This enemy is sometimes referred to as "Gunner". For the enemy manning a mounted gun, see Basquez.

See also: Greeder

The Ledder (突槍射撃兵 レッダー, Shageki-hei Reddā^?, lit. "Spearhead Sniper Ledder"), also referred to as Sniper among other name variants, is a recurring enemy in the Contra series. He is a high-class infantry unit who either wields a machine gun or a sniper rifle. He is one of the most iconic enemies in the series and has appeared in almost every game that comprise it.

Description

High-class soldiers usually holding their positions and wielding either a pistol, a machine gun or a sniper rifle, Ledders are the commanders of the Greeder troops. They have appeared in pretty much every installment of the Contra series in one variation or another. Depending on the game they appear in, they can be brainwashed humans, humanoid aliens, or even robots.

They either remain on their posts in plain sight or hide in bushes in the background, and fire either a stream of bullets straightforward from their machine guns or precise shots aimed directly at the player from their sniper rifles. Certain units are encountered prone on the ground in plain sight behind improvised barricades. They are renowned for keeping post on top of Defense Walls.

Appearances

Contra: Hard Corps

These soldiers appear under the command of the now rebelled former war hero Bahamut, and behave identically to previous counterparts. A cannon type of soldier also exists at the research center, where he pulls out a cannon and fires off powerful arcing rounds at the Hard Corps. He isn't any tougher than other Ledders, though, and goes down in a few shots. Each Ledder defeated awards the player who defeated him 500 points.

A blue type of soldier is shown commanding the Gymnastics Soldier Team at the Missile base. His sprite is just a palette swap of a standard Ledder when taking damage, and he utilizes both a gun and a cannon for attacks. He takes much more hits than an average Ledder.

A special type of soldier is seen at the Space Station headquarters. These soldiers are non-violent guards meant to keep the heroes restrained. All but one possess the tan coloration of a normal Ledder's lower half while maintaining a partial blue headgear piece of the damage coloration. When escaping, their headgear returns to normal coloration. Whether this unique palette is a glitch or not is unclear.

C: The Contra Adventure

“	SNIPERS Elite soldiers trained to pick off enemies before being detected. They can use energy weapons or grenades.	„
	~ Instruction manual page 14.

Contra: Shattered Soldier

These troops are robots that resemble samurai or skeletal pilots. The standard Ledder unit is a shooter wielding a musket type rifle capable of firing off flashing red and blue bullets. These robots tend to move rather slowly in both aiming and rate of fire than in previous titles. If the player jumps over a shooter bot, it will take the bot a while to turn around and reposition themselves to commence firing once more. Some kneel behind explosive barrels as they reload their muskets. Unarmored, any weapon can eliminate them. The Fire Whip will set them on fire as they perish.

Ledder variants wear white-colored clothing while their Greeder counterparts wear blue-colored clothing. In some instances, Ledders may wear alternate clothing. Ledders are granted multiple roles aside from their normal "sniping" position. These include:

• A shielded soldier. They will slowly take a step back or forth, then stop in place and fire their pistol one or two rounds before repeating. Their shields block Heavy Machinegun fire, but not from other weapons. An easy way to eliminate these troops with the Heavy Machinegun is to simply crouch and fire, as oftentimes the bullets will pass underneath their shield and strike their vulnerable legs. These troops are just as weak as other variants without their shield to protect them. Crouching also dodges their bullet fire. It is also possible to jump over them and fire from their vulnerable backside.
• A jetpack and Heavy Machinegun armed snow soldier.
• Some Ledders will ride missiles.
• Bike rider. Ironically, the Greeder is the one that does the firing.
• Manning a heavy mortar.

Neo Contra

Humanoid soldiers that wear purple uniforms, with their heads containing three monocle devices for viewing (likely for additional sight enhancement). Their sniper rifle is capable of producing rounds at a fast rate of fire, though bullets generally travel at a fair pace. Depending on their environment, some may take cover behind barricades in a standing position, before turning the corner to fire and taking cover once more. They react to a variety of different weaponry when shot by them:

• The Machine Gun causes them to shake their bodies, being "riddled" with bullets before death.
• Fire based weapons or explosions cause them to ignite in flames.
• Heavy weapons such as missiles will cause their bodies to explode with flinging limbs.
• Any other weapon simply causes them to spin around and fall dead to the floor, with a small puddle of blood soaking out.

Other variants of the Ledder exist, such as those wielding Missile Launchers or a shielded soldier.

Contra 4

“	Dirk thought he was the luckiest alien humanoid around when he saw the job posting: good pay, benefits, free trip to Earth, stand in place, decent aim preferred. In the moments since the shirtless super-commando opened fire, he's begun questioning that decision.	„
	~ Dirk McShooter's description from Contra 4

Aside from the normal red variant, a much more durable black armored variant appears within the waterfall base and the City. On Hard Difficulty, these troops fire at close to twice the speed of normal firing along with an increase in bullet speed.

Contra ReBirth

Ledders behave generally the same as in other games. Starting in the second stage, Ledders in red appear like those seen in Contra III: The Alien Wars: some stand idle and fire in eight different directions at the player, and some run alongside Greeders, where they will stop to fire a quick round before retreating backward. Their running speed is greatly increased in higher difficulty levels. Some Ledders are now being air-lifted by Gigaflies, with the Gigaflies essentially acting as a Ledder's pair of wings. Some Ledders are also seen performing acrobatics: a group of them (or some mixed with green troops) swing on airborne missiles and can fire while swinging.

Hard Corps: Uprising

There are several types of Ledder units in this game, all working under the Commonwealth Empire. Each one will usually utter a phrase when firing.

• The normal variant appears identical to foot soldiers in appearance, but behave as previous Ledder units from past titles; these units are referred to as Private, meaning they are the lowest ranking soldiers in the empire and their actions have proven so. The gun-firing units tend to let out a phrase when firing. If a character rushes behind them, they will appear confused for a moment before readjusting to their rear guard. their bullets can easily be dodged or reflected back at them.
  • In the Capital Laboratory stage, these soldiers also behave as security guards for the first part of the stage. During the sneaking segment, they will march back and forth while occasionally stopping in place for a brief moment before facing the opposite direction. A red light from their eyes displays their field of vision. They can be bypassed stealthily by using a Cardboard Box. If they are attacked or a hero is discovered, they will activate an alarm and will fire on the heroes as per their usual behavior.
• The second type are larger soldiers carrying missile launchers, known as Heavily Armed Soldiers. They behave like Private Ledder units but possessing more health and fire missiles instead of energy bullets. Their missiles can be destroyed by weapons fire, which will add to the player's Combo Meter.
• Snipers^[9] appear within the Jungle and later inside the Capital Tower Building. They shroud themselves in a dark green cloth and adopt a prone position, standing up slightly only for aim readjustment. In the Jungle, some of these units also further conceal themselves within shrubbery, while in the Capital Tower Building, they sometimes hide behind a Shield Soldier for cover. Their gun allows them to target much more accurately than other variants. When a sniper is near, a flashing red targeting reticle will appear to home in on a character. Once the reticle has an enemy within sights, the sniper will fire a long-range magenta colored bullet straightforward. These shots are quite powerful, knocking away 4 health bars on anyone struck. This is enough to instantly kill a character unless they possess more than 4 full bars of health via upgrades. These sniper bullets can be reflected.

Contra 3D

“	A general soldier with a strengthened physique. There is a theory that the islanders captured by the Red Falcon Army were remodeled into soldiers.	„
	~ Contra 3D official profile description

Stats

• Age: ???
• Height: 185 cm
• Weight: 103 kg

Contra Returns

Ledders have two attack patterns in this game: shooting three bullets in a row or three bullets in a three-way manner. There are also a few varieties of Ledders: standard, infected and zombified.

Both Ledders and Greeders were voiced by Cole Feuchter in this game, who also provided additional voices.

Contra: Rogue Corps

Ledders are depicted as a zombie-like Fiend wearing a military uniform minus an intact shirt and fused with cybernetic technology, most notably a right-eye monocle used for accurate targeting. Their firearm possesses attributes of organic tissue on parts of the outer casing, displaying the enemy's Fiendish corruption on objects. Similar soldier-like Fiends (without cybernetics or weapon growths) were depicted in the game's motion comic, where Bill and Lance faced at least one during their first mission on the Galuga Archipelago. The resemblance is due to these minions serving the Red Falcon, making these monstrosities the "brainwashed" soldiers who once occupied Galuga. It is also possible that these zombie-like fiends on Galuga is due to a time paradox caused by the Vortex Cannon.

In the game, these units fire a variety of various weapons. Statistics name these variants as Gunman.^[10]

• Standard Gunmen aim and fire energy-like bullets, much like Ledders from past adventures. Bullets fired have a slightly slow travelling speed, can travel up to a long range before dispersing and have a seemingly minor "tracking" behavior when flying, as to attempt to hit the heroes easier. Although most remain idle, a Gunman may sometimes slowly pace back or forward to adjust their aim at the heroes. Their bullets can be comprised of any one of the four available Affinity types. Notably during Exploration Missions, some Gunman spawn by commando crawling underneath terrain.
• The Sniper is a Ledder wearing heavy cybernetics similar to the bomb launcher variant and carries a chargeable rifle with laser sight. The Sniper will take constant aim and within moments will fire a powerful bullet with precise aim and deadly power. It is important to keep constant move as to avoid this powerful energy draining bullet, unless one can take them out quickly. Snipers are easily vulnerable to the player's attacks and when damaged by anything, a Sniper flinches, causing him to lose focus and reset his aim. Despite this weakness, Snipers possess sturdy amounts of Health. Some Snipers are positioned in out of reach posts.
• A soldier wearing further cybernetic armor fires off grenade rounds. These bombs take a few moments to explode.
• The same Heavily Armed Soldier may wear a Jetpack and fire off grenade rounds that explode immediately upon contact.
• A soldier may wear signaling equipment and carry a backpack gear that fires off guided missile. This soldier also equips itself with a sturdy digital shield.

Contra: Operation Galuga

Resembles Dirk McShooter from Contra 4 and is virtually identical. Bullets fired are a black object with blue/white flaming energy. Some Ledders also hide behind rocks and terrain for cover, exposing themselves when ready to retaliate fire. If a Ledder is not automatically spawned in an idle position, a Ledder will instead spawn running a short distance ahead and then positioning himself on the ground before commencing with his usual firing behavior. Ledders are worth 100 points while sandbag Ledders are worth 200 points each.

Quotes

Hard Corps: Uprising

Private

• "You're dead!"
• File:Uprising Private fire (go to hell).ogg "Go to hell!"
• Defeated 1
• File:Uprising Private death 2.ogg Defeated 2
• File:Uprising Private death 3.ogg Defeated 3

Heavily Armed Soldier

• "Go to hell."

Sniper

• File:Uprising Sniper 2 bring it on.ogg "Bring it on."
• "Perfect."
• "In my sight."
• "Yeah! Got 'em!"
• "Too slow."
• "Take this."
• "Fire."
• Defeated 1
• File:Uprising Sniper 2 dead 2.ogg Defeated 2

Appearances in other media

• Warera Hobby's Famicom Seminar: A Ledder makes a cameo in Chapter 26 of issue 2.
• Rock'n Game Boy: A Ledder makes an appearance in issue 3.

Gallery

Screenshots

Sprites and models

Artworks

Other

Trivia

• In Probotector (NES), these soldiers have been modified to look like robotic enemies wielding a buster cannon arm.
• In Probotector II, these enemies appear as robots wielding buster cannon arms similar to their previous appearance, while the prone positioned variant was changed to resemble a stationary turret. The Machine Gun Soldier's artwork in the European instruction manual also has the soldier changed from a human to a humanoid alien-looking creature.
• The Contra: Hard Corps variant resembles the soldiers from the 1990 science fiction/action film Total Recall.^[11]
• In Probotector (MD), these enemies have been modified to include a more 'metallic' body with a single red eye (or visor).
• In Uprising, a soldier's multiple death sounds are used as an example voice when adjusting the Voice setting in the Options menu.

See also

• Greeder
• Rangel
• Red Falcon Lieutenant

References