American Sniper

IIRC the "Apache" was made up for the book, sorta like Mustafa was made up for American Sniper. The NVA general is one of the kill claims that a lot of people are questioning.

I suppose its even easier for people to make stuff up when you're fighting an insurgency who will leave no records or casualty lists. Otto Carius, who just died, claimed to have shot down a Russian fighter with his tank's main gun - but it seems this is confirmed by 502 s.PzAbt's war diary. Not sure if anyone's checked the Russian records though.

Surely the easiest thing to do would be to find the name of the highest-ranked Vietnamese officers killed during the war. I suspect that would be publicly available by now.

It's relative even if you believe all the worst things ever said about Moore, because none of those things are "He enjoyed killing people and would have liked to be allowed to kill people who carried a particular book."

Here's what I thought it meant when I heard it. Maybe he meant something different, but this is how I took it...

I figured he was saying "Snipers are guys who sit in a safe place away from the center of the fighting. They don't put themselves at risk in the same way other soldiers do. Their job is to pick out a target who is incapable of shooting back because that target is too far away, and then figure out how to put a bullet in that target, and do so, resulting in the death of another human being. And I think that's cowardly, to kill people who can't fight back."

Now, I will grant you that it's more complicated than that. I personally don't think that snipers (based, admittedly, on an incomplete knowledge of what all goes into their job) have a very dangerous job compared to people on the front lines of a battle. That being said, war is very rarely a fair fight, and a sniper doing her job may save the lives of people who actually are putting themselves at risk on the front lines, or the lives of civilians (e.g., police snipers taking out a hostage taker), so to say or imply that they can never do anything good would be going a bit far IMO. That isn't actually something Moore said, although he does seem to have a low opinion of them (which, again just IMO, probably stems from the way his uncle died).

@Willbyr: I may check that out, thank you. You know, the name seems kind of familiar—would this by any chance be the same guy that inspired a particular Myth Busters test? Specifically, "Can a sniper shoot and kill another sniper by putting a bullet right through the scope of the other guy's rifle and into his eye, as allegedly happened during the Vietnam War?"

Lastly, at the risk of Complaining About Shows You Don't Watch, I found an L.A. Times article earlier on. Please tell me if I should stop linking to this stuff and if it belongs in OTC, by the way, and I will. (If it does then I'll just not talk about this stuff at all. I tried OTC once. It wasn't a lot of fun.)

edited 30th Jan '15 7:33:25 PM by KilgoreTrout

Yup, Hathcock's the guy who inspired the testing of that. He admitted himself it was a complete fluke, and if he had shot half a second later he'd be dead.

The "snipers are cowards" view doesn't interest me, half because that's all anyone hears playing any multiplayer FPS shooter. The other half is because war stopped being about fair fights the day they invented long range weapons. If it was ever about fairness to begin with. You might as well say "people in tanks are cowards because they're behind tons of bulletproof metal" or "people with guns are cowards because they won't use swords like real men", etc.

edited 30th Jan '15 7:40:41 PM by Tuckerscreator

I believe there's a quote by Robert E. Lee about the fact that it's good when war is unpleasant, because otherwise we'd all grow fond of it.

Several of my uncles are either army officers or trained policemen. Another uncle is former SWAT. I have personally fired a sniper rifle before, and have talked with said family members about it before the movie came out.

The thing about sniper rifles is that they potentially have a long range. However, if you want a good shot and any semblance of accuracy, you're going to need to get a lot closer. While you may not be in the middle of the firefight, you will be deep in enemy territory, with the most help being another soldier serving as your spotter.

And I say "semblance" of accuracy because it's hard as shit. There's a very specific spot you have to look down the scope or else you see pitch black. That's part of why you have a spotter: so that you can keep your eye on the scope. Wind, recoil, and your physical ability to keep the rifle steady all fuck with your accuracy, and you only want to fire a few rounds because the barrel heats up real quick, and once that happens your accuracy gets worse. And they know you're there once you fire that first shot, because that shit is loud.

Now, I haven't seen the movie or read the book. I'm not trying to say anything about whatever kind of person Kyle is. I'm just giving a bit of personal experience on the matter.

This is the best I've read on the thing so far.

Say what you will about Max Boot (and there is much to be said. I recall reading some of his dreck about potential American intervention in Syria once), but that is one Awesome McCoolname

Meh, 5/10.

Unfortunately, while people who have actually been in combat could probably tell you in great detail how unpleasant war is, it's still been romanticized a lot. At the least, you have potential recruits being told "You'll make a positive difference in the world, and you'll be doing a good thing for your country, etc." When, no, not necessarily. You don't know beforehand what your orders are going to be and whether or not you're going to wind up killing people or crippling people who don't deserve it. Not because you want to do that, mind, but it may be the result of a misunderstanding. It may be collateral damage in what turns out to be a wholly avoidable conflict. Who knows?

Plus, with drones being used more and more in lieu of actual troops, war is becoming much less unpleasant for the people with the drones. Which, yeah, is probably gonna make them less reluctant to go to war in the future—or engage in a "police action", or whatever they want to call it.

Some of that I didn't know, but I did know that being a sniper is a hell of a lot more difficult than "Look through the scope, point and shoot." After I heard how many variables they have to adjust for, it's still amazing to me that they can hit anything even with a spotter.

edited 31st Jan '15 4:31:57 PM by KilgoreTrout

Another Iraq veteran's viewpoint. In a way it both agrees that not just one story about the war should be told, but also disagrees with the story the film tells.

@The Space Jawa: the problem is, we very much glorify and sanitize wars for public consumption. Its why so much of the american public is so gung-ho about soldiers being superhero figures.

I think we're long overdue for another Apocalypse Now or Full Metal Jacket.

It's called Spec Ops: The Line

Which was a masterpiece but I still think a movie would reach the general public a bit more.

I think honestly a lot of the problem is people tend to segregate themselves to media based on their opinions to begin with. People who want glorified war heroes hated spec ops, and hate movies that dont portray the troops glowingly, and people who want those portrayeals are probably npot interested in war movies anyhow.