History Main / ShootingTheSwarm

* In ''Film/StarTrekBeyond'', the ''Enterprise'' comes under attack by a swarm of small ships led by Krall, which Captain Kirk attempts and fails miserably to destroy with phasers and photon torpedoes. There are too many targets for ''Enterprise'''s [[SlowLaser Slow Lasers]], and the swarm simply evades the torpedoes (because Hollywood thinks missiles need a direct hit to detonate). [[spoiler:Starbase ''Yorktown'' attempts the same tactics when Krall attacks the station in the third act, to equally little success. Ultimately, the re-activated USS ''Franklin'' and ''Yorktown'' are able to destroy the swarm by jamming the drones' communications by spamming the radio frequency with the Music/BeastieBoys, causing the drones to crash into each other and explode.]]

!!PlayedStraight Examples:

* ''Manga/SoulEater'', during the climax of the fight between 400 years-form Mosquito and Death the Kid, the former dissolves in a giant swarm of bats to attack Kid from multiple sides with sonic waves, while the latter answers by unleashing MoreDakka using Brew to enhance his firepower: he actually manages to wipe out the swarm and force Mosquito to turn solid again.

* Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse: In ''Film/AntMan1'', when Ant-Man and his swarm of flying ants attack [[BigBad Dr. Darren Cross]] and his henchmen, who are about to escape in a helicopter, Cross grabs a gun and fires at the approaching swarm. He only manages to hit a few ants, including Anthony, the ant that Ant-Man was riding.
* ''Film/TheMatrixRevolutions'': During the battle of Zion, the human defenders in A.P.U. mechas led by Captain Mifune all [[MoreDakka concentrate fire]] on the hole the Machines just opened in the city's celling with the giant drill. While the first swarms of Sentinels get utterly shredded, more and more of them manage to get through the fire barrage and the mechas have to reload, leading to the forces of Zion being rapidly overwhelmed. Mifune keeps shooting (and {{shouting|shooter}}) at the swarms through and through no matter how hopeless the situation gets, until they eventually lacerate him to death.

** When a horde of flesh-eating scarab beetles are chasing the heroes in ''Film/{{The Mummy|1999}}'', O'Connell first resorts to hurling his torch at them, then emptying a shotgun at the mass of insects. Each blast sends a fountain of dead bugs flying, but doesn't even slow the swarm down. Just legging it is a far more practical solution.
** Subverted in ''Film/TheMummyReturns''. When Imhotep's followers, led by Anck-su-namun and Hafez, uncover the titular character and encounter the flesh-eating scarab horde, several of the guards use flamethrowers to burn them back, and to far greater effect.

* ''Franchise/SherlockHolmes'': In ''Film/HolmesAndWatson'', the TriggerHappy Dr. Watson attempts to shoot a swarm of killer bees with his revolver; to no effect, obviously.

* The ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000: Literature/DarkImperium'' novel ''The Devastation of Baal'' is essentially this trope spread out over a whole book: the Blood Angels, their successor chapters, the Imperial Navy, and a few million Imperial Guardsmen Shoot the Swarm for days and weeks and months... and the Tyranids barely slow down. [[spoiler: It's only when the Indomitus Crusade shows up with superior firepower and fresh troops that the tide turns.]]

** {{Subverted}} in ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration''. On two occasions a swarm of small ships attacks a large capital ship (Starfleet {{attack drone}}s against a Borg cube in "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS3E26S4E1TheBestOfBothWorlds The Best of Both Worlds, Part II]]", Lysian sentry pods against the ''Enterprise'' in "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS5E14Conundrum Conundrum]]"), but are rapidly destroyed with pinpoint fire.

* Swarm fighting rules go all the way back to ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' Third Edition, which states that swarms of small creatures are immune to physical attacks except some specific exceptions. SplashDamage and area-effect spells are much more efficient.
* An explicit game mechanic in ''TabletopGame/StarFinder'', only weapons which deal splash damage can injure swarm-type enemies.
* ''TabletopGame/{{Traveller}}'' Classic, Double Adventure 4 ''Marooned''. When in a jungle hex, the PlayerCharacters can encounter a swarm of hungry insects much like army ants, each weighing .1 gram. If the PlayerCharacters are foolish enough to try to kill them with their rifles, they will be eaten alive.

* ''VideoGame/BlowOut'' have flocks of winged alien bugs infesting entire corridors that you need to shoot at, though a single GrenadeLauncher round could do the trick owing to the game being set in enclosed, confined corridors.
* ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyAdvancedWarfare'' has drone swarms that you can try to shoot down, but you are encouraged to use an EMP pulse to disable them instead. The first mission features a friendly HumongousMecha tank trying to fend off one such swarm with machine guns. If you don't take down the drones quickly enough, the tank is destroyed.

* ''VideoGame/LostLandAdventure'' have a desert stage set in a set of abandoned ruins, where you'll have to shoot at entire swarms of scarab beetles before it overruns you. Unlike ''The Mummy'', though, you have access to a machine gun.

** In ''Videogame/MassEffect2'', [[HenchmenRace The Collectors]] use a swarm of genetically-modified insects called a Seeker Swarm to detect, attack, debuff and paralyze their targets. Particularly living specimens from populations they wish to take alive. As a case of GameplayAndStorySegregation, these swarms are shown to be nigh-impossible to fight back against with firearms or melee weapons--which is why they can so easily render entire colonies defenseless in short order. It's a major plot point that Commander Shepard and their crew have to use upgraded personal shields and barriers to keep the swarms at bay (and even then, there's a segment in the finale where the Collectors use massive quantities of the swarm and it takes an uber-powerful telekinetic to keep them all at bay, instantly killing the player or a member of the crew if it fails). Played straight when Ashley Williams or Kaidan Alenko try to shoot an oncoming Collector swarm on Horizon during a cutscene, [[ForgotAboutHisPowers even though the latter had a much better option in his biotics]].
** In the Multiplayer portion of ''Videogame/MassEffect3'', the Collectors utilize the swarms again and a cluster of them can be shot by the player and destroyed. If not, the swarm will overwhelm the player and disable their shields/barriers and all {{cooldown}} abilities for a short time.

* ''VideoGame/{{Pokemon}}'': Horde battles, where one Pokemon from your team fights five low-level enemy Pokemon at once, are a downplayed example. The majority of ''Pokemon'' attacks only target one enemy at a time, and while the level difference between a horde's members and your Pokemon will likely be enough to one-shot any enemy with even a moderately powerful attack, this strategy will still require at least five full turns to end the battle -- and, as each horde member attacks if able between each of the player's turns, this allows the individually weak horde members to [[DeathOfAThousandCuts whittle down your Pokemon's health as it takes them out one by one]]. Handling horde battles with some modicum of efficiency often requires moves that will affect every member of the horde at once, like Surf, Earthquake and Blizzard.

-->'''Heather :''' There's got to be a way. I can't very well stab them one by one...
* ''VideoGame/StarCraftI'':
** This is the intended effect of a mass zergling, hydralisk, or mutalisk rush. There is a reason that the ZergRush has an entire trope named after it. The zerg specialize in huge numbers of cheap units. Mutalisks specifically can even overlap each other on the map, which was initially a bug, giving a massive ball of flying death that cannot be individually targeted. In the Brood War Expansion, the protoss and terrans were given splash damage air units explicitly to counter the mass overlapping mutalisk strategy.
** ''VideoGame/StarcraftIIWingsOfLiberty'':Once the plot moves to Char, Tychus Findlay can be found manning a huge machine gun sending bullets into Zerg swarms. He calls it "the biggest turkey shoot in the galaxy".
** The opening cinematic to ''VideoGame/StarcraftIIHeartOfTheSwarm'' shows an example where not even splash damage saves the shooters, The ZergRush barrels through gunfire and though artillery leaves a dents in the tide of zerg, those holes are quickly filled by the ZergRush until it overtakes the defenders. (The [[AttackOfTheFiftyFootWhatever Ultralisk]] {{No Sell}}ing the artillery just hammers home how doomed the people with guns are.)
* In ''VideoGame/TimeCrisis'', the game introduces a new kind of enemy: Terror Bites, a swarm of killer creepy-crawlies of various kinds. While the crawling scarab-like swarm can be shot easily with the SMG, the swarm of flying insects need to be shot with the shotgun or you'll have a hard time shooting them.

* ''WesternAnimation/LoveDeathAndRobots'': In the 3rd season episode "[[Recap/LoveDeathAndRobotsInVaultedHallsEntombed In Vaulted Halls Entombed]]", the soldiers respond to the swarm of tiny spiders the only way they know, by opening fire on them. It only takes out a couple of the spiders since there are simply too many, and they are forced to retreat.

** Exaggerated in episode "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS4E21MargeInChains Marge in Chains]]", where Chief Wiggum fires his gun at ''a cloud of air'' that's spreading disease.
** "Played straight and inverted in [[Recap/TheSimpsonsS20E8TheBurnsAndTheBees The Burns and the Bees]]" when Wiggum ineffectually shoots at a swarm of bees, which responds by [[SynchronizedSwarming snatching his gun]] and shooting him in the arm.
* In ''WesternAnimation/SpidermanAndHisAmazingFriends'', when the cartoon's version of Swarm (a sentient swarm of bees mutated by a meteorite) appears, a farmer tries to chase him off by throwing a pitchfork at him, which naturally just passes straight through.

Your choice, the wrong one at that: For some reason you decide to pick up a gun and start blasting at the swarm hoping to kill some members, but there's little to no success in doing so even with a {{HandCannon}}. Worse case scenario? You're dead. But if you have a weapon capable of dealing SplashDamage, like a {{BFG}} or a mounted GatlingGood, then you may have a fighting chance.