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 Totalwar1402 wrote:
Why didn't he let him take the shot at the end? The guy could clearly see it meant a lot to those two guys, the Iraqis were going to die in about five seconds, they could hardly have fled in time and his superior officer had given the go-ahead for the shot. Would somebody really be that much of a ****; for no reason other than "I don't like premadonna snipers"? It did feel slightly false. I mean really, went through all that and then he shows up wanting to jack off to explosions? I just wouldn't have listened to him. Hes obviously not fit for command behaving like that. Such an annoying moment.

Officers really shouldn't grant the requests of their soldiers because it seems like it means a lot to them.

Anyhow, point is in the metaphor. The guy is highly trained, and very capable in his job. And finally he'll get the pay off of doing his job by making the shot. Except he isn't needed, his skill has been rendered useless by modern technology.


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 Samus_aran115 wrote:
It was an alright movie, but the plot was garbage. It's like they were thinking of a way to make the most ironically boring and introspective movie possible. Without the soundtrack, a lot of the movie's sheen is taken away also.

The feth? The movie is about a wasted life. It's exactly as introspective as it needs to be.

It was advertised to be something else, but that's the fault of producers panicking at having spent a lot of money on an introspective film about a guy training intensely for a job that wasn't needed, and for a public that saw the ads and thought 'war movies are sweet, I will just believe this ad and read nothing about the actual content of this movie'.

I mean, it isn't a great movie, but that complaint is kind of odd.


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 Totalwar1402 wrote:
Even the docummentaries make the conflict out to be overkill, like using a sledgehammer to crack open a wallnut. it just seems bizarre that military planners wouldn't have had an inkling that a T-72 was no match for an Abrams or a MIG against an F-16; hadn't they seen what Western equipment did to Soviet junk in the Israeli-Arab wars when the difference was less stark?

Militaries overstate the quality and quantity of potential enemies, constantly, and often by an order of magnitude.

In part this is because people rarely err on the side of making their job less important - the guy running the manufacturing teams thinks the most important future investments are in his plant, and the guy running the sales team thinks the most important future investment is opening up that new sales office. Similarly, the army thinks the most pressing need for future spending is to beat whoever, and that means letting themselves believe that their enemies really are all that. Never wonder why military spending didn't by about the same amount as Russia's following the Cold War?

And it's in part because an army that figures what they're doing is good enough because their enemies are limited is kind of dangerous culture to have in an army. Read about the Fall of Singapore sometime, and it will become clear that if you're going to make a mistake in assessing your enemy, better to err on the side of thinking he's better than he is.


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 KalashnikovMarine wrote:
For similar gak war movies, ask any EOD technician about The Hurt Locker, and prepare to shut up and listen for a good hour till he's done venting. Still can't believe that thing was in contention for/won Oscars and was touted for "realism"

The Hurt Locker was the best run Oscar's campaign since Crash.

They had the genius idea of using the divorce of Katherine Bigelow from James Cameron to put their movie up against the big box office hit of the year, basically removing any of the other eight movies from contention. Now that it was a two horse race, of course the smaller budget movie, 'underdog' movie was going to win, even when it was a pretty crappy movie (great performances, and rightfully made Jeremy Renner a star, but the script was absolute drivel).

Watching the Oscars that year I knew the fix was in when The Hurt Locker beat Inglorious Basterds for Best Original Screenplay.

Main goal of Shwarzkopf plan was to totaly crushed the offensive capabilities of the Iraqi units. Hence the 101st and 82nd on the left flank of the MLR swept wide and to the right to capture/contain Iraqi armored and infantry divisions (light infantry with massive lift capability. In fact the 101st made the deepest penetration into Iraq soil to block all routes out. in their area of operations.) The "Highway of Death" was the main highway coming out of Kuwait City that was hammered repeatedly catching multiple Iraqi units trying to get out of the city. By day one I believe there was one offensive of Iraqi armored brigade through the oil fields they blew but was slammed by Apaches and A10's. Day two the Iraqi Army was incapable of launching any coordinated assualt at the US/ally forces as they pushed forward towards the Iraqi border.

Was 20 at the time and was stop loss in South Korea when it went down....dang you all...had to think back on 20+ yrs on that snippet of info. Also since Iraq was pretty much running 2nd generation russian military equipment and arms the russians were quick to point out it'll be different if it was soviet units. Which I do believe it would have been a bit more hard fought if the russians played the same deployment. Actually it'll been a whole new scenario because the russians would not have stopped at Saudi border.....

Think I went way of topic......

No high ranking officer from another unit is going to know where a sniper team is located and arrived to call off the shot. Thats pure Hollywood drama


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As I've told other. The Hurt Locker is probaly the best in making one feel what it is like under pressure from over there. As for EoD disarming a IED with a multitool...BS.....the small battery you saw get dropped in the movie...now thats true..a dead battery has enough juice still in it to detonate a IED.

mattyrm wrote:

Queue the "HUZZAH!" from us, which he found terribly amusing, because we don't t tend to do that ooorah-hooah gak that you lot like so much.

You guys yell "Huzzah"? hehe, that sounds cool. Almost aristocratic. Certainly better than "Hooyah", which the Navy uses.

Also, Seb, I'm just kind of imagining they could have embellished it a bit. Anyone who reads it knows that it's a god-awful book, and if they really HAD to make a movie out of it, couldn't they spice it up a bit? The story is one thing, but they made no attempts to make it acceptable for the audience. I mean, really, Full Metal Jacket isn't terribly interesting, on story alone. It's the little juicy side things, and the characters that make it great.

 Samus_aran115 wrote:

mattyrm wrote:

Queue the "HUZZAH!" from us, which he found terribly amusing, because we don't t tend to do that ooorah-hooah gak that you lot like so much.

You guys yell "Huzzah"? hehe, that sounds cool. Almost aristocratic. Certainly better that "Hooyah", which the Navy uses.

They are related. At least throught the Civil War Huzzah was the cheer of the US Forces.

An American sailor reportedly exclaimed "Huzzah! her sides are made of iron!"