So I was watching Aliens on my iphone waiting outside my girl's work while she was finishing inventory, and I noticed that during the 1st shoot out scene when they are all retreating to the apc both Vasquez and Drake fire bout the same amount of rounds and start firing at about the same time.Yet Drake Runs out of Ammo or power for his smartgun way earlier. While Vasquez seems to have a plentiful supply enough to even get all the way back to the apc and shoot the alien around Drake that splashes his acid blood on Drake.Did anyone else notice this or am I just crazy?

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good point, one could say that because she reached the APC before him, she could have fired less but that just means he fired more to cover the retreat....either way when hicks took off her rig, not much ammo could have been left since that was the last M56 on the planet.

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Beserker
Brian "Anubian" Webb
WYI/TQ1.0.04837E5
U.S.S. Nemesis
Weyland Yutani Inmate

If Drake usually shoots the way he was at the moment when he ran out, that's about four times as much as Vasquez. He was laying down a good steady cover, there. In the moments when the film focusses on the APC, Drake could easily have done more shooting.


But did you also notice the sound clip with Hicks's cry of, "Move it! Let's go, Marines!" is looped and re-used a few moments after the first time you hear it?

Drake's smartgun could have jammed (or as the purists call it a "stoppage") instead of running out of ammo. So because he was falling back and didn't exactly have time to clear it, he dropped the rig and went for his secondary weapon.

Personally I don't know how you could say they fired the same amount of rounds by counting. There are several scenes in which you hear smartgun fire, but don't see who is firing.

But let's go and say that you are right about them both firing the same amount of rounds in the hive battle--- Even if they did fire the same amount, Drake had already fired his smartgun long before the hive battle; he shot at Newt (who he thought was an alien) in the colony corridor. So maybe this is why he ran out of ammo first.


Kevin

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I told you I'd shoot, but you didn't believe me! WHY DIDN'T YOU BELIEVE ME!?!

Maybe Vasquez carried (even more) ammo/battery than Drake. Maybe they used different mags/batteries or maybe Drake's battery was just older and held less charge. Like Kev said - maybe Drake's SG just malfunctioned.

Well let's look at the scene as a whole...

1. We hear Vasquez directing someone 'to the right man'. She could have been directing Drake as they laid down a suppressing fire which we clearly see as they exit the hive towards the APC
2. I doubt Drake would not be aware of his ammunition count...so the fact he said 'sh*t' is a good indication that it was not expected and was thus a jam. However he could have paniced ala Hudson and started hosing everything behind them...but with the Smartgun being auto-fire I doubt it....but then again if its auto-fire...why was Vasquez directing him?
3. Both he and Vasquez were running off secondary batteries as they handed in their primaries to Apone. These could have been partially depleated and also caused the smartgun to stop functioning.

OR.....it could just be that the script told him to and he didn't want to upset Jim as it was almost tea time and he was upset enough at the chick with the tea cart

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Smart guns probably only auto-fire/target within a set field of view (like in the latest AvP game), so he probably had to turn more to the right to aim/shoot further round.

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Steve
Corporal in 69th Regt. 1st Batt. Homer’s Heroes.

"I'd like to die at the age of 80 in my own bed, with a belly full of wine and a girl's mouth around my c**k."

Drake is just trigger happy!

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Sgt C. Kee-McParlin
A05/TQ1.0.02160E1

13th Regt. 1st Batt. 'Freebooters'

1/. SG-ers wear a sight over their right eye, thus reducing/eliminating their peripheral vision of any targets on that side. Vas was responding to this since Drake was likely better placed to shoot it/in her field of fire.


2 and 3/. I concur with the stoppage/battery failure theory, particularly the latter. Several times I've been praying that a battery powering an essential piece of kit would last... only for it to fail at the most inconvenient moment - Usually my SatNav!!
I guess with the battery gone, the loss of targeting/powered firing mechanism/sight/something renders the SG a useless inoperable hunk o' junk. Certainly the thing is auto-targeting, so maybe that's it.

Whatever the cause for stoppage - ammo, battery or whatever - the most common immediate action under fire is to just sling (or in Drake's case, dump) the primary weapon and draw sidearm until you get to a safe place and carry out clearance drills.


In truth, there never was an APC - The 'APC' *was* the tea cart, cunningly (and cheaply) dressed by the prop department to look like a military vehicle. The whole retreat was actually Cameron filming the Tea Rush and Xenomorphs were just CGI pasted over the lighting crew.
The Wierzbowski-dying-scream we hear is actually a gaffer being trampled as Trevor Steedman made *sure* he was first in line for the iced buns!!

AH HA! I KNEW it!

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"A writer needs a pen, a painter a brush, and a filmmaker an army." - Orson Wells.

http://www.rookscastle.com
http://www.alchemyarms.com

This was more just something I noticed while watching it but then again I was watching on a 4 inch Iphone screen and checking the door to see when my girl walked out.All are valid points

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Yeah, we like to ramble and go off on tangents, here!!

Just remember: When Kevin posts the picture of a derailed train, it's time to shut up and get back on topic!!

It's a movie; It's all in the editing. You can't expect real-time events unless you have one single shot with no cuts.

Umm... yeah. Might be the whole reason Apone ordered their SG batteries removed from their weapons.

(I'm just busting 'em Woody. )


As for all this "auto targeting" for the smartgun rig... I'm of the mind that it is mostly made up stuff from the Tech Manual and various AvP games. I really never got the impression from the film that the smartgun moves "on its own" in even the smallest degree. The optical sight just seemed like a high-tech gunsight for smartgunners.

But having said that- going with the expanded universe answer, I believe that the smartgun has some limited capability to "home in" on a target for increased precision. It doesn't move radically on its own (like a dog on a leash). It is the smartgun operator's job to point the weapon in the direction of the target; the smartgun itself then zeros in, insuring you don't miss.

So I guess they "do" call it a smartgun for a reason.

Kevin

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I told you I'd shoot, but you didn't believe me! WHY DIDN'T YOU BELIEVE ME!?!

See I didnt think it was the gun that was "smart" more the ammo.....


I'm sure I read in through tech manual that once the gun has identified a Target it programs each round to enter said Target, eliminating the need for the operator to aim.

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Chaplain Sgt Hohenkerk,
Executive officer - 69th Regt. 1st Batt. Homer’s Heroes

Does not help,
Does not clean,
Will have sex with anything!

However, the veterans would prefer to use the free mode on the smartguns to pop off a few good blasts at the xenos on a good day. Don't they?

I think kevin hit the nail, half shooter and half technology for the smart gunners.... but reading the above post, i think drakes gun jammed...i meen a standard issue PR shoots 99 rounds...god knows what the lmg's ammo capacity would be

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Beserker
Brian "Anubian" Webb
WYI/TQ1.0.04837E5
U.S.S. Nemesis
Weyland Yutani Inmate

Yeah, me too - Fun, innit


But why would Vas only carry two spare batteries?
Why not carry spare ammo?
And why does Drake have to nab off her supply?
Why did Apone not take the ammo off them?
What does the little clip-thing actually do?
Why do we have such questions?
Where do babies come from?
What's the airspeed of an unladen swallow?




Thompson = 20rnd mag.
PR = 99rnds
MG42 = 50rnd drum
SG = 250rnds (approx)

That's one answer...

The AVP smartguns in the games vary on ammunition:

AVP1: 500 rds
AVP2: 750 rds
AVP3: 100 rds

However, Xenopedia states that the smartgun uses 600 10x28mm caseless high-explosive rounds at a rate of 1200 rpm.

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"I kill Xenos and Preds for fun, but a job's a job. Stay professional and watch the backs of your Marine brothers and sisters."

Well....see the size of those drums? I'm guessing its easier to disarm them by just removing the tiny....'thing', which we assume is a battery.

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African or European?

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General all around pain in the ass and master of the overshare.
"...a geeky kinda dorky kinda nerdy kinda gurl...and I like it!"

UKCM FOREIGN LEGION:
"DEVIANT DRAGOONS"

That came outta nowhere... @.@

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"I kill Xenos and Preds for fun, but a job's a job. Stay professional and watch the backs of your Marine brothers and sisters."

Nope out of Monty Pythons Quest for the Holy Grail.

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Cheers

Winch

"Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow I shall fear no evil for thou art with me. And together we'll kick ANY bugs ASS!"
You know who you are!

I know that. I've seen three of the films and the entire show.

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"I kill Xenos and Preds for fun, but a job's a job. Stay professional and watch the backs of your Marine brothers and sisters."

Go and watch EVERYTHING of it!!