History Main / SnipingTheCockpit

* In the ''ComicBook/{{Commando}}'' story "Crackshot Craig", the eponymous Craig is an ex-SAS marksman who gets caught up in a civil war in an unnamed South American country. When the rebel stronghold is attacked by government forces, Craig manages to shoot down a light-attack aircraft by killing the pilot with an antique Lee-Enfield rifle.

* ''Videogame/SniperElite3'' and ''Videogame/SniperElite4'' allow you to do this to any vehicle that you come across. Realism comes into play when considering armored vehicles, most of which have multiple occupants: take out the driver and it can't move, but it will still shoot at you. Take out the main gunner, and the coaxial machine gunner will still be able to shoot you. Taking out the occupants without destroying the vehicle allows you to covertly disable a nuisance: no one will know that the tank is full of dead bodies, and it won't explode to let everyone know you're there.

* Inverted in ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamSEED'': the TechnicalPacifist Kira eventually trains himself to render any HumongousMecha inoperable without any damage to the cockpit.

* Discussed in one between-mission cutscene in ''VideoGame/GhostRecon: Future Soldier'', where two members of the squad overhear Navy men in the messdeck talking about a sniper who shot down an enemy gunship by nailing the pilot through the canopy with one shot and promptly destroyed everything else under it when it came crashing down. Said squad members then imply that at least one of them (the sniper of the group) was there and responsible for that, with one noting that he remembers the "one shot" [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome being with an RPG rather than a sniper rifle]]; they choose not to correct the story because "[[RuleOfCool their version's better]]".

* In the ''Videogame/MechWarrior'' series, destroying the cockpit of a battlemech is one of the fastest ways to take it out of action, but hitting the tiny, bouncing target requires extreme precision. Even if the mech comes to a complete stop and is standing still, you will still have a lot of trouble trying to aim for the cockpit since HitboxDissonance seems to plague every iteration of the series due to the game developers inconsistent handling of whatever engine the game is utilizing, therefore frustratingly subverting both this trope and BoomHeadshot as if to give players more headaches. In the ''Mercenaries'' series of {{Expansion Pack}}s and in ''Videogame/MechCommander'', taking out a mech by killing the pilot is a great way to make the most money off of battlefield salvage - a blown out cockpit is far cheaper to replace than a damaged reactor - and allows you to [[DiscOneNuke get heavy or assault mechs very early in the game]]. In ''Mechwarrior Living Legends'', killing the pilot opens it up the mech for a friendly PoweredArmor player to steal and return to base for repairs or salvaging.

* In the ''Videogame/MechWarrior'' series, destroying the cockpit of a battlemech is one of the fastest ways to take it out of action, but hitting the tiny, bouncing target requires extreme precision. In the ''Mercenaries'' series of {{Expansion Pack}}s and in ''Videogame/MechCommander'', taking out a mech by killing the pilot is a great way to make the most money off of battlefield salvage - a blown out cockpit is far cheaper to replace than a damaged reactor - and allows you to [[DiscOneNuke get heavy or assault mechs very early in the game]]. In ''Mechwarrior Living Legends'', killing the pilot opens it up the mech for a friendly PoweredArmor player to steal and return to base for repairs or salvaging.