History Main / SeeTheWhitesOfTheirEyes

* During UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar, American jets carries carried the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIM-7_Sparrow Sparrow missile]] which was designed to shoot down Russian bombers ''beyond visual range''. Unfortunately, due to [[ObstructiveCodeOfConduct rules of engagement]], commanders instructed fighter pilots to only fire on a hostile aircraft after ''visual'' identification , completely negating the technological advantage of the long range missile. The missiles were completely ill suited for tracking maneuvering targets in a dogfight and achieved a kill rate of under 10%.

* Averted in ''VideoGame/StarRuler''. Even the weakest, smallest, lowest-tech weapons have ranges measured in fractions of an AU (about 150 million km or 8 light-seconds) and ranges only go up from there.

* Averted largely in ''Anime/StarshipOperators'' where the trainee crew who mans the ship for the majority of the show stress the ranges involved in combat early on. Several of the enemies ships play with this concept, running in stealth mode (drifting into a "no miss" range and attack angle, featuring extremely advanced stealth), a remote drone Hyperjumping all over the place like a bunny on steroids (thus avoiding the return fire by not being there when it is ready), or just plain running in (featuring a nigh invincible bow designed specifically for ramming other ships).

[[TropeNamer Named after]] the [[BeamMeupScotty supposed]] famous quote of Col. William Prescott in the [[UsefulNotes/TheAmericanRevolution Battle of Bunker Hill]]: "Don't fire 'til you see the whites of their eyes!" This was justified at the time because they were using notoriously inaccurate 18th-century muskets and they had almost no ammunition, so every bullet had to count. It is not meant literally, as one can only see the whites of ones eye at about ten feet. The effective range of flintlock musketry was about to 75-100 yards, well beyond ten feet! It actually meant "don't fire until you get further orders." The one time someone meant it literally was during the American Revolution when John Buford told his men to fire when the enemy, elite British cavalry, were less than 10 feet away. The battle became known as The Waxhaws Massacare, the defeat of the Americans was so great. In reality, the command was routinely given to soldiers in many battles: no army had very accurate guns or unlimited ball and powder -- or arrows, for that matter. The saying is famed, and associated with Bunker Hill, by Americans because it was the first battle of the nascent American nation.

* In ''Film/{Battleship}}'', ''Missouri'' engages the alien ship at close enough range that they not only can see each other visually, the shells can be fired directly at the alien ship without having to go through a ballistic arc.

[[TropeNamer Named after]] the [[BeamMeupScotty supposed]] famous quote of Col. William Prescott in the [[UsefulNotes/TheAmericanRevolution Battle of Bunker Hill]]: "Don't fire 'til you see the whites of their eyes!" This was justified at the time because they were using notoriously inaccurate 18th-century muskets and they had almost no ammunition, so every bullet had to count. It is not meant literally, as one can only see the whites of ones eye at about ten feet. The effective range of flintlock musketry was about to 75-100 yards, well beyond ten feet! It actually meant "don't fire until you get further orders." The one time someone meant it literally was during the American Revolution when John Buford told his men to fire when the enemy, elite British cavalry, where less than 10 feet away. The battle became known as The Waxhaws Massacare, the defeat of the Americans was so great. In reality, the command was routinely given to soldiers in many battles: no army had very accurate guns or unlimited ball and powder -- or arrows, for that matter. The saying is famed, and associated with Bunker Hill, by Americans because it was the first battle of the nascent American nation.

[[TropeNamer Named after]] the [[BeamMeupScotty supposed]] famous quote of Col. William Prescott in the battle of [[UsefulNotes/TheAmericanRevolution Bunker Hill]]: "Don't fire 'til you see the whites of their eyes!" This was justified at the time because they were using notoriously inaccurate 18th-century muskets and they had almost no ammunition, so every bullet had to count. It is not meant literally, as one can only see the whites of ones eye at about ten feet. The effective range of flintlock musketry was about to 75-100 yards, well beyond ten feet! It actually meant "don't fire until you get further orders." The one time someone meant it literally was during the American Revolution when John Buford told his men to fire when the enemy, elite British cavalry, where less than 10 feet away. The battle became known as The Waxhaws Massacare, the defeat of the Americans was so great. In reality, the command was routinely given to soldiers in many battles: no army had very accurate guns or unlimited ball and powder -- or arrows, for that matter. The saying is famed, and associated with Bunker Hill, by Americans because it was the first battle of the nascent American nation.

** ''Literature/{{Thrawn}}: the titular admiral has to put his ''Arquitens''-class light cruisers into stratosphere (less than 50 km from their target) for their shots not to lose so much power that they'd become useless (Thrawn noted that this would be the case even if his target ''wasn't'' shielded). Noting that these light cruisers are modern 325-meter long military warships, this by extension implies that the vast majority of warships used in the ''Star Wars'' universe aren't capable of OrbitalBombardment, which explains a great deal. His Star Destroyer can, but it still has to get rather close by orbital standards.

** And finally re-{{justified}} in the post-Creator/{{Disney}} acquisition ''Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse'', where it's stated that the plasma casters used in the 'verse are in fact relatively short-ranged, losing cohesion and power after a few hundred kilometers at most.

[[folder:Web Original]]
* Fights between superheroes and supervillains are, by definition, almost always close-range (if not hand-to-hand range) affairs. This was surprisingly averted in one ''Roleplay/{{Global Guardians|PBEMUniverse}}'' story in which Corona, a super-heroine with light- and laser-generating powers, defeated the BigBad by sniping him from low Earth orbit, making use of the near-infinite range of her blasts, and the fact that she had hyperaccurate telescopic vision. He never had a chance to even respond because of the distances involved.
[[/folder]]

* The Caroleans, the elite force of the 17th century Swedish Empire's army, were sepcifically trained to do this for a few reasons. First, as mentioned elsewhere, the flintlocks they carried were wildly inaccurate even at relatively short distances, therefore they had to be close and still fire in volleys by rank. Second, because reload times were long (experienced soldiers could reload a flintlock in under two minutes), the mechanics of battle tended to favor the side that fired last. A typical Carolean attack would have them marching slowly at an enemy until they fired, then they would double time it to within 20-50 yards and then fire en masse before completing the charge with pikes and broadswords. This had a powerful psychological effect on enemies and allowed Sweden to make up for its numerically inferior army.

[[TropeNamer Named after]] the [[BeamMeupScotty supposed]] famous quote of Col. William Prescott in the battle of [[UsefulNotes/TheAmericanRevolution Bunker Hill]]: "Don't fire 'til you see the whites of their eyes!" This was justified at the time because they were using notoriously inaccurate 18th-century muskets and they had almost no ammunition, so every bullet had to count. It is not meant literally, as one can only see the whites of ones eye at about ten feet. The effective range of flintlock musketry was about to 75-100 yards, well beyond ten feet! It actually meant "don't fire until you get further orders." The one time someone meant it literally was during the American Revolution when John Buford told his men to fire when the enemy, elite British cavalry, where less than 10 feet away. The battle became known as The Waxhaws Massacare, the defeat of the American was so great. In reality, the command was routinely given to soldiers in many battles: no army had very accurate guns or unlimited ball and powder -- or arrows, for that matter. The saying is famed, and associated with Bunker Hill, by Americans because it was the first battle of the nascent American nation.

* ''Literature/MenMartinsAndMachines'' has "Don't shoot until you see the green of their teeth." In that case they were the width of an airlock door away, however.

* ''Literature/MartiansMenAndMachines'' has "Don't shoot until you see the green of their teeth." In that case they were the width of an airlock door away, however.

[[TropeNamer Named after]] the [[BeamMeupScotty supposed]] famous quote of Col. William Prescott in the battle of [[UsefulNotes/TheAmericanRevolution Bunker Hill]]: "Don't fire 'til you see the whites of their eyes!" This was justified at the time because they were using notoriously inaccurate 18th-century muskets and they had almost no ammunition, so every bullet had to count. In reality, the command was routinely given to soldiers in many battles: no army had very accurate guns or unlimited ball and powder -- or arrows, for that matter. The saying is famed, and associated with Bunker Hill, by Americans because it was the first battle of the nascent American nation.

** HMS Glowworm got into the same situation in 1940 vs the German cruiser Admiral Hipper. Although by the end some of her manoeuvres were random (her bridge had been destroyed), the 1,350 ton destroyer fought so hard against her 16,270 ton opponent that her commander was awarded the Victoria Cross posthumously, partly on the recommendation of the German captain, who wrote to the British authorities via the Red Cross, giving a statement of the valiant courage Roope had shown when engaging a much superior ship in close battle.

* In the first ''Literature/HonorHarrington'' book, Honor's ship is outfitted with a weapon called the grav lance that's capable of taking down almost any ship, but requires the attacker to close to more or less suicidal range in order to fire it. Between that and the fact that the ship's more traditional weapons had to be gutted to fit in the lance, it was declared a failure and pretty much disappears after the first book. The rest of series averts this consistently and without mercy. Starship engagements take place almost entirely at ranges that need to have the commanders looking at the little glowing maps with little explosion icons popping up for a hit. Probably a byproduct of the fact that this [[SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale sci-fi writer is trying to demonstrate he has a sense of scale just fine]], thanks. As the series progresses, new technologies that extend the range of ship weapons make the Kingdom of Manticore Navy one of the most dangerous navies in the region.

* Many filmmakers hearken back to [[SpaceIsAnOcean naval or submarine combat as the closest metaphor for space combat available]], and consequently use visual devices and images consistent with the representation of eighteenth-century seagoing vessels shooting at each other to place space battles on film. Of course, they might do that just because they know SpaceIsAnOcean. As it is, naval vessels have had the capacity to engage with guns at ranges of tens of thousands of meters since the late nineteenth century, albeit it took a while for fire control to make firing at said ranges accurate rather than [[ATeamFiring spray and pray]]. Even torpedoes, relatively slow and short-ranged weapons, have had [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_93_torpedo 10-20 kilometer ranges since at least the 1940s]]. Nowadays guided/homing missiles give the capacity to engage targets at ''hundreds'' of kilometers.

-> "Far range" is not visible to the naked eye, and that's what most aerial battles look like: Something shows up on a computer, a jet fires a missile at seemingly nothing and then, a few minutes later, something blows up somewhere that you cannot see. It's less like "high-stakes plane jockeying" and more like "filing a request for death" that another department, miles away, might or might not grant.

Although not exclusively, this presents a particular problem for armed spacegoing vessels, where the loss of this rather useful bit of technology invariably leads to confrontations and battles against other vessels at near-point-blank range. And God help you if your opponent is packing an InvisibilityCloak. This has also led to a common starship design configuration where most of the ship's weaponry is placed [[SpaceIsAnOcean broadside-style]] along the flanks of the ship's superstructure. It has also brought about the need for super-advanced, highly technological warlike civilizations to engage in {{Old School Dogfight}}ing.

* In the [[Literature/TheCulture Culture]] series of sf novels by [[Creator/IainBanks Iain M. Banks]], this trope is deliberately {{Subverted}} and [[PlayingWithATrope played with]] in that the titular Culture, one of the most progressive and advanced interstellar societies, totally avoids the use of ground combat and traditional soldiery, and instead prefers to go to war with starships that are essentially big engines with weapon nodules at both ends, and which are capable of causing stars hundreds of light years away to go nova. This strongly informs the outcomes of several of the novels, especially the first, ''Literature/ConsiderPhlebas'', due to the fact that aggressor societies tend to trip all over themselves in attempting to fight the Culture on conventional terms, using starships as methods of conveyance of troops towards Culture habitats, while the Culture merely evacuates their population to a safe distance and either commandeers or detonates the enemy ships on approach.

[[folder: Live Action TV ]]

* In ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|2003}}'', they heavily rely on {{Old School Dogfight}}s, and ships often fire at relatively close distances, even despite homing missiles. Even nuclear weapons are deployed at this sort of range.

* Played for laughs in ''Series/WhoseLineIsItAnyway'', where Ryan's suggestion for an "uninspiring battlecry" was "Don't shoot till you see the whites!" [[CrossesTheLineTwice Then Wayne enters the scene as a soldier presumably under Ryan's command.]] Admittedly, [[FridgeBrilliance you'd need to be at close range to discern the enemy's race...]]
* Played straight in all [[Franchise/StargateVerse Stargate series]]: fights between ships invariably happen within visual range.

[[folder: Tabletop Games ]]

[[folder: Video Games ]]

* ''VideoGame/{{Homeworld}}'', the computer game, where your capital ships, whilst equipped with point defense weaponry, cannot target an enemy ship visible on radar tracking, which is out of visual range.

** The tactics of the Reapers in ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'' may make this a JustifiedTrope. The Reapers used their beam weapons, but they also liked to get up close and personal to crush opposing ships with their metallic tentacles. Besides that, in the case of both the Reapers and the Geth, the major battles took place in orbit; firing from a distance would increase the chances of missing the intended target and hitting the planet behind them (A Krogan fleet commander used the same tactic in the Krogan Rebellions, positioning himself between his opponents and the planet they were trying to take back). Since those mass effect accelerators can dispense more destructive power than the Hiroshima bomb, one stray shot could wipe out a whole city.

[[folder: Web Comics ]]

[[folder: Web Original]]
* Fights between superheroes and supervillains are, by definition, almost always close-range (if not hand-to-hand range) affairs. This was surprisingly averted in one ''[[Roleplay/GlobalGuardiansPBEMUniverse Global Guardians]]'' story in which Corona, a super-heroine with light- and laser-generating powers, defeated the BigBad by sniping him from low earth orbit, making use of the near-infinite range of her blasts, and the fact that she had hyperaccurate telescopic vision. He never had a chance to even respond because of the distances involved.

[[folder: Real Life ]]

** Which was still far better than [[TheScrappy the AIM-4 Falcon]].

* Webcomic/SchlockMercenary mentioned this as a quote from ''[[BigBookOfWar The Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries]]'':

** Juggernauts could fire across half the map in their normal attack mode in the last mission of the NOD campaign. This was so they could pound the Threshold tower's defenses, but any juggernauts had this modified range (cue pounding of their ion cannon structure, which is another sidenote altogether...)

* ''Webcomic/DarthsAndDroids'' pokes fun at this in [[http://darthsanddroids.net/episodes/0964.html one strip]], where the transports are ordered to fly DIRECTLY at the Star Destroyers, because their weapons are calibrated to aim at targets at "ultra long range," not right next to the ship. Before they can readjust their weapons, the transport is gone.

* The longest-ranged anticapital gun in the later ''[[[VideoGame/{{X}} X-Universe]]'' games [[ArbitraryMaximumRange fades out]] at 6.62 km. Factor in, that's only two to three times longer than the ''ship'' is, and that the effective range (i.e. where a moving target is likely to avoid it) is often a kilometer or so shorter. Averted with missile frigates, however, whose MacrossMissileMassacre can blow away targets from nearly 80 kilometers away (though effective range is closer to 30 km because of sensor range limitations, unless you have another ship [[TargetSpotter acting as a spotter]]). Weapon ranges remain equally pathetic in ''Videogame/XRebirth'', where the Plasma/JET LR DeathRay on the Olmekron has a range shorter than ship it's mounted on.