History Main / RockBeatsLaser

* Genre SF's TropeCodifier: ''TheHighCrusade'' by PoulAnderson (1960). Many later instances contain {{Shout Out}}s to this one. A Medieval English army, fully prepped on the eve of leaving to join King Edward's crusade, crushes a small alien invasion force, by dint of cunning, superior numbers, and having no EMP-susceptible equipment or depletable bullets/explosives/laser charges - but plenty of reusable arrows, swords, sheer brute strength and a sense of righteous Christian indignation. Then, using the captured spaceship and the grudging assistance of a surviving alien interpreter (taught ''Latin'' by the army's cleric), they launch a counter-invasion of the evil intergalactic empire, whom they view as the more prolific, Heaven-soiling brethren of the heretics overrunning Israel. Because the invaders to our world have been dominant for so long over such a wide area, nobody up in the stars has any damn idea what politics are any more. The human leader manages to convince every single alien he meets, through bravado, underhandedness, trickery, and good old-fashioned lying, to assail their opponents. When "future" Earth finally reaches the stars, they are met by the emissary of the trans-galactic feudal Christian empire, run by Human descendants of the would-have-been Crusaders. And it is beyond awesome.

* The ''Literature/{{Uplift}}'' series has this as a running theme. As newcomers to a galaxy filled with SufficientlyAdvancedAliens with eons-old technology, humanity and its [[UpliftedAnimal clients]] must rely on their wits and the technology that they've learned to understand in a few short centuries. In ''The Uplift War'', humans and chimps with jungle camouflage and crossbows manage to slaughter the technologically reliant Gubru -- after realizing that their initial severe losses were due to the Gubru having rigged the humans' technology so they could track it. Later in the war, they also manage to capture some Gubru weapons.
* HarryTurtledove's ''{{Worldwar}}'' series alternates between playing this straight and subverting it. The premise is an alien invasion [[AlternateHistory at the height of WW2]], and the trope is played straight when humanity's primitive weapons prove to be immune to technologically advanced countermeasures. [=EMPs=] don't work on vacuum tubes and analog computers, and anti-missile systems designed to defeat lightweight thin-skinned rockets can't turn back massive artillery shells. Not to mention that radar is nearly useless when trying to detect a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polikarpov_Po-2 low-flying plane built from canvas and wood.]]

* Brutally shown in the novel ''{{Sten}}'', by Allan Cole and Chris Bunch - again while discussing powered suits. Seems that the designers had overengineered the suits to such a extent that each one could withstand nuclear blasts, any conceivable biological or chemical agent, and could fight off any conceivable opponent - except primitive ones. When first deployed, the men in suits ran rampant - until the primitives noticed that they weren't very maneuverable. So, the natives started making pit traps with nets - once the suit was ensnared in the net, the natives would come out and poke long spears into the suit's waste vents - skewering the troopers inside. Not to mention poisoning them with their own wastes... To their credit, Chris Bunch in Real Life is a ex-Army Ranger, where Allan Cole has diplomatic experience.

** In the book, the Army does pretty good for using pre-WW1 weapons against Tripods with [[RayGun heat-rays]] and [[DeadlyGas black smoke]]
* A DangerouslyGenreSavvy ''[[TheCulture Culture]]'' in IainBanks' series of novel has spent more than 10,000 years using her Special Circumstance elite agency to learn to beat lasers with rocks, rocks with lasers and ScaryDogmaticAliens with apparently unarmed and captured spies, making them CrazyPrepared masters of BambooTechnology while still being able to [[WeaponOfMassDestruction throw blackholes]] when needed.
* The Fremen of ''{{Dune}}'', desert-dwelling nomads with handmade gear, beat TheEmpire's most BadAss, ruthless, and well-armed soldiers, the Saudarkar, with knives, Sandworms, and, er, one teensy little atomic bomb (but this was used only to remove a geographic obstacle to worm-travel, not on the enemy). The David Lynch movie kind of ruins this by actually giving the Fremen ''more'' advanced weapons than the Saudarkar, in the form of [[MakeMeWannaShout voice-amplifying sonic guns]].

* DavidWeber's ''Literature/TheExcaliburAlternative'' has an odd take on this trope. Essentially aliens hijack an English war party during the Hundred Years War. At first the captors' DeflectorShields and energy weapons serve to create an illusion of invincibility. Eventually due to the ignorance at the arrogance of their captors and help from within, the English trick their captors into leaving their forcefields and getting filled full of arrows, since the aliens' protective gear withstands "modern" energy weapons but arrows are considered too primitive to be worth guarding against. [[spoiler: Then later subverted when said party joins with the defectors and reverse-engineers the alien tech to an even higher level, enabling them to become {{Curb Stomp| Battle}}ing BigDamnHeroes.]]
* In ''TheBartimaeusTrilogy'', the mercenary is invulnerable to ridiculous amounts of magic, but gets knocked out when [[spoiler: Faquarl]] treats him to a good ol' knuckle sandwich.

* The Battle of Yonkers in ''WorldWarZ'' could be considers an extreme example of this trope, in that living soldiers armed with every state-of-the-art weapon their publicity-minded superiors can load them down with get their asses kicked by zombies armed with ... teeth. Indeed, the advanced-''against-humans'' nature of their weapons makes the soldiers' attacks far less effective than simple bolt-action rifles would've been, and their sophisticated communication links only serve to spread panic. Eventually, someone realises the problem and "invents" the Lobotomiser--more or less a modified shovel. Its simplicity and effectiveness restored troop confidence in a big way.

* In a Rock Beats ''Wand'' variant, a crooked casino dealer fools a roomful of gamblers in the ''MythAdventures'' novel ''Little Myth Marker'', by disdaining magical methods of cheating in favor of a marked deck. Naturally, the suspicious gamblers are too busy checking for covert magic-use to notice.
* In ArthurCClarke's short story "Superiority", one side of the war decides to go on an R&D binge to win a telling advantage over the enemy. Meanwhile, the enemy keeps plugging away with what they already have. In the end, the technologically superior sides face supply problems since the constant adjustment of logistics to cope with new weapons systems slows it down to a trickle. The other side, however, ends up with a massive number of more obsolete, but easily built and supplied equipment to ZergRush their opponents with.

* In ''TheBible'' we have Samson slaying 1000 soldiers with the ''jawbone of an ass''.

* ''ArtemisFowl'' zig-zags with this pretty often. In general, the boy genius hero often gets the upper hand on the fairies despite their vastly superior technology; but he often does it by stealing and hacking into their technology, and there's less of this trope once he teams up with them.

* In PoulAnderson's "Literature/TimeLag", Vaynamo isn't even that primitive, though it lacks industry. The heavily overpopulated Chertkoi assumes it will be easy because it is still heavily rural.
* In AndreNorton's ''Literature/TheZeroStone'', the Guild fears the natives, though they have lasers and the natives spears. Eet points out that they would attack at night, too, making visibility difficult.
* In MargaretBall's ''Disappearing Act'', Maris uses a rock to deal with an attacker -- a devotion to the rules about technology that raises the first suspicions about her.

-->'''James [=McMullen=] XXIV[=/=]Destro:''' "A three-million-dollar unit..."
-->'''Rory:''' "...done in by a bloody rock."
-->'''(one of the Joes):''' "Itsy-bitsy spider signing off!" * rock smash*
* In {{Metroid}}'s manga - Power Beam, which is a newest technology, is much weaker than century-old weapon which Grey Voice fired. Seen when Power Beam couldn't pierce Mother Brain's Zebetites shield, but the ancient weapon could.

* An even more literal example is in Fanfic/FalloutEquestriaPinkEyes, where the lead character Puppysmiles' only weapon ''is'' a rock. So far, her rock has claimed the life of anyone caught on the wrong end, even killer robots and manticores.

* [[FanFic/MassFoundations Mass Foundations: Redemption in the Stars]] sees [[VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas Courier]] Ethan Sunderland kill a heavily shielded [[PrivateMilitaryContractors Blue Suns]] [[SpaceRomans Centurion]] by stabbing him in the throat with his Bowie knife (which is a regular bladed knife, albeit quite fancy). Justified in-universe as [[DeflectorShields kinetic shielding]] is only meant to work against high-speed objects, either being very ineffective or completely useless against melee attacks.

** Apparently not that uncommon in the ''Franchise/StarWars'' Universe, as it also happened with the Noghri, years earlier. Although they were a race of ninja-warrior-hunters living on a planet just a few steps up from a DeathWorld, and consequently so badass Darth Vader decided to make them into his own personal death commandos, so it's not quite so unbelievable.
*** In the same trilogy that introduced the Noghri, they "adopt" Han (due to their reverence for Lord Vader, and him being "Lady Vader's" consort). He muses that he's been adopted once before, by the Ewoks...but while they managed to bring down a legion of Imperial troops by being camouflaged, fighting on their home terrain, and sheer massive weight of numbers, that he knew ''exactly'' what the Noghri were capable of and the adoption process didn't feel quite as silly this time around.

---->"[=AT-STs=] will no longer be deployed on planets with an abundance of trees or other known obstacles such as rock-wielding primitives."
*** ''Literature/DeathStar'' gives us an example which even describes a knife as a "whittled rock", and has an expert Imperial pistolier taken down when his blaster malfunctions, permitting a knife-toting enemy to shank him.

*** In ''Predator 2'' shows us a Predator trophy room which contains, among other things ([[spoiler:like the skull of an alien from the Alien franchise]]) a ''flintlock pistol''...implying that not only did a human attempt to challenge a Predator with this weapon, this individual put up enough of a fight to be considered a worthy opponent!

* Though not quite as far apart technologically, in ''Film/TheLastSamurai'' the Samurai army [[KatanasAreJustBetter universally favors "honorable" weapons like katanas, spears, katanas, and bows]] instead of the firearms of the regular Imperial Army of Japan. They win their initial battles against poorly-trained soldiers armed with rifles, and only lose their climactic final battle after killing over two-thirds of the second, better-trained and armed army, who outnumbered them six to one.

** To be fair, they did accomplish the main objective, even before [[spoiler:the planet intervened]]. The bomb-carrying dropship is destroyed, meaning the tree is saved.
*** The humans could still do it. We saw Quaritch and his men downing the MUCH larger Hometree with a few missile and rocket volleys. The objective was less destroying the tree and more about a showing of force.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'', where the tech is so ''ridiculously'' [[SchizoTech Schizo]] that hitting people with swords/[[PowerFist giant fists]]/big blunt axes/[[ChainsawGood giant chainsaws]] / [[NinjaPirateZombieRobot giant chainsaw axes]]/teeth and claws is frequently ''more'' effective than shooting them with the vast variety of futuristic superguns. A particularly memorable example pops up in one of the GauntsGhosts novels, where a [[SuperSoldier Chaos Space Marine]] is killed with a ''crossbow''. Though to be fair, it did involve dozens of crossbows, with hundreds of bolts, directly to the CSM's exposed face, and coated with one of the most virulent poisons in the galaxy.
** This was likely to be LampshadeHanging on the part of Abnett, poking fun at the tendency of Space Marine players to model squad leaders ''sans'' helmet.
** In the first edition of [=WH40K=] (the Rogue Trader book) crossbows had better range than bolters, although less accuracy, and crossbows could be loaded with explosive bolts which were just as powerful as bolt ammo.
** Also, C.S. Goto's ''DawnOfWar'' series of books has a group of primitive humans take down an Eldar grav-tank by shoving rocks into its air intakes.
*** This is [[BaseBreaker C.S.]] [[FanNickname Multilaser]] we're talking about, though...
** Let's look at Eldar. They have guns that fire with the heat of a star. They can fill the air with thousands of monomolecular blades from a single pistol. Their armour is canonically stronger than virtually any other known substance while still flexible. They are able to see into the future. What set them on a downward spiral in the [=WH40K=] universe was the fall of their empire, which caused them to lose over 95% of their population. Now they're trying to stay alive, mostly by manipulating every other race in a way that would benefit themselves in accordance to some vaguely glimpsed prophecy.
*** Pretty much every race is potentially invincible if it were not for the masterful plot: Orks can grow from their dead but need to organise to get a decent WAAAGH!! going; Necrons have literally DEATH ITSELF, can self repair, travel infinitely quickly thanks to inertialess ships which can get into Mars with their low class ships, but they get scared if they take losses and teleport away (because they aren't all that replaceable); Eldar, while powerful, are in decline and desperately few in number, etc.
** The average Tau player is usually at least mildly bitter about this. Their ''basic firearm'' is a plasma-launching [[MagneticWeapons coilgun]] assault rifle, wielded by a soldier equipped with mechanically assisted aiming systems and a lifetime of training. And a ''caveman with a stick'' ([[OurOrcsAreDifferent a]] ''[[OurOrcsAreDifferent literal]]'' [[OurOrcsAreDifferent caveman with a stick]]) will often beat him in a fight. (This is because the Tau [[PlanetOfHats pretty much all]] [[CripplingOverspecialization suck at hand-to-hand combat]]. They are GenreSavvy enough to have auxiliary allies competent in that area of expertise in the Kroot, though)
*** No one can actually shoot an enemy in close combat range. At point blank range, the snazziest gun in the world becomes a club, leading to this trope. While obviously not how things go in real combat, this is necessary for the table top game, or close combat armies would essentially become unplayable without a massive change in points cost for every unit in the game. Interestingly, Warhammer Fantasy does allow a unit to shoot into an enemy which is charging them.
* The later model for kobolds in [[DungeonsAndDragons AD&D]] was posited in a ''{{Dragon}}'' Magazine in the 80's, [[http://www.tuckerskobolds.com/ Tucker's Kobolds]], as a way to turn single-HD runts into holy terrors for 20th level parties armed to the teeth with Infinity Plus One artifacts and insane eldritch arsenals. They became ''more'' formidable when they weren't dominated by evil wizards or warlords of more powerful races, as they would avoid battle-by-attrition in favor of ingenious traps and ambush-and-retreat positions.
* In the {{Mystara}} D&D setting's Hollow World, many members of lower-technology cultures get Immortal-granted bonuses in combat, as the PowersThatBe don't want any one culture to overwhelm the others and are skewing the game-rules to ensure that Rock Holds Its Own Against Laser.

* MagicTheGathering has a variety of formats, some with over ten thousand cards available, some with less than two thousand. While Legacy (which contains every card ever printed) is typically considered more powerful than smaller ones they are also specifically designed to beat the metagame they exist in. The result is that decks made for Standard (which has only the most recent cards) can sometimes create present Legacy decks with cards they're incapable of dealing with because the card is unplayable within the Legacy metagame.

* During the NATO operations in the former Yugoslavia, only two [[RealLife/CoolPlane F-117 stealth aircraft]] were lost (one was shot down; one was hit and managed to return to base, but never flw again). This was due to, among other things, old radar sets that operated on a wavelength that the aircraft weren't so stealthy against, combined with prodigious application of [[MoreDakka anti-aircraft cannons]] and [[MacrossMissileMassacre SAM spam]]. Notably the same battery scored both.

* Said but not shown on ''Series/BabylonFive'': the reason energy weapons are used on the station and on starships is that the [=BilPro=] weapons ('''Bi'''nary '''L'''iquid '''Pro'''pellant, firearms with extremely powerful liquid propellant that is partly stored in the round and partly in the gun in the form of two inert liquids) issued to [=EarthForce=] infantry for planetside combat are ''too powerful'' and have an unfortunate tendency to rupture the weaker sections of the hull and cause collateral damage with the ricochet from hitting the stronger parts of the hull (the ricochet will ''always'' happen with more conventional and less powerful firearms), while handheld energy weapons don't do either. The ExpandedUniverse explains that [=EarthForce=] is still using [=BilPro=] as small arms for planetside combat as well as for artillery and tank guns, even if [[MagneticWeapons gauss cannons]] are starting to take over as tank guns.
** The game ''Babylon 5 Wars'' has the Attarn, a race whose [[PlanetOfHats hat]] is finding

* In a ''{{Thunderbirds}}'' story in ''TV Century 21'', a Jovian alien arrives on Earth in an African village, [[MiracleGroMonster growing gigantic]] and [[TakenForGranite turning people to stone]]. It's seemingly unstoppable, not even the most powerful atomic weapons can subdue it, but a single native kills it ''merely with [[WeaksauceWeakness a poison dart to the eye]]''.

* [[http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6534028&postcount=68 This]] post contains a rather extreme example.

* It's a fairly common tactic for [[Comicbook/IncredibleHulk the Hulk]] to use a blunt object against technologically advanced foes. This is presuming, of course, that he can't simply tear them metal limb from metal limb with his bare hands (which he usually can). Granted, the Hulk pretty much applies this tactic to any foe, regardless of the level of technology at their disposal.

** And, of course, lampshaded in the [[Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse EU]]:

* ''Literature/BattlefieldEarth'' is filled with moments like these...especially near the beginning when the main character is able to momentarily incapacitate an alien tank by smashing one of its viewports with a club, allowing Earth's toxic atmosphere into the crew compartment. Of course [[FridgeLogic why a tank would have such fragile windows to begin with is left as an exercise for the reader.]]

** When SG-1 gets captured by a BountyHunter named Aris Boch, O'Neill tries to throw a knife at him through the shield. The knife hits the shield and drops to the ground. Boch reveals that he has improved on the Goa'uld design so that slow objects no longer pass through the shield. Of course, it should be noted that if a thrown knife worked, SG-1 could've ''walked'' out of the shield. As Boch himself put it, that kind of shield doesn't work very well as a trap.

** Of course, the above is NOT a "real-life example." It is a game-simulation.

*** This is nothing new: Canadian and Australian submarines built in the 1960s (which weren't that much more advanced than a WorldWarTwo sub in terms of basic technology) routinely "sank" US Fleet carriers in wargames. The standard tactic was to try and get ahead of the carrier battlegroup, and then go absolutely silent and unmoving and let the fleet run over them. Inevitably the subs were "sunk" when they executed an attack on the carrier, but more often than not they'd have gotten their torpedoes off first, trading a few dozen men and a dinky little diesel-electric boat for a multi-billion dollar fleet carrier.
*** The reason that this works is that in wargames the submarine and carrier are isolated in terms of where they can operate, as it is useless if they never interact. This completely negates the primary disadvantage of diesel-electric submarines, that they cannot operate at the ranges of a nuclear submarine as they are forced to snorkel to run their longer ranged diesel engines(which are extremely noisy). In addition their speed is significantly slower than a nuclear submarine as a nuclear sub can travel well in excess of 30 knots(depending on type) while a submarine can only travel at 25 knots for a grand total of a half hour before the batteries are drained.
*** It could be noted that the ''Gotland'' managed to do well ''without'' being sunk (as opposed to the 1960s examples) partly because it used various technological tricks new at the time of commissioning (which, as an aside, ''significantly'' enhanced the ''Gotland's'' operative range compared to previous diesel-electric submarines) -- in other words, laser-enhanced rock beats laser (metaphorical KineticWeaponsAreJustBetter, possibly).

** Though the sailboat was equipped with sonar and depth charges, contemporary weapons for fighting submarines. It was just the platform (a wooden sailboat) that was out-of-date. So it's more like elderly, out-of-shape guy with laser beats young athlete with laser.
* Spear throwers (atlatl), long forgotten in Europe, proved an effective [[ArmorPiercingAttack armor piercing]] weapon against Cortés' army. Not effective enough, but it was probably quite surprising.
** Well, they only had to deal with a few hundred Spaniards. The rest of the enemy forces were their own pissed off neighbors, who allied with Cortés, who knew the Aztec tactics very well.
* The [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Havilland_DH.98_Mosquito De Havilland Mosquito]], of WW2, was a light bomber made of plywood covered in canvas, and assembled by light industry craftsmen.
** However, the design was almost as fast as German fighters, had a long range, carried a large payload, was cheap, surprisingly durable to enemy fire, cemented the fighter-bomber as a category, and, well, could be assembled by light industry craftsmen. The Mossies' light weight and exceptional speed even allowed it to be one of the main Allied defenses against V1 Rocket Bombs and [=ME26=]2 jets until the last month or two of the war.
** [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] since, although made of wood, the Mosquito was hardly old tech. It was built using advanced techniques that foreshadowed carbon composites of decades later, not the crude techniques common in 1930s. Even if the material may have been primitive, the Mossie was a marvel of the most advanced technology available in all other respects. It's more a laser guided rock than a true rock.
** [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] by Hermann Göring in a famous speech. The Commander in Chief of the Luftwaffe was very annoyed about a wooden aircraft better than German fighters made in aluminium.

* The US Navy's air division spends incredible amounts of time on "FOD" control-- that is, Foreign Object Damage control, making sure there's not so much as a pebble or an earring where it could, possibly, by any chance be thrown into the engine of a jet. It is amazing how a tiny object can utterly destroy a sufficiently advanced bit of equipment. That's why the first thing done at beginning of each day of duty on a carrier is a line of personnel walking together the length of the flight deck in strict formation to remove any piece before debris before any air traffic happens.

* The US Navy's air division spends incredible amounts of time on "FOD" control-- that is, Foreign Object Damage control, making sure there's not so much as a pebble or an earring where it could, possibly, by any chance be thrown into the engine of a jet. It is amazing how a tiny object can utterly destroy a sufficiently advanced bit of equipment.

** However, the design was almost as fast as German fighters, had a long range, carried a large payload, was cheap, cemented the fighter-bomber as a category, and, well, could be assembled by light industry craftsmen. The Mossies' light weight and exceptional speed even allowed it to be one of the main Allied defenses against V1 Rocket Bombs and [=ME26=]2 jets until the last month or two of the war.

** During the first phase of the colonial era, the Europeans didn't have much of an edge in material technology anyway. Their secret weapon was unit organization and battle tactics -- American Indians typically fought to win renown as individuals on the battlefield, whereas the Europeans were trying to destroy the enemy force.

* This was used in all of LarryNiven's ''KnownSpace'' stories set during the period of the Man-Kzin war. The Kzinti, who possessed the technology to generate and control gravity (among other tech advantages) were consistently beat by the Humans, who used inferior technology but did it better. (Okay, okay... laser vs. more powerful laser isn't exactly rock vs. laser, but the principle is still the same...)
** The first encounter was between a Kzin warship and a theoretically-unarmed colony ship launched from an Earth so pacifist that a child that struck another child was considered mentally ill. [[spoiler:The warship lost. Having a reactionless drive, they forgot that reaction drives (like the colony ship's fusion drive) can themselves act as excellent weapons, as one individual on the colony ship demonstrates by using his ship's drive to slice the warship in half.]]
*** Hence The Kzinti Lesson: "A reaction drive's efficiency as a weapon is in direct proportion to its efficiency as a drive."

* ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick'' takes this trope and applies it to [[ClarkesThirdLaw magic]] on [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0653.html page #653]].
** Not really, as he first dispelled all defenses, and then whacked V. This is kind of the equivalent of stripping a SuperSoldier out of his [[PoweredArmor armor]], then hitting him on the head with a stick, and saying the stick is stronger than the armor.

** The Worms series in general is chocked full of great low-tech ways for a savvy player to humiliate their opponent. This trope has lost count of the number of times he's sent the enemy to a watery grave with a good smack of the trusty baseball bat, or even better--the humble prod (does no damage, but can knock someone off the ledge)!

[[caption-width-right:250:[-{{Some Anvils|NeedToBeDropped}} ''[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin really]]'' [[ComicBook/CivilWar Need To Be Dropped]].-] ]]

** Even more jarring, in many fps games, eg, [[VideoGame/GoldenEyeWii GoldenEye on Wii]], meleeing someone with the butt of an assualt rifle is more deadly than shooting someone with a bullet from [[ArbitraryGunPower said rifle]]. It will take just one or two melee hits, but many AK47 shots to kill someone[[note]]Unless you [[BoomHeadshot aim for the head]], in which case it takes two or three bullets[[/note]]. This is mostly just to get the player out of tight spots, as actively trying to rush and melee will get you killed pretty quickly. And the above-mentioned [=GoldenEye=] example explains as the enemies being knocked out rather that killed.

* During the early days of radar-guided and heat-seeking missiles many US military planners were so confident of their superiority that the F-4 Phantom fighter was initially designed without guns, as they believed that missiles would make aerial cannon fights a thing of the past. This was quickly disproven in the Vietnam War when the Vietnamese pilots quickly learned to fight close to the ground, where ground clutter and thermal reflection greatly confused early missile guidance systems to the point of practical uselessness. Worse, the old "obsolete" [=MiG-15s=] and [=MiG-17s=] had superior maneuverability to the Phantom at lower speeds and altitude, which allowed them to keep their guns trained on any unfortunate Phantom they got close enough to. Even if the Phantom managed to outmaneuver such [=MiGs=], their lack of guns meant that they couldn't enagage at closer distances. Often the Phantoms had to resort to their superior speed and climb rate to escape. [[hottip:*:A more detailed analysis can be found [[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/remarks.php?trope=Main.RockBeatsLaser#latest here.]]

* The Ewoks in ''ReturnOfTheJedi'' overpower "entire legion of [the Emperor's] finest troops" with only spears and rocks.
** Apparently not that uncommon in the ''StarWars'' Universe, as it also happened with the Noghri, years earlier. Although they were a race of ninja-warrior-hunters living on a planet just a few steps up from a DeathWorld, and consequently so badass Darth Vader decided to make them into his own personal death commandos, so it's not quite so unbelievable.

* Though not quite as far apart technologically, in ''TheLastSamurai'' the Samurai army [[KatanasAreJustBetter universally favors "honorable" weapons like katanas, spears, katanas, and bows]] instead of the firearms of the regular Imperial Army of Japan. They win their initial battles against poorly-trained soldiers armed with rifles, and only lose their climactic final battle after killing over two-thirds of the second, better-trained and armed army, who outnumbered them six to one.

* In ''FlightOfTheIntruder,'' the eponymous plane is flown through a hail of anti-aircraft fire twice in an attack on Hanoi, but on the first mission of the film earlier, a weapons officer is killed by a farmer with an old rifle on the return flight. Actually {{justified|Trope}}, as the Vietnamese were trained to fire their guns in the air when they heard jet fighters, on the chance that one of them would get lucky.

* About half of ''FirstBlood'' was made of this trope, when Rambo hadn't yet gotten ahold of a gun and had to use Nam-style mantraps against his pursuers.
* Quite literally in ''YorTheHunterFromTheFuture'', the main character, a caveman is confronting a robot with a laser arm, and Yor bashes its head off with a rock.