Soldiers in monster/alien movies.

[s_bushido]

Re-watched Godzilla (2014) recently and a question occurred to me: Are there any regulations about shooting at something against which your weapons would be completely ineffective?

The scene that stuck out as particularly egregious in that specific movie was the first time he made land-fall and the soldiers nearby opened fire from a rooftop over a crowd of civilians. But you see this kind of thing all the time. Bullets bouncing off of a target that may or may not even be engaged with the soldiers shooting at it...

[Egomaniac]

Re-watched Godzilla (2014) recently and a question occurred to me: Are there any regulations about shooting at something against which your weapons would be completely ineffective?

The scene that stuck out as particularly egregious in that specific movie was the first time he made land-fall and the soldiers nearby opened fire from a rooftop over a crowd of civilians. But you see this kind of thing all the time. Bullets bouncing off of a target that may or may not even be engaged with the soldiers shooting at it...

I don't know if there are any actual rules regarding such a thing...but I do believe that in a real life situation that once it has been shown that the ordnance being used is ineffective...the strategy would be to cease fire and, if possible, move to a higher degree of weaponry.

but, typically in these monster/alien movies...the human forces are completely unprepared for the threat they are facing

[Yunru]

Well they could still do a distraction to save civilian lifes in this type of case. Probaly a real life type of thing would be soldiers shooting on a tank with guns.

[Shadowferal]

Regs don't cover big effin monsters that makes everyone "pray and spray."

[Ihavewaffles]

Box in the kaiju with food,/snacks, truckloads of it, demand big chains pitch in or they'll get punished. Once kaiju gets used to lots of burgers, give it a giant tv screen.

There. Problem solved.

[Shadowferal]

Box in the kaiju with food,/snacks, truckloads of it, demand big chains pitch in or they'll get punished. Once kaiju gets used to lots of burgers, give it a giant tv screen.
There. Problem solved.

But kaiju are addicted to nukes.
And pay no attention to some 2dimensionsl screen.

[KOUNTERPARTS]

Rule of monster movies: soldiers/humans-with-guns need to shoot at least 1,000 rounds of ammunition per gun before they realize, "FUCK, IT'S NOT WORKING!"

[Shadowferal]

Rule of monster movies: soldiers/humans-with-guns need to shoot at least 1,000 rounds of ammunition per gun before they realize, "FUCK, IT'S NOT WORKING!"

Depends on the monsters;

[Dellis0991]

Well the second you see your rounds bounce off the big boy you got 2 choices, keep shooting to buy citizens enough time to escape (you might die but that's what you signed up for) or run away screaming while leaving a piss trail in your wake.

[rayvio]

it's probably tough to tell if the weapons are having no effect at all or just no visible effect, there's an element of "well this is the only weapon I have so I'll just hope it's doing something!"

[SavoirFaire]

I always felt the spray of bullets with no effect is useful when you’re prey. I mean, you’re going to try anything to save yourself.

These monster movies though, you’re not prey, you’re just nothing. It’s seems you’d be drawing attention to yourself. Maybe distracting to help others but it seems so futile.

Always felt this was an under-used horror movie/horror game approach. You’re not trying to beat the big bad, you’re just trying to live day to day.

[PACOX]

Firing for effect is a real-world tactic. Think distraction or suppression.

In case of Godzilla, they were told to shoot, so they shoot. You stop when you're told to stop. Maybe if you pump enough bullets into the thing it will stop? At the very least you are buying time for the civilians.

A movie where they stopped firing when they saw that their weapons were ineffective? Independence Day.

[Ophenia]

Spraying is the only thing they can do usually. They won't be like "well that sucks, guess I'll go home now". Also, a hundred bullets might be ineffective, but you never know if one bullet will not end its course in the eye of the thing you're shooting at, or any other exposed weak point. So better throw all what you have and hope for some luck.

[Easo]

You are basically asking if soldiers are given instructions what to do after shooting tank with a rifle does not work. The answer is report to command and use bigger ordnance. What to do after nukes do not work? Well...
P.S.
The thing I hate in the movies are jet fighters flying in stupidly close (as in, between monster's body parts) to do attack runs with only cannons, then being swatted out of sky by monster's paw. Like, common.

[xero5141]

Re-watched Godzilla (2014) recently and a question occurred to me: Are there any regulations about shooting at something against which your weapons would be completely ineffective?

The scene that stuck out as particularly egregious in that specific movie was the first time he made land-fall and the soldiers nearby opened fire from a rooftop over a crowd of civilians. But you see this kind of thing all the time. Bullets bouncing off of a target that may or may not even be engaged with the soldiers shooting at it...

If you can think of some parallel to real life, it would be easier to answer your question.

When you think of suppressive fire, it's not really directed at anything specific it's just a "shoot in this direction to make people think twice" type of scenario. You wouldn't do much to a HMMWV by shooting small arms at it, but you'll sure as shit keep the people inside of it from shooting back at you.