Basic Trope: There is no such thing as too many bullets.
- Straight: Instead of using a pistol, use a Squad Automatic Weapon.
- Exaggerated:
- Instead of using a pistol, use an automatic shotgun to fill the air with lead. Ten for the price of one!
- Instead of using a pistol, use a minigun.
- Instead of using a gun, fly a Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II.
- Downplayed: Use an SMG.
- Justified:
- The enemies have thick armor that has to be punched through.
- The Big Bad has a Healing Factor which can only be disabled by overloading his body with a great many injuries in an extremely short period of time. Cue 30 headshots at 650 Rounds Per Minute.
- The shooters are keeping the enemy pinned under Bullet Hell.
- You absolutely, positively got to kill every motherfucker in the room.
- The target is moving too fast to properly aim at so spraying bullets in its general direction is the viable option.
- You have a Zerg Rush breathing down your neck.
- You are in the sights of a well-hidden sniper, and you have no other way to drive them out of their nest except for an Alpha Strike.
- The enemy can Dodge the Bullet. Unfortunately, the enemy can't dodge 30.
- Inverted:
- The best strategy is a single, well-placed shot. The best weapon is not determined by rate-of-fire, but by accuracy... Resulting in sniper rifles with a ridiculous amount of stabilizing gear and a scope that resembles nothing so much as the Hubble Space Telescope.
- The best strategy is a single REALLY powerful shot that can punch through a planet but takes a long time to reload.
- The best strategy is using as little ammunition as possible to neutralize threats.
- Subverted: The Hero sets aside the FN MAG and picks up a pistol, because he's only aiming at one mook.
- Double Subverted: ...but then grabs the FN MAG when the other 20 mooks show up.
- Parodied: Two words: Miniguns Akimbo.
- Zig Zagged:
- Averted: The bullets are as proportional as the enemies encountered.
- Enforced: It's an obviously over-the-top (maybe even parodic) action movie, of course there's going to be More Dakka.
- Lampshaded: After the shooting stops, The Dragon points out that it really wasn't necessary to use that much firepower.
- Invoked: A minigun is the only gun they have at their disposal.
- Exploited:
- A horde of mooks tried to rush the heroes and trap them in as the heroes are escaping from the Big Bad's Collapsing Lair, The Big Guy returns fire with his trusty Minigun. No more mooks.
- Turns out that the Fragile Speedster assassin have some problems dodging all those bullets when there's dozens in the air from multiple directions and hundreds more on the way
- Defied: Soldiers are given strict orders to use a minimum amount of firepower.
- Discussed: In training, the soldiers are told repeatedly "You aren't Rambo, so don't act like him!"
- Conversed: "If real soldiers did that, they'd end up in jail."
- Implied: The heroes cross an empty battlefield littered with spent cartridges and bullet-riddled corpses.
- Deconstructed:
- Excessive firepower results in the death of allies and innocent bystanders.
- An army's overuse of dakka quickly causes supply problems.
- The hero's minigun spits out thousands of bullets a second, resulting in him running completely out of ammo in less than a minute, resulting in him up to his armpits in spent shells and leaving him wide open for the more conservative riflemen he's facing down.
- Recoil sends the hero flying across the room, and he breaks his neck when he hits the wall.
- Reconstructed:
- Advanced targeting systems in the automated turrets ensure that only designated villains are targeted.
- The army's enemies end up rapidly capitulating because of the sheer terror of getting shot at by them, though.
- Because the minigun shoots so many bullets no enemies are left alive when the hero runs out of ammo.
- The high-tech minigun has some kind of recoil dampening system.
- Plotted A Good Waste: Both sides of the conflict use excessive amount of firepower to make a point about the horrors of war.
- Played For Laughs: More dakka is used....while hunting rabbits.
- Played For Drama: Excessive firepower is used by the mooks to give a greater sense of danger for the hero.
- Played For Horror: Goes without saying, seeing the results of one man being shot three hundred times is not pretty.
- Punned: More Draka! Wait, what?
SUPPRESSIVE FIRE! DAKKA DAKKA DAKKA DAKKA