If you remember the movie Aliens – and if you read this blog, it’s a safe bet you do – one of the sci-fi elements you’ll recall is that all the soldiers had little video cameras on their helmets. In the mid 1980’s, this was of course a bit fanciful… any decent video camera would weigh several *pounds.* But those days are over; cameras you can mount to a helmet are now *smaller* than the ones in Aliens. And as it turns out, American soldiers & Marines are, in fact, going into combat with helmet cams.
Note: these are actual fighting men in actual combat. That means there’s some NSFW language. So if you’re at the office, crank it up, man!
A firefight with danger-close support from A-10s. The A-10 opening up with that monster GAU-8A gatling gun adds a certain special something to the proceedings.
[youtube llEWrL9ghyg]
In this one, the solider gets shot. The description says that the round didn’t penetrate his body armor… another feature that Aliens got right, and that American soldiers in prior wars might have done well to have had.
[youtube rLHU-_OhT8g]
A firefight from the viewpoint of a machinegunner. You can occasionally also hear one of his buddies light lighting the Taliban up with a shotgun… kind of the quintessential American combat firearm. Note that, as in many/most firefights in reality (rather than Hollywood), the bulk of the firing is suppressive firing… shooting not at individual enemies, but just in their general direction to make them keep their heads down. That’s why it takes tens and even hundreds of thousands of rounds, statistically, to kill a single enemy.
[youtube uZ2SWWDt8Wg]
[youtube 4_GZzjFyeaM]
And a firefight in what sure looks like a giant patch of weed (with the ultimate combat commentary at about the 0:40 mark):
[youtube yRPCNUzkqXk]