Discussion Main / ShotgunsAreJustBetter

Left 4 Dead in higher dificulties? You are abandoning the shotguns, and going for the semi-auto sniper rifles. Why? sniper shots can kill multiple regular zombies with a single shot, from the hip, so you want to force them up along corridors where they single file, and with few shots you get rid of regulars easily.

The AI director gets VERY angry if you hole up for too long, though. As in, 45 seconds. You and your team will have to move an "uncomfortable" speeds to keep the Director cool. Very rewarding when you manage it, though.

As for the witch, forget it. Even 2 people with auto-shotties are not enough to "crown" her without an incapacitation. Couple with the speed of the director, there is barely time to coordinate.

Removed these examples from the Real Life section, since it's all either discussion of whether shotguns are powerful or descriptions of various weapons, not incidents of shotguns being better:

• A common misconception about shotguns is that they rival or exceed rifles in the "power" department. Considering their gargantuan calibers, this seems obvious (for example, the most common shotgun gauge, 12, is almost a cannon caliber by legal classification and exceeds that of the most powerful heavy machine guns). On the other hand, these mega-blasters are widely available, mechanically simple and quite cheap, being the go-to firearm for a hunter on a budget for more than a century. The answer to this riddle is simple: shotguns have very low chamber/barrel pressures, even lower than pistols (this means there's less powder in their shells and it is of a less potent variety). This means that their action can be extremely simple, barrels can be made much thinner and of cheaper materials, and the ammunition is also very simple to manufacture, low-tolerance and cheap (a shotgun barrel is surprisingly thin-walled, generally around 0.040"-0.080" or 1 to 2 mm). The huge diameter of the barrel - i.e. thrown projectile mass - compensates somewhat for low pressure, hence a 12 ga. shotgun outputs approx. the same energy as a good rifle cartridge. But even a solid shotgun slug is much wider, quickly losing energy over distance and distributing energy over larger surface on a hit. Shotguns enjoy significant advantages in wound-trauma over many other firearms even when gross muzzle-energy is similar. 15 pellets of #1 Buckshot if all shot hits will inflict 15 wounds on a target, similar to shooting it 15 times with a pistol. Most agencies (at least in the US) use 00 Buckshot due to greater availability, which will still inflict 9 wounds if all shot hits the target. Shot for shot this gives shotguns unrivaled wounding potential, allowing them to do with one trigger pull what a burst-firing assault rifle might need several to match.
  • This misconception does serve as one of the reasons that makes the firearm an attractive choice for home defense. As the thing is The Dreaded among firearms, the iconic sound of cocking the action and chambering a shell is enough to make most aggressors and home invaders turn tail and run for their lives.
  • The combination of low pressure ammo, smooth barrel and large strong frame also gives shotguns a great advantage: they are practically deathless. Even after tens of thousands of rounds fired, they don't wear out. In some cases, the wooden stock and front grip wears down and has to be either restored or replaced, but the barrel and action are untouched.
  • Ultimately, however, shotguns have very short effective ranges compared to rifles. While their range is similar to a submachine gun's, the sheer bulk of a shotgun's ammunition greatly limits how many rounds an operator can carry. Additionally, shotgun cartridges, due to their rimmed design and plastic hulls, are known for not playing nice with box magazines. This results in a weapon that both allows less ammo to be carried and requires more time to reload when compared to the alternatives. Finally, be it shot or slugs, shotguns are more easily stopped by body armor, which is becoming more common for military forces around the world^note granted, just because a projectile is stopped by armor does not mean no injury is incurred, but that's for another trope. This is why many military forces only employ shotguns to fulfill certain niche roles; that said, military training advises troops using shotguns in combat to reload at every opportunity (doubly so if they're pump-action), and to always bring a handgun.
  • While a specialist tool for military purposes, for civilians and police officers a shotgun is often the most powerful, most effective defense weapon available. Not only are they very common and relatively easy to purchase but non-military non-SWAT individuals are more likely to fight at shorter range, less likely to encounter armored targets, and less likely to have weapons training. These all play into the natural advantages of the shotgun - Close range, high damage, simple operation - rendering them superior to any other type of weapon. Versatile ammunition types and the ability to choose which is fired first, also make them appealing to law enforcement since they can choose to use taser rounds, beanbag rounds, or other nonlethal options, the military has special door-breaching rounds, while homeowners are likely to appreciate specialized home defense shells that are less likely to penetrate walls. And finally, largely thanks to Hollywood, a shotgun is simply more intimidating than a handgun or submachine gun and is more likely to make a suspect or intruder flee or surrender.
  • Gun laws of nearly all countries are and historically have been far more lax in regards to shotguns than rifled guns. Even in the Soviet Union, until 1976 there were practically no restrictions or regulations on shotguns for hunting purposes, beside the cost of the gun (which meant a barely affordable wad of cash for most people). For this reason, there is far more probable for someone to own a shotgun instead of rifle, and to be trained in its use.
• Another common misconception is that "you don't even need to aim" with them and it's impossible to miss, as though a shotgun's spread pattern was akin to an aerosol spray can. Out of any useful barrel length^note cutting a barrel to a very short length does widen the spread, but this comes at the direct expense of its effectiveness as a weapon since the scattering pellets won't have nearly as much force behind them, the shot will emerge as a tightly-packed cluster of pellets and only begin spreading appreciably once it's about 20-30 feet away from the muzzle. At the sort of distances in a typical home defense scenario, you most certainly will need to properly aim the weapon.
• The Franchi SPAS-12 is pretty much the Trope Codifier for this trope. Also a subversion as the actual gun is very heavy and unwieldy compared to other designs intended for the same purpose. Ironically, it may arguably be one of the worst tactical shotguns ever designed^note And one of the most expensive shotguns ever designed, at least among ones that had a full production run, suffering from extremely convoluted controls, poor ergonomics, serious reliability and quality issues, and useless "tacticool" features.
• The Benelli M3 Super 90. It may look less cooler than the Franchi SPAS-12, but it does everything it can do and is way more reliable and simpler to use. Later succeeded by the Benelli M4 Super 90, which is even more rugged and reliable, even though its semi-auto only.
• The Winchester 1897 trench gun◊ fits this trope to a T. In WWI, it was used to devastating effect by American soldiers to clear out trenches, particularly because of its ability to "slamfire," meaning the soldier holds the trigger down and simply pumps the handle, causing the shotgun to fire with each pump (the main reason for this ability was that the gun lacked a trigger disconnector, a mechanism that prevents firearms from shooting like an automatic weapon. The later Winchester Model 1912 also lacked the disconnector and shared the same ability to slamfire as the 1897 did). German troops learned to fear the sight and sound of a charging American soldier armed with a trench gun, and the German government actually issued a formal protest against America, demanding they discontinue use of the weapon because of the ghastly wounds and physiological trauma it created.
  • In the event that you are out of ammunition, the Winchester 1897 Trench Gun also has an adapter for a bayonet lug.
  • The reason the shotguns were not widely adopted was due to maintenance and ammunition issues. In the muddy trenches it was very hard to keep your shotgun shells dry and wet ammo would cause the shotguns to jam and misfire.
  • The effectiveness made it somewhat controversial, as the German government accused the United States of committing war crimes by using shotguns (specifically they accused the weapon of inflicting unnecessary suffering and indiscriminate effects). The United States made a solid case^note The US Secretary of State replied in a note stating that in the opinion of the US Government the Hague Regulations Art. 23 sub-para. (e) did not forbid the use of shotguns, that in view of the history of the shotgun as a weapon of warfare, the well-­known effects of its use, and a comparison of it with other weapons approved in warfare, the shotgun then in use could not be made the subject of legitimate and reasonable protest, and that the United States would not abandon its use. -Full source, search for "shotgun" in the weapons defense and continued to use them. To this day, while you can't use certain types of ammunition in a combat shotgun (which is the case with all weapons of war) and the Germans have forbidden their usage, the weapon itself is legitimate and used to great effectiveness for clearing buildings and shooting out doors. Shotguns are that much better they were actually accused of being war crimes.^note Just FYI, the Germans didn't really have a leg to stand on in this argument. After all, they're the guys who invented the modern day Flamethrower, and they made liberal use of chemical weapons like mustard gas.
• Meet the KS-23, a Russian shotgun made from recycled 23mm AA gun barrels(equivalent to 4 gauge!). Nowadays they are issued to the OMON special police unit & available for local civilians.
• The AA-12 can pump lots of shells rapidly with a mild recoil - 300 rounds a minute, to be exact. This is one cool shotgun, and it has been a darling of action films and first-person shooters like The Expendables, Predators and the Call Of Duty games.
• The Kel-Tec KSG, an American bullpup, pump-action shotgun with a unique twin-tube magazine system allowing a relatively high capacity for such a short weapon, making it something of a Pint-Sized Powerhouse. It too has appeared in films and video games such as Suicide Squad (2016) and PAYDAY 2.
• Averted by some countries' hunting laws; certain types of game, eg. waterfowl, is usually still hunted with shotguns, but if deer, pigs etc. are being hunted, the legal requirements for ammunition, barrel length and chokes, to ensure humane takedown and that you don't end up with 500kg of wounded razorback determined to take you with it, can be somewhat complex and difficult to remember, especially in action when you were actually hunting for something else. In these places, it is best to hunt large game with a heavier rifle such as a .243 or .308, for both practicality and the law.
• The DP-12. A double-barreled pump-action shotgun. Life Imitates Art from Quake II and ObsCure?
• For larger weapons such as tank cannons and artillery, there is Canister Shot, which turns the cannon into a very large shotgun, primarily for use against enemy infantry (a must-have for artillery units deployed in contested territory). If enemy forces appear near the perimeter, drop the gun to zero elevation and start firing canister as fast as you can load it. For groups of tanks being overrun by enemy infantry, perhaps armed with satchel charges, the gunners can load canister and fire near or at each other without fear of the canister shot harming friendly armor (don't try this near friendly infantry).
  • Canister shot is hundreds of years old. In the American Civil War canister was frequently used when the enemy came into close range. Here◊ is a picture of a canister shell with its lead balls, and here is an exhibit showing canister's effect on the human body: namely, a baseball-sized hole in the skull of a Union soldier.
  • On a smaller scale, you have the M576 40mm grenade, which turns your Grenade Launcher into a 40mm shotgun.
• The Blunderbuss and its pistol variant the Dragon were early precursers to shotguns. Despite popular belief you don't put nails and bolts into the barrel as it will destroy it and have less range than actual shot that the gun was meant to fire. The flared barrel didn't make the spread wider but make it easier to reload as it was mainly used by mounted cavalry and needed an easier weapon to use.
• The Up To Eleven of this trope must have been the San-shiki anti-aircraft shells of Imperial Japanese Navy. They were basically eighteen inch shotgun rounds. They were called "beehives", and the shells were filled with anti-aircraft ammunition. They were intended to be fired from the Yamato class 457 mm main guns and used against American aviators. Unfortunately, the blast of the main guns turned out to disrupt the fire of the smaller antiaircraft guns. In addition the copper drive bands of the rounds were poorly machined and constant firing was damaging the gun rifling; one of the shells may have exploded early and disabled one of Musashi's guns during the Battle of the Sibuyan Sea. Yamato fired these shells in two separate instances during Operation Ten-Go, first against PBM Mariner flying boats shadowing her, and later against the attacking aircraft of Task Force 58.
• Combining this trope with Revolvers Are Just Better:
  • The LeMat Grapeshot Revolver, a Civil War-era Confederate-produced pistol with a 9-chambered .42 caliber revolver cartridge, and a larger barrel down the center made to fire 20g buckshot.
  • The MTs-255 Double-Action revolver shotgun from Russia, with a five-round chamber.
  • The Taurus Judge is a revolver that shoots .410 shotgun shells.
• When you're looking at Simple, yet Awesome, nothing gets cooler than the Remington 870; it's often considered the pump-shotgun, and has been issued to police officers and some military units. Not bad for a design originating in the 50's. It's so good in fact, that it's generally considered the AK-47 of shotguns. The Mossberg 500 matches it note-for-note on reliability and is similarly long-served, only trailing slightly in the number of aftermarket accessories and modifications made for it^note Note that post-Freedom Group era 870 shotguns have somewhat spotty quality control compared to earlier models; it's wise to inspect for defects on a new gun if the trigger housing is made of plastic.
• Traditionally, one reason why shotguns are so useful at fighting and/or scaring off home invaders besides a Dramatic Gun Cock (as mentioned above) is that you’ll be fighting well within the range that shotguns are effective. A simple twelve gauge shotgun can put down a violent home invader who refuses to leave in less than a handful of shotgun shells — sometimes even just one — which is helpful in the court room. Lawyers who try to prosecute a home owner that used a gun against a home invading criminal (or is being sued by the criminal’s family/loved ones) oftentimes try to use the number of times that said homeowner fired the weapon, attempting to convince the jury that the homeowner was being unnecessarily bloodthirsty. If the criminal was put down with only a few shotgun shells, compared to shooting a handgun or rifle many times, then that argument could look flimsy. It also helps that specially designed self-defense ammunition exists for these cases, helping prevent unnecessary casualties that traditional buckshot/slugs might cause if they over-penetrate and shoot someone behind the criminal and/or through walls by accident.

Shotgun Lethality

An entry in the real-life section asserted that the wounding potential of an assault-rifle, or SMG firing in bursts was greater than that achievable with a shotgun. That is simply untrue so long as the firefight occurs within the shotgun's range.

3 wounds of 5.56 NATO with an ME of 1300x3 [3900] foot pounds is not going to yield a superior wound profile to 9 pieces of .33 caliber - 00 Buck carrying a gross of 1800 foot pounds (200fpe each) of energy. (The 00 meanwhile will be inferior to the higher velocity, greater quantity of #1 Buckshot.) Utilizing simple energy figures is woefully oversimplifying a very complicated subject. In any case the sheer number of wounds a shotgun inflicts will yield the superior lethality so long as the range is close enough that the shot retains the necessary energy to reach vital organs. It is just as unlikely that three .223 caliber rounds will inflict more trauma than a single .74 caliber round assuming all find vital anatomy during their flight.

The only scenario in which the assault rifle comes out ahead is one in which most of the buckshot misses, or the fight takes place out of the shotgun's range. (Or some idiot uses birdshot because another idiot on Youtube told him it was sufficient.) Meanwhile the trope has acknowledge from the beginning that the Shotgun is a short-range weapon.

There's an entry under the Fallout section that reads like this.

"This is also because Fallout 3 scaled the health and damage resistance of enemies to your level. Fallout New Vegas avoids this by 1) removing the scaling and making levels actually mean something and..."

Firstly, this is incorrect.The enemies in Fallout 3 replace each other instead of scaling by health, which it says on the Fallout 3 page and the Level Scaling page.Secondly, the tone for it sounds condescending, "making levels 'actually' mean something".Anyone who's played Fallout 3 will tell you that the game starts pretty difficult but gets much easier later on in the game due to how much you improve with each level, and how much more controlled the level-scaling is.This hate dumbing behavior seems to be pretty common on T Vtropes.Is it possible that maybe I can read about Fallout 3 without seeing an entry right underneath it that describes how much better New Vegas is?Popular opinion on New Vegas is that it's slightly better than FO 3 but still more or less the same.So why is it that I constantly see all these incredibly biased comments bashing Fallout 3 where ever I go?I feel like I'm on a forum for NV fans, not T Vtropes.