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** The proliferation of military drone aircraft now complicates the definition of an AcePilot: If someone shoots down 5 drones, is that the same thing as shooting down 5 planes with human pilots?

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** The proliferation of military drone aircraft now complicates the definition of an AcePilot: If someone shoots down 5 drones, is that the same thing as shooting down 5 planes with human pilots?pilots? For that matter, should kills ''by'' drone pilots be counted the same way as those of pilots who are physically present within the craft they're piloting?
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** The proliferation of military drone aircraft now complicates the definition of an AcePilot: If someone shoots down 5 drones, is that the same thing as shooting down 5 planes with human pilots?

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* Looks like it, and non-zombie games are in on it too: ''[[VideoGame/RockBand Rock Band 3]]'' has an achievement, "HOPO-cidal maniac" that reads, "Kill ''53,596'' Hammer-ons and Pull-offs."

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* Looks like it, ''VideoGame/RedBaron'' and its sequel ''Red Baron 3-D'''s Campaign mode track the Top Ten aces of the war by number of kills, and getting your own name as high on that list as you can is your implicit goal.
* Continuing the RunningGag from before, and with
non-zombie games are in on it too: ''[[VideoGame/RockBand Rock Band 3]]'' has an achievement, "HOPO-cidal maniac" that reads, "Kill ''53,596'' Hammer-ons and Pull-offs."
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* The strict definition of "air ace" is "a fighter pilot who has shot down a certain number of enemy fighters" (usually 5). [[RedBaron Manfred von Richtofen's]] record of 80 kills was unbeaten in UsefulNotes/WorldWarI. In all of the history of air warfare, though, the highest scoring ace is Erich Hartmann of the WWII Luftwaffe, who was credited with 352 kills over the Eastern Front. The highest scoring Allied ace is rather farther down [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_World_War_II_air_aces the list of WW2 aces]], Ivan Kozhedub of the Soviet Union with 62 kills (the Allied air forces had a policy of rotating out the best pilots to serve as trainers, so this isn't unexpected). Gun-cams were invented to keep track of the fighter pilots' kills, ''[[InvokedTrope for the very reason of invoking this trope]]''. The gun-cams had a purpose beyond kill-counts -- to accurately gauge how much enemy material had been destroyed.

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* The strict definition of "air ace" is "a fighter pilot who has shot down a certain number of enemy fighters" (usually 5). [[RedBaron Manfred von Richtofen's]] record of 80 kills was unbeaten in UsefulNotes/WorldWarI. In all of the history of air warfare, though, the highest scoring ace is Erich Hartmann of the WWII Luftwaffe, who was credited with 352 kills over the Eastern Front. The highest scoring Allied ace is rather farther down [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_World_War_II_air_aces the list of WW2 aces]], Ivan Kozhedub of the Soviet Union with 62 kills (the Allied air forces had a policy of rotating out the best pilots to serve as trainers, so this isn't unexpected). Gun-cams were invented to keep track of the fighter pilots' kills, ''[[InvokedTrope for the very reason of invoking this trope]]''.trope]]'' (In WWI kills were only credited if confirmed by a third party or the plane came down on their side of the lines, resulting in disparity between official kills and claimed kills - for example, Allied pilot Raul Lufbury is officially credited with 17 victories, but his squadronmates estimated his actual kill count to be somewhere in the 40-60 range due to his often fighting in German-controlled airspace where kills couldn't be reliably confirmed. The gun-cams provided an objective third party to provide confirmation that the pilots could take with them). The gun-cams had a purpose beyond kill-counts -- to accurately gauge how much enemy material had been destroyed.

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* ''Literature/GoblinSlayer'' keeps track of how many goblins he and his comrades have killed in a fight, not out of a desire to see who can kill the most, but because he has a good eye for roughly how many goblins can be supported by the size of a lair and the reported depredations among the local villages, and thus is trying to figure out if they've missed any.



* ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'': In the short story ''The Wrath of Khârn'' by William King, it transpires that that [[TheBerserker Khornate Champion Khârn the Betrayer]] has a kill-counter built into the H.U.D. of his helmet, and regularly amuses himself by conducting a body-count competition against his own personal best in every battle and campaign that he takes part in; a tally of 5,000 in a day being merely "quite good" by his own reckoning.

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* ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'': ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'':
**
In the short story ''The Wrath of Khârn'' by William King, it transpires that that [[TheBerserker Khornate Champion Khârn the Betrayer]] has a kill-counter built into the H.U.D. of his helmet, and regularly amuses himself by conducting a body-count competition against his own personal best in every battle and campaign that he takes part in; a tally of 5,000 in a day being merely "quite good" by his own reckoning.reckoning.
** In the Dark Angels novels, one rookie Space Marine just promoted out of the scouts makes a point of tracking how many enemies he'd killed with his admittedly impressive marksmanship standards, and how close he is to earning various medals for killing X enemy soldiers. Eventually his Brother-Sergeant takes him aside and tells him that the kill count doesn't matter, only completing the mission - most of his brothers-in-arms stopped bothering to keep track of their individual victories decades or centuries ago.

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* Korean naval hero Admiral Yi Sun Shin was opposed to DecapitationPresentation as he believed his sailors should concentrate on killing enemy soldiers who were still alive instead of collecting the heads of dead ones. However as heads were regarded as proof of a warrior's bravery, he made sure to let his men know that he would note who was brave and mention their names in his despatches to the king.



* Korean naval hero Admiral Yi Sun Shin was opposed to DecapitationPresentation as he believed his sailors should concentrate on killing enemy soldiers who were still alive instead of collecting the heads of dead ones. However as heads were regarded as proof of a warrior's bravery, he made sure to let his men know that he would note who was brave and mention their names in his despatches to the king.



* [[ColdSniper Snipers]]. Simo Häyhä supposedly has the largest body count of any sniper ever, standing at 705 confirmed kills (505 by sniper and ~200 by submachine gun), all of which he scored in a war that lasted less than a hundred days. The next best, Francis Pegahmagabow, had 378 kills. Which, like aircraft, is more about keeping track of how many enemy forces are left, for the spotter to find out if it is safe to go in yet or not. Snipers keep detailed notes about every kill. On Häyhä, he's another example of the above-mentioned public exaggeration in action. His official figure of 505+ contradicts contemporary sources, namely Häyhä's division commander A. Svensson and his unit's military chaplain Antti Rantama, who credited him with 219 sniper kills and 259 sniper kills, respectively. Both of these figures were likely exaggerated x2 or x3 to begin with just due to usual fog of war. The figure of 200 submachine gun kills appears to be flat-out fantasy- all of Häyhä's submachine gun action came when he was a section (squad) leader ambushing Red Army patrols, when he'd have over a dozen other men also with submachine guns hosing the same targets. In such a case it would be impossible to verify who fired the kill shot, meaning it's very likely they just credited every kill by his section (again, probably exaggerated to begin with) to him personally, another common propaganda tactic in "body count" reports. So while Häyhä almost certainly did kill over a hundred people, maybe even over two hundred, his commonly reported toll is just a very successful propaganda coup, so much so that it's still believed nearly a hundred years later.

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* [[ColdSniper Snipers]]. Simo Häyhä UsefulNotes/SimoHayha supposedly has the largest body count of any sniper ever, standing at 705 confirmed kills (505 by sniper and ~200 by submachine gun), all of which he scored in a war that lasted less than a hundred days. The next best, Francis Pegahmagabow, had 378 kills. Which, like aircraft, is more about keeping track of how many enemy forces are left, for the spotter to find out if it is safe to go in yet or not. Snipers keep detailed notes about every kill. On Häyhä, he's another example of the above-mentioned public exaggeration in action. His official figure of 505+ contradicts contemporary sources, namely Häyhä's division commander A. Svensson and his unit's military chaplain Antti Rantama, who credited him with 219 sniper kills and 259 sniper kills, respectively. Both of these figures were likely exaggerated x2 or x3 to begin with just due to usual fog of war. The figure of 200 submachine gun kills appears to be flat-out fantasy- all of Häyhä's submachine gun action came when he was a section (squad) leader ambushing Red Army patrols, when he'd have over a dozen other men also with submachine guns hosing the same targets. In such a case it would be impossible to verify who fired the kill shot, meaning it's very likely they just credited every kill by his section (again, probably exaggerated to begin with) to him personally, another common propaganda tactic in "body count" reports. So while Häyhä almost certainly did kill over a hundred people, maybe even over two hundred, his commonly reported toll is just a very successful propaganda coup, so much so that it's still believed nearly a hundred years later.



** James Gandolfini did research for his role in ''Film/InTheLoop'' by going to the Pentagon and talking to some of the generals there; he encountered one who ''couldn't remember'' if he'd killed anyone. The writers turned it into a comedic moment between Gandolfini's character and Malcolm Tucker.

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** James Gandolfini Creator/JamesGandolfini did research for his role in ''Film/InTheLoop'' by going to the Pentagon and talking to some of the generals there; he encountered one who ''couldn't remember'' if he'd killed anyone. The writers turned it into a comedic moment between Gandolfini's character and Malcolm Tucker.
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* ''ComicBook/{{Batman}}''

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* ''ComicBook/{{Batman}}''''ComicBook/{{Batman}}'':



** In his first appearance within ''ComicBook/DaredevilBornAgain'', Nuke carries an assault rifle that is somehow able to keep count of the people it kills. For each mission, he tries to break his own record.

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** In his first appearance within ''ComicBook/DaredevilBornAgain'', ''ComicBook/BornAgain'', Nuke carries an assault rifle that is somehow able to keep count of the people it kills. For each mission, he tries to break his own record.
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* ''Series/IntoTheBadlands'': The clippers of the various Barons all get tally-mark tattos of how many people they have killed. Sunny is a widely-respected and widely-feared clipper with over 400 tattoos when he decides to "stop keeping score". Later on he encounters Nathaniel, who had 999 tattoos before he made the same decision. But [[WorthyOpponent Nathaniel would like Sunny to be that 1000th tattoo]].

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* ''Series/IntoTheBadlands'': The clippers of the various Barons all get tally-mark tattos of to show off how many people they have killed. Sunny is a widely-respected and widely-feared clipper with over 400 tattoos when he decides to "stop keeping score". Later on he encounters Nathaniel, who had accumulated 999 tattoos before he made the same decision. But [[WorthyOpponent Nathaniel would like Sunny to be that 1000th tattoo]].
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* ''Series/IntoTheBadlands'': The clippers of the various Barons all get tally-mark tattos of how many people they have killed. Sunny is a widely-respected and widely-feared clipper with over 400 tattoos when he decides to "stop keeping score". Later on he encounters Nathaniel, who had 999 tattoos before he made the same decision. But [[WorthyOpponent Nathaniel would like Sunny to be that 1000th tattoo]].
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* ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry5'': The second [[CreativeClosingCredits playable credits]] has [[spoiler:Dante and Vergil fighting off the demons that interrupted their fight in the Demon World. As the scene comes to a close, a dialogue line plays depending on how much the player (as Dante) has defeated in contrast to Vergil, which reveals that even up until this point, they have been competing on who gets the most kills. The game has a hidden counter for this scene, and if you kill more enemies than Vergil, you unlock an alternate outfit for V]].

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* ''Fanfic/HeroesSeries'': Oliver joins Legolas' and Gimli's competition. [[spoiler:And wins. Until its revealed Aragorn killed even more]].



* ''Fanfic/HeroesSeries'': Oliver joins Legolas' and Gimli's competition. [[spoiler:And wins. Until its revealed Aragorn killed even more]].

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