the base of the bullet.

Buffalo Bill was a master of showmanship and hyperbole (his "Wild West Show), and I believe his reference to the Trapdoor as his "needle gun" was a comment on its accuracy, being able to shoot the eye of a needle....and not exactly a statement of actual fact.

[Jim Watson]

The firing pin of a Trapdoor Springfield is pretty long, I thought that was the reference, calling his .50-70 Lucrezia Borgia a "needle gun."

[44 AMP]

About anything is possible, when I meet Wild Bill, I'll ask him.....

I don't expect to be able to post his answer here, though...

[BandeauRouge]

The film Saving Private Ryan was given a thumbs up by all the normandy invasion vets who watched it. That opening sequence was beyond dead accurate for them..

Most authors have no clue.

[BandeauRouge]

you have the point on the honor harrington series, first three good, the rest really went downhill.. and other charecters took over.

[BandeauRouge]

There are to many bad writers writing about guns,, its also the idiots that randomly write complete gun catalog descriptions in the text. that monster hunter series was bad for it.