Honorverse ramblings and musings

kzt wrote:I once had a shooting instructor at Gunsite who talked about watching a well-known (and now dead) gunfighter shoot quarters off a fence rail at 25 yards shooting from the hip. His closing comment was something to the effect of “I know it can be done because I’ve seen it done. I can’t do it, i don’t know anyone alive who can do it or anyone who can teach you to do it. So I’m not going to say you can’t do it, but sights work for everyone.”

tlb wrote:I am on vacation now, so cannot track down the quote from her armsman; if no one has found it before then, I will try to dig it up next week. Basically he had been a shooting instructor and said she had a unique ability to hit what she wanted. Just as importantly, he said he never was worried about her chances. So I would not put it past her to be able to shoot coins on fence posts from the hip.
You have someone who told you it could be done by an exceptional person.

Field of Dishonor: Ch. 26 wrote:He turned his head and glanced at the Grayson armsmen flanking her on either side. Candless was trying hard to hide his own anxiety, but LaFollet looked almost as calm as the Captain herself. A part of Ramirez hated the major for that nearly as much as it envied him, but he shook it off and made himself remember what LaFollet had said when he expressed his own concern.
"I don't know about duels, Colonel," the armsman had said. "Grayson law doesn't allow them. But I've seen the Steadholder on the range."
"On the range!" Ramirez had snorted, fists bunching with muscle on the table between them. "This won't be a target match, Major, and the Captain's a Navy officer, not a Marine. The Navy doesn't train its people with small arms, not even pulsers, the way the Corps does. Summervale knows exactly what he's doing, and he's a crack shot with those damned antiques!"
"I presume that by 'antiques' you're referring to the pistols?" LaFollet had asked, and Ramirez had grunted frustrated agreement, then blinked as LaFollet barked a laugh. "I can't say anything about this Summervale's ability, Colonel, but believe me, he can't be any better with them than Lady Harrington. I know."
"How can you be so positive of that?" Ramirez had demanded.
"Experience, Sir. What you call antiques would have been first-line issue for Palace Security two years ago. We didn't have the tech base to build grav-drivers small enough to make pulsers practical."
Ramirez had frowned at him, longing to believe the younger man knew what he was talking about, but almost afraid to let himself.
"She's that good?" he'd asked, and LaFollet had nodded.
"Colonel, I was a small arms instructor for my last two years with Security. I know a natural shot when I see one, and Lady Harrington is just that." It had been his turn to frown, and he'd run a hand through his hair. "I'll admit I didn't expect her to be particularly good with something that old-fashioned myself, but I discussed it with Captain Henke, and she said something that stuck in my mind. She said the Steadholder's always tested very high for kinesthesia, that it's something your Navy looks for. I hadn't heard the term before, but I think it's what you or I might call situational awareness. She always knows where she is—and where anything else is in relation to her." He'd shrugged. "Anyway, trust me. Any shot of hers will go exactly where she wants it to."
"If she gets one off," Ramirez had muttered, thumping the tabletop with his fist. "God, I know she's fast. Her reflexes are at least as good as mine, and mine are better than almost any native Manticoran I've ever met. But you have to see Summervale to believe how quick he is, and he's been here before." He'd shaken his head, hating himself for doubting the Captain but unable to stop himself. "I don't know, Major. I just don't know," he'd sighed.
Now he looked away from the Grayson officer and stared out the window while he prayed LaFollet's confidence was justified.

kzt wrote:I once had a shooting instructor at Gunsite who talked about watching a well-known (and now dead) gunfighter shoot quarters off a fence rail at 25 yards shooting from the hip. His closing comment was something to the effect of “I know it can be done because I’ve seen it done. I can’t do it, i don’t know anyone alive who can do it or anyone who can teach you to do it. So I’m not going to say you can’t do it, but sights work for everyone.”

cthia wrote:

kzt wrote:I once had a shooting instructor at Gunsite who talked about watching a well-known (and now dead) gunfighter shoot quarters off a fence rail at 25 yards shooting from the hip. His closing comment was something to the effect of “I know it can be done because I’ve seen it done. I can’t do it, i don’t know anyone alive who can do it or anyone who can teach you to do it. So I’m not going to say you can’t do it, but sights work for everyone.”

The romance movies of the American Old West are mostly that. Romance. Gunfights of the kind depicted in Hollywood movies rarely happened. Most people carried their guns in a pocket or belt, rather than a holster. Most cowboys carried rifles, because guns were used as protection from wild animals. Bear, wolves, coyotes, snakes and other natural predators were far more dangerous to the cowboy. Remember, this was the untamed Wild West and the quickest draw was nature.

Gunfights usually resulted in several shots and oftentimes no one knew who won until the shooting stopped and the smoke cleared. But most of the time, the victor was determined by accuracy and not speed. This was depicted in the popular American western Gunsmoke. At the beginning of Gunsmoke, Marshall Dillon was beaten to the draw, but his opponent wasn't accurate. Many people still to this day don't realize that Dillon was beaten to the draw, and they watched the series for decades. Pay attention to the sound of the shots.

But there were a few who were fast at the draw, like Wild Bill Hickock. When you practice drawing, it isn't a trick shot, it is skill. Honor practiced that shot over and over. It wasn't a trick shot, it was skill.

Honor wasn't practiced in traditional dueling. If she had used the traditional methods of drawing, she would have lost. Plus, she stood incorrectly exposing too much of herself as a target to Summervale. On the other hand, I don't think Summervale could have simply decided to shoot from the hip. It takes much practice. He was shocked that Honor accomplished it. He was a profesional and no reason existed to learn to do that. Most of the victims he faced could hardly shoot normal, much less from the hip.

But the skill only takes practice.

kzt wrote:Wyatt Earp, who died in bed in 1929, talked about gunfighting.

Here is an interview that Wyatt Earp shares his views on “gunfighting“. This was sometime in the 1910s he offered to give an interview about his thoughts on using a gun. In his own words, Wyatt is going to explain how he became one of the most feared and accurate gunslingers… even if he was about the slowest.
The interview was originally posted on primaryandsecondary.com forum.

The most important lesson I learned from those proficient gunfighters was the winner of a gunplay usually was the man who took his time. The second was that, if I hoped to live long on the frontier, I would shun flashy trick-shooting—grandstand play—as I would poison.

“I was a fair hand with pistol, rifle, or shotgun, but I learned more about gunfighting from Tom Speer’s cronies during the summer of ’71 than I had dreamed was in the book. Those old-timers took their gunplay seriously, which was natural under the conditions in which they lived. Shooting, to them, was considerably more than aiming at a mark and pulling a trigger. Models of weapons, methods of wearing them, means of getting them into action and operating them, all to the one end of combining high speed with absolute accuracy, contributed to the frontiersman’s shooting skill.

The sought-after degree of proficiency was that which could turn to most effective account the split-second between life and death. Hours upon hours of practice, and wide experience in actualities supported their arguments over style.

When I say that I learned to take my time in a gunfight, I do not wish to be misunderstood, for the time to be taken was only that split fraction of a second that means the difference between deadly accuracy with a sixgun and a miss. It is hard to make this clear to a man who has never been in a gunfight.

Perhaps I can best describe such time taking as going into action with the greatest speed of which a man’s muscles are capable, but mentally unflustered by an urge to hurry or the need for complicated nervous and muscular actions which trick-shooting involves. Mentally deliberate, but muscularly faster than thought, is what I mean. (What Wyatt meant is that he made the decision to shoot a long time before the trigger was pulled.)

In all my life as a frontier police officer, I did not know a really proficient gunfighter who had anything but contempt for the gun-fanner, or the man who literally shot from the hip. In later years I read a great deal about this type of gunplay, supposedly employed by men noted for skill with a forty-five.

From personal experience and numerous six-gun battles which I witnessed, I can only support the opinion advanced by the men who gave me my most valuable instruction in fast and accurate shooting, which was that the gun-fanner and hip-shooter stood small chance to live against a man who, as old Jack Gallagher always put it, took his time and pulled the trigger once.
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