History Main / FiveRoundsRapid

* Most ''Franchise/{{Godzilla}}'' and ''{{Kaiju}}'' movies feature at least one scene where the army rolls in with tanks, infantry, bombers, and the kitchen sink, and rarely ever even scratches the monster they're trying to take out. The conventional military arms are just a courtesy before they roll out the special anti-monster [[NinjaPirateZombieRobot laser tanks]], [[HumongousMecha giant robot]], etc. As part of its EarlyInstallmentWeirdness, the original film ''Film/{{Gojira}}'' has Godzilla driven off by an air strike.

->'''[[TheBrigadier Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart]]''': Jenkins?
->'''Jenkins''': Sir!
->'''Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart''': Chap with wings, there. [[TropeNamer Five rounds rapid.]]

* In ''Franchise/StarTrek,'' The Borg shields adapt to normal phasers and other energy weapons, but prove ineffective against bullets. Sometimes it seems the Federation could have quickly ended the Borg threat by replicating a few million tommy-guns, or designing other impact weapons, they instead concentrated on randomized versions of their ZapGun technology.

** "Borg shields being useless against bullets" is actually a misconception, as "bullets" used were not actual bullets but hologram-and-forcefield approximations. As Picard says, "With safeties off, '''even a holographic bullet can kill.'''""
** The Borg aren't killed with bullets because it's their equivalent of garlic to vampires but because it's something new and their shields take time to adapt to a new form of attack. Picard might manage to kill a couple of them but try it on a whole army and they'd soon turn out to be as useless as any other attack that works in the short term.
*** The fact that hand-to-hand combat ''never'' ceases being useful against the Borg seems to argue against this. Given the sheer number of cultures the Borg have assimilated before the Federation managed to stop them in their tracks, you'd think the Borg would have sustained ''more'' than enough casualties from melee weapons to adapt to physical attacks.
**** It's probably a power consumption issue. A .44 Magnum round delivers 1-1.5kJ, a phaser set on maximum delivers about 10kJ, a heavy punch can deliver about 30kJ, and a sword strike a bit more. Since a Borg drone would have to deploy an energy shield stronger than the energy being delivered to neutralise the attack, maybe drones doesn't have the power to counteract a physical attack?

*** He even lampshades his own trope, ''naming another trope'' in the process: ''"You know just once I’d like to meet an alien menace that wasn’t immune to bullets."''

** In what may be a television first, a foe of the Tenth Doctor's attempts to lift off from London without enough power to activate her energy shield defences--and is taken out by a single round from a British Army tank! Even TV series set in World War II (''Combat'' and ''Rat Patrol'', for example) traditionally avoid spending money on tanks.

** And finally averted in the episode ''Battlefield'', where it is revealed UNIT has invested in specialised rounds for different alien threats, which work just fine. The new series [[spoiler:adds 'rad-steel' rounds for counteracting [[AppliedPhlebotinum anti-bullet fields]]. It's probably a subversion in the sense that said bullets are only deployed after normal bullets fail. On top of that, guess who gets to put the fatal Five Rounds into the BigBad?]].

* Played with in the ''Wiki/SCPFoundation''. Most of the [=SCPs=] are fought with mundane, albeit powerful weapons – for example, [[http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-076 SCP-076]] is contained with what's heavily implied to be a Phoenix CIWS (basically, a computer-guided 20mm gatling gun used to shoot down antiship missiles), and it's working so far. However, the fact that [[http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-096 SCP-096]] appears to be immune to everything up to [=AT4=] antitank missiles doesn't stop them from chasing it down and trying to kill it with a sniper rifle when things go wrong.

*** He even lampshades his own trope: ''"You know just once I’d like to meet an alien menace that wasn’t immune to bullets."''

* In ''GeneratorRex'', Providence takes down EVOs by shooting at them with guns from regular Providence grunts. And, sometimes, heavier weaponry. It is implied several times that they are good at what they do. They seem limited when Rex usually has to come in and save everybody.
** FridgeLogic : Maybe sometimes the fact that they can't handle them is the REASON they call him in the first place.

** UNIT actually destroy several Cybermen with bazookas and grenades in their first encounter with them back in "The Invasion". Another massive subversion is the Zygons, who appear to have no immunity to bullets whatsoever and are killed or injured every time they get shot.

* Most ''Franchise/{{Godzilla}}'' and ''{{Kaiju}}'' movies feature at least one scene where the army rolls in with tanks, infantry, bombers, and the kitchen sink, and rarely ever even scratches the monster they're trying to take out. The conventional military arms are just a courtesy before they roll out the special anti-monster [[NinjaPirateZombieRobot laser tanks]], [[HumongousMecha giant robot]], etc. As part of its EarlyInstallmntWeirdness, the original film ''Film/{{Gojira}}'' has Godzilla driven off by an air strike.

* Inverted in ''{{Stargate SG-1}},'' where the advanced weapons of the Asgard have no effect against an enemy, but the relatively low-tech bullets of the SG team work quite nicely.

-->--''Series/DoctorWho'', "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS8E5TheDaemons The Daemons]]"

* In ''Film/{{Robocop}}'', Robocop launches an assault into a drug warehouse. All of the drug dealers shoot at him with small arms, doing precisely nothing. He simply picks them off one by one as they fire uselessly at him.
* In ''Robocop 2'', the police have the same problem with the new, evil robot. Robocop must use an inventive solution to defeat it.

It appears most good guys are GenreBlind. When [[RedShirtArmy military personnel]] or the [[LemmingCops police]] encounter the MonsterOfTheWeek, they invariably attack it with small arms fire. Unfortunately, this never works. The monster is always ImmuneToBullets. This gives our heroes an opportunity to save the day with some AppliedPhlebotinum.

** A standard tactic for the Eldar Dire Avengers used to be steadily retreating while pouring a hail of small-arms fire into the enemy (primarily because Dire Avengers don't have anything else). It worked very well against most infantry, mostly due to the sheer volume of fire a Dire Avenger squad can get into the air (which would make this more like [[UpToEleven several]] ''[[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill billion]]'' [[MoreDakka rounds rapid]]). And then the new rules came along and made basic infantry fast enough to catch the Dire Avengers, rendering this strategy totally obsolete.
** The Necron small arms' special ability that lets them blow up the most heavily armored thing in existence if you get really lucky might count. Except for the fact that it would take an average of around 160 shots from a basic Warrior squad to actually blow up a fully-upgraded Land Raider Crusader, so either you have eighty Warriors in rapid-fire range of the thing, you keep up a sustained bombardment over multiple turns, or you get really, really lucky.

** Brutally played straight in the Tenth Doctor episode "The Poison Sky", where the Doctor's frantic pleas to UNIT to listen to him when he says no matter how many troops are deployed, guns will not work against Sontarans (due to their sonic waves that cause copper to expand, jamming traditional bullets in their chambers) fall upon deaf ears and the Doctor and UNIT command wind up being forced to listen to their troops being slaughtered over the comm system. Needless to say, the Doctor is [[RageBreakingPoint less than impressed.]]

* Creator/JohnRingo regularly [[DanceTropeDance averts, subverts, and otherwise plays heavily this trope]] in his books, which probably isn't surprising given that he writes a lot of military fiction, and served in the 82nd Airborne before becoming an author.

** "Borg shields being useless against bullets" is actually a misconception, as "bullets" used were not actual bullets but hologram-and-forcefield approximations. As Picard says, "With safeties off, [b]even a holographic bullet can kill.[/b]""

* ''StargateAtlantis'' had a recent episode that actually ''subverted'' the trope; a soldier with a personal shield held off an entire Marine squad doing the FiveRoundsRapid treatment... for about thirty seconds, until the shield failed. Thus proving that whatever the situation, something ''will'' die if you [[WhenAllYouHaveIsAHammer shoot it enough]].
** Though our hero did not die in truth, as the shield failed AFTER they had stopped firing. Fortunately then, reinforcements arrived.

* Averted in E.E. Cumming's series of novels titled ''The Vampire Earth''. While the reapers are immune to most small arms fire, heavier rounds push them around and fifty caliber bullets can actually pierce their cloaks. Unfortunately the series is set AfterTheEnd so any weapons heavier than of bolt-action rifles ones are exceptionally rare.

* Averted in the web RP, ''Insane Cafe: The Curse of the Haunted Hotel''. When the characters have to fight a huge demon, they use everything from small arms to Molotov cocktails to anti-tank rockets. And it works.

* Both played straight and averted in the manga ''{{Parasyte}}''. The creatures are tough enough to completely ignore bullets, but that doesn't stop a few police from opening fire and getting butchered. The main character takes them on by knowing their weaknesses, though, and [[spoiler:the government soon learns their weaknesses and kills them off by the dozens with high-powered shotgun ammunition. Quickly DoubleSubverted by introducing a super-parasite that ignores THAT ammunition and massacres an entire platoon.]]

* ''FinalFantasyVII'': The Shinra Army attempts this with bazookas and artillery fire when the naval base Junon is attacked by [[GaiasVengeance Sapphire Weapon.]] They succeeded when they fired the second shot of the Mako Cannon (the huge main gun of the base) at the Weapon point-blank range.

* The small arms part is averted with a vengeance in ''NeonGenesisEvangelion'': The first episode starts with the army opens fire with the heaviest conventional weapons in their arsenal at [[DemonicInvaders the Angel]] from the get-go, and the HumongousMecha are not called in until after the [[NuclearWeaponsTaboo trust-us-it's-not-a-nuke]] fails to stop the attacker.