Reluctant Killer and Called Shots

[The Colonel]

Originally Posted by DangerousThing

Yes, but Book was extremely well trained, and I suspect did not have the Reluctant Killer disadvantage.

I was sort of assuming that Book had that disadvantage - or at least some similar disadvantage based on his faith.

[HANS]

Originally Posted by Eukie

Not all militaries and police forces train for lethal center-of-mass shots as the sine qua non of firearms combat. There are legitimate concerns with the practice, but some organizations like the Norwegian army, Danish police, Russian GRU Spetsnaz and, if I don't remember wrong, the Bundeswehr, do or did teach and practice aiming for the legs with rifles and pistols as a way to shoot people with non-fatal intentions.

"Non-lethal" shots are a cinematic myth that has pervaded common knowledge and is unfortunately even believed by many people who should know better. I have a very hard time believing the Spetsnaz ever trained anything less-than-lethal, but then they are known for ridiculous dog-and-pony shows that involve a lot of karate moves . . . The Bundeswehr does not train aiming for the legs . . . but they did use to tell recruits on base security that they should aim for the legs. However, telling people to aim for the legs has never been a valid tactic, especially if they have not trained for that. Even highly-trained shooters cannot reliably pull that off in combat. It is stupid against an armed aggressor.

Cheers

HANS

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Eukie

Not all militaries and police forces train for lethal center-of-mass shots as the sine qua non of firearms combat. There are legitimate concerns with the practice, but some organizations like the Norwegian army, Danish police, Russian GRU Spetsnaz and, if I don't remember wrong, the Bundeswehr, do or did teach and practice aiming for the legs with rifles and pistols as a way to shoot people with non-fatal intentions.

The only case I'm aware of of a military training to shoot at the legs concerns sniper situations, wherein many are trained to shoot at the legs/hips so their target will bleed and scream for awhile - when his buddies can't take it anymore and break cover to try to rescue him, you go for center of mass (or headshots if you can pull them off) on the would-be rescuers.


On the topic at hand, I'd imagine the -2 should apply on limb/extremity hits. If the character does happen to hit an artery (or sever something), he's likely to freak out immediately - I'd probably use the Cool Under Fire guidelines from TS34, applying a -5 for P: RK (negating the +5 "heat of combat"). In this case, your actions are the traumatic experience!

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by Eukie

Not all militaries and police forces train for lethal center-of-mass shots as the sine qua non of firearms combat. There are legitimate concerns with the practice, but some organizations like the Norwegian army, Danish police, Russian GRU Spetsnaz and, if I don't remember wrong, the Bundeswehr, do or did teach and practice aiming for the legs with rifles and pistols as a way to shoot people with non-fatal intentions.

It's common practice to train to aim low when using auto or burst weapons, so that the natural barrel rise will carry the point of aim through the center of mass.

Originally Posted by Varyon

The only case I'm aware of of a military training to shoot at the legs concerns sniper situations, wherein many are trained to shoot at the legs/hips so their target will bleed and scream for awhile - when his buddies can't take it anymore and break cover to try to rescue him, you go for center of mass (or headshots if you can pull them off) on the would-be rescuers.

As far as I know, that this is a universal practice of snipers is mostly a myth. Most military snipers aim for center of mass, full stop. Screaming or not, a man hit by a sniper stops the entire unit until they figure out where the shot came from and were able to do something about it, because no one wants to be next.

[TheOneRonin]

HANS and RyanW are spot on.

"Aiming for Center Mass" as a marksmanship training component has zero to do with lethality and 100% to do with hit probability.

"Aim for the legs" is just silly.

[Eukie]

Originally Posted by HANS

"Non-lethal" shots are a cinematic myth that has pervaded common knowledge and is unfortunately even believed by many people who should know better.

The reason I specified "non-lethal intent" was that getting shot generally carries a significant chance of death, so shooting someone "non-lethally" obviously does not work. Yet people do sometimes survive getting shot, so shots that are, ultimately, not lethal - do technically exist.

Shooting with non-lethal intent is possible, and may even succeed; whether such an action is likely or will practically accomplish what was intended, is another question.

Though if you're willing to believe random articles I found on the Internet, apparently the Czech Republic police do practice shooting people in the legs for the express purpose of not killing them..

(Hence, assuming that these articles are legit, the conclusion of my point still stands; "some organizations teach to shoot with non-lethal intent, so shooting center-of-mass to kill is not a universal doctrine".)

Originally Posted by HANS

I have a very hard time believing the Spetsnaz ever trained anything less-than-lethal, but then they are known for ridiculous dog-and-pony shows that involve a lot of karate moves . . .

It looks like I may have confused the NKVD for spetsnaz...

According to some summaries I've read online (i.e. these are not very rigorous sources) of the book Handgun Shooting Methods: The SMERSh system by Alexei Potapov, the NKVD during WWII taught a technique called "Macedonian shooting" which was adopted by officers in order to increase their rate-of-fire at very short ranges (the book talks about ranges of up to 20 meters) or to lay down suppressing fire. The core of the technique was simply to fire two semi-automatic pistols or double-action revolvers at the same time with a peculiar grip. This was, according to a summary I read half a decade ago and may well be misremembering, also taught to some early spetsnaz units. And (and this was definitely a rumour), also taught to later ones for nefarious kidnapping purposes.

According to these, again, somewhat questionably authentic online summaries, Macedonian shooting included a special technique for shot placement on targets, described thusly: (…) two guns are pointed in slightly other directions. This was used to “instantly turn off legs/arms” – if the target was needed alive. This way (photo 4) two bullets hit the target in both shoulders, both arms higher than elbows or both legs higher than ankles."

The technique sounds, overall, pretty dubious (it sounds extremely difficult to get the shot placement right!), but if the author (or whoever is quoting him) is to be believed, this was apparently actually taught.

Originally Posted by HANS

The Bundeswehr does not train aiming for the legs . . . but they did use to tell recruits on base security that they should aim for the legs. However, telling people to aim for the legs has never been a valid tactic, especially if they have not trained for that. Even highly-trained shooters cannot reliably pull that off in combat. It is stupid against an armed aggressor.

Cheers

HANS

Ah. I may very have have confused the claim "aim for legs" with "aim for legs with intent not to kill", and I think I got the part about the Bunderwehr from someone who'd made the same mistake, since I remember him saying that it was for shooting people with non-fatal intent. It is also possible that the same applies to the Norwegian army, since that is also information I have second-hand.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Eukie

It looks like I may have confused the NKVD for spetsnaz...

According to some summaries I've read online (i.e. these are not very rigorous sources) of the book Handgun Shooting Methods: The SMERSh system by Alexei Potapov, the NKVD during WWII taught a technique called "Macedonian shooting" which was adopted by officers in order to increase their rate-of-fire at very short ranges (the book talks about ranges of up to 20 meters) or to lay down suppressing fire. The core of the technique was simply to fire two semi-automatic pistols or double-action revolvers at the same time with a peculiar grip. This was, according to a summary I read half a decade ago and may well be misremembering, also taught to some early spetsnaz units. And (and this was definitely a rumour), also taught to later ones for nefarious kidnapping purposes.

According to these, again, somewhat questionably authentic online summaries, Macedonian shooting included a special technique for shot placement on targets, described thusly: (…) two guns are pointed in slightly other directions. This was used to “instantly turn off legs/arms” – if the target was needed alive. This way (photo 4) two bullets hit the target in both shoulders, both arms higher than elbows or both legs higher than ankles."

The technique sounds, overall, pretty dubious (it sounds extremely difficult to get the shot placement right!), but if the author (or whoever is quoting him) is to be believed, this was apparently actually taught.

You know, I could believe either of dual-pistol shooting or shooting to disable as weird outside tactics somebody taught.

Dual-pistol shooting to disable sounds completely crazy.

[Not another shrubbery]

Originally Posted by Last Pawn

They're not thinking about their skill, they're thinking that shooting someone in the leg couldn't possibly be lethal and thus it's a great way to take someone out of the fight without killing.

What they're specifically thinking about isn't the point, but rather whether they are making a deadly attack or not. Those attacks are illustrated (in the text of the trait) as being a property of the attack, rather than desire of the attacker. Certainly, you might trick a Reluctant Killer into using deadly force when they thought they were not, but if they know what they're doing, and overcome their reluctance, they should just have to suck up the penalty.

[Flyndaran]

No such thing as a non lethal attack. People are irritatingly easy to kill, sometimes. Other times they just won't stop living.

[simply Nathan]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

No such thing as a non lethal attack. People are irritatingly easy to kill, sometimes. Other times they just won't stop living.

There is such a thing as making an attack that you believe has little or no chance of killing a person. Like when someone says a woman punching you is no threat because their arms are weaker on average, or the idea that punches do some sort of "subdual" or "stunning" damage rather than being actual crushing attacks of the same category as a club.

If something really can be described as an attack, that implies potential lethality. The question is whether someone with Pacifism (Reluctant Killer)[-5] faces the full penalty for using an attack he honestly believes will not be fatal to his target.