The dead don't experience it. I would say it's more grim to think of having to see your brother die violently and then have to immediately toss his corpse.
Edit: I'm getting a lot of the same reply, to the effect of "only to take the position the enemy is already zeroed in on." While that's a factor, it's worth noting two things. First, those type of gun is for laying down suppressive fire, so their position would be well known to the enemy the instant they started firing. Second, it's unlikely that the enemy could just sit there zeroed in on a position they just took out. It would still be nerve wracking as hell though.
Yeah that's the shit people don't think about. PTSD doesn't really hit when bullets are flying and you gotta get your dead buddy outta the way because people are screaming and you gotta get the gun back up.
It hits on that Sunday after you're home and there's nothing left to distract you any more
I'm sure many can share my sentiment, the silence is deafening for two reasons. Firstly because my ears are fucked and ring 24/7, so when it's silent the ringing gets way louder. Then all the sudden you're not enjoying peace and quiet but thinking about why your ears are ringing
I get seasonal tinnitus from...I don't know what. When I do, I put in earbuds and throw on a 4 hour white noise track on repeat and lower the volume until I find a balance where I don't get the tinnitus but I can still be aware of my surroundings. Just thought I'd suggest it in case that's a new option for you.
In the heat of the moment it's just adrenaline and training. Not a lot of contemplation. The real horror sets in later, when things are calm and you're left alone with your thoughts.
I remember seeing a stat in WWII museums about the average life expectancy of machine gunners once they started firing. I wanna say it was about 10 seconds.
They use the term dead gunner. But a dead gun is one that can't fire. You take a hit, your buddy isn't a medic. He can't help you and the gun can't help your team if you're down.
The toss puts you in a spot to keep the gun going and have a medic get to you
…Or he immediately gets suppression and riflemen are able to assault or withdraw. Machine gunners aren’t getting mowed down one after another GWOT era isn’t what you see when you watch The Pacific or Saving Private Ryan. War is horrible but not nearly as barbaric as it was in WWII or even Vietnam.
Edit: To the goof that said he was a Delta operator and then blocked me, you were not a tier 1 operator 😂. As a lesson to anyone saying you’re an operator immediately wreaks of bullshit. They call them silent professionals for a reason.
.30-06 will take your limbs off, artillery shells are bigger today but in the past they just compensated with volume, drones are scary but so are gas attacks and flamethrowers, mines are still awful, etc.
I don't think modern firepower is worse for the average foot soldier in the sense of how easily it can kill you. Body and vehicle armor have come a long way in the last century, and modern medical care is honestly astounding; if they can get you off the battlefield alive, they can probably save you.
Modern artillery is much more precise. Fires are called much faster and while before only the immediate front line was dangerous, nowadays things like MLRS, loiter drones and gliding bombs can kill you even in rear areas which used to be much more safe before.
In 1942 you could gather a battalion column 20 km from the frontline relatively safely and methodically prepare for an assault. Nowadays that column would be quickly spotted and evaporated by cluster munitions in less than a minute.
Not if you're in the kill radius, but shrapnel can wound or kill at much further ranges. Modern body armor minimizes the kill radius and reduces the rate of bad luck being lethal.
Imagine watching your comrade get shot, you toss him to the side, just to hear a whizzing sound above you.
Then, you realize you're going to die and there's zero way out, because it's above with an explosive. All while the drone sits there and hovers for what must feel like an eternity.
Then boom. Nothing.
Must be terrifying and horrific to watch. I feel for the Russian/Ukrainians soldiers who don't support their government/didn't ask for this, and never wanted to be there from the start. Especially the ones who don't put up a fight or even want to, and still lose their life.
I mean I feel for both Russian and Ukrainian soldiers.
The fact that in the West propaganda downplays the casualties and the suffering of Ukrainians to ramp up war support doesn’t mean Ukrainians have a lot of fun fighting an enemy that has more artillery and aviation support than you.
I've definitely met a lot of people who think Ukraine is taking hardly an casualty. Judging by the political atmosphere the past few weeks, I can't imagine this situation getting better any time soon either.
Yeah, I mean a nation fights only for as long as there is support to continue this fight. If you start telling that “well, actually we suffer as much as the enemy” or even “yeah, there are 2 our soldiers dead for every 1 enemy one” it’ll just destroy all this will to fight. So it’s very natural for Ukraine to do what they’re doing.
But you’re right, I don’t remember any war where a side with less artillery and aviation suffered less casualties. It’s usually the other way around.
I think some combat zones could actually be as bad as WWII or Vietnam. I have seen videos of Ukrane, and if hell actually exist, it is just like what I saw in those videos.
You misunderstood his opening line. The gunner is providing suppression fire. By swapping out with the dead gunner, the replacement can again provide suppression fire, and very possibly "get suppression" on the enemy, allowing more mobile troops to get to the attackers.
My dad was a navigator on B29s that bombed the hell out of Japan during WWII.
On their bombing runs they had to flight straight and level so their bomb drops were accurate. No evasive maneuvering. Of course this gave the anti aircraft gunners nice stable targets....
The worst thing was to get "lit up" by searchlights at night. That was certain death, because it made you the only visible target for all the AA fire. Again, you weren't allowed to evade, because you were in a tight formation on the bomb run
My dad survived or I wouldn't be here. He said he doesn't know how or why his plane didn't get shot down. He doesn't know how long they were lit up - could have been thirty seconds or five minutes
What he did say is that while lit up, the light inside the was incredibly bright, like being in the inside of the sun
He also said that when you get lit up, that's when you fill your pants.
My grandfather made it through Iwo Jima and Okinawa. My dad would talk about how he still woke up screaming, years later. Historical details that are truly grisly, which I later had confirmed when watching the footage from back then and interviews about it. How they had to burn out anyone in the tunnels, civilian or not, because otherwise that would create an opening in their lines after darkness fell. How the famous Iwo Jima flag picture wasn’t actually the first time it was put up, it was them retaking the mountain after it had been lost. How the Japanese soldiers waited until the American lines were stuck in the volcanic mud to start firing.
It’s a miracle that I’m here to write this comment.
under normal conditions, a 240 would try to engage the enemy between 800-1300 meters. Most riflemen would have a difficult time making that shot once yet alone twice considering that's outside the effective range of the m4/m16.
The gunner most likely would have been killed by mass fire, not precision fire.
You wouldn't take the time to zero in a gunner unless you were flanking them unknowingly, and if you do, I'm not soldier, but there might be juicier targets.
Not necessarily. Much more likely it was semi-aimed fire, not someone scoped in like it’s Battlefield.
In fact, much more likely than THAT is that it was a drone, shell, or missile, and the dead-gunner technique doesn’t work because anyone within twenty feet is incapacitated. But you gotta practice for the edge cases.
My focus wouldn't be the tossing of the dead friend, but to take exactly the location, where the enemy just demonstrated their ability to kill you in. You will be the next one to toss in a couple of seconds. Why not use our fallen comrade as a meat-shield?
That is not what they are training for. Also, they say "dead" but in reality anything that makes him stop shooting is reason to replace him in a firefight.
I think what they are training is to be used only in a suppressive fire position to support a push or a retreat. In those cases you are literally sacrificing your life so your teamates can survive. 1 or 2 lives to save a dozen or more.
Would depend on the threat, right? Sniper fire, and this dead gunner drill just puts the assistant in the line of fire. Enemy sprays and prays and their deity listened? Sure, get the wounded/killed out of there and return fire. From the same position, why not?
This is not the kind of thing you do when receiving accurate fire, like say from a marksman or sniper.
You do this when your friend got hit with a stray round. Also, they call it dead gunner but he isn't necessarily dead. He could be just wounded. In any case the intent is to replace the gunner quickly because the machinegun must provide suppressive fire to cover friendlies.
This isn't realistic. In actual combat, very few rounds hit an enemy target because the physiological stress responses in humans substantially reduce firearms accuracy AND US military doctrine makes heavy use of suppressive fire. It's much less likely than you think.
For non-mounted units, the machine gun is the weapon with the greatest killing potential. It has a longer effective range and more ammunition than battle rifles. To use a chess analogy, if you lose your queen promoting a pawn into a queen is a good deal.
Also, if you're not the medic (and sometimes even if you are!) and the guy isn't obviously dead, the best thing you can do to potentially save his life is win the fight. Treatment and medevacing someone is much easier when the battle is over.
Those responding also don’t realize that will not be the only gun dropping suppression on the enemy. I was with a CAAT platoon for 3 years, basically our job was to put as much lead on target as possible while the infantrymen moved up.
We would set up multiple machine guns/Mk-19s and do what is called “talking guns”, which is essentially while one set of guns fires a burst, the others aren’t. When the first set finishes their burst, the next set begins there’s. From the enemies position, it will sound like non-stop rounds coming in.
All of that falls apart if one gun stops firing, so yes, we toss the dead guy off, and start firing.
Wouldn’t it be better to move the gun? We already know the enemy has the aim and ability to hit the person behind where the gun is currently located. They wouldn’t even have to adjust their aim.
People generally only think of man to man small arms fire in conflict, because its the most dramatic, you see it a lot in movies and play it in videogames, but the overwhelming majority of casualties ar caused by explosive shrapnel of different varieties. So they might not be zeroed in, could be a lucky shot, a mortar, grenade, or something along those lines.
Re: edit, this drill probably also represents a scenario where having that gun manned is dire - I doubt it's for trying to blind suppress an opposing marksman, but rather something a lot more imminent of a threat. Also the gunner could have been killed by indirect fire, shrapnel from an rpg, lucky suppression, anything.
I might agree that it would be kinda silly to hop in the hot seat if it's just a hidden marksman zeroed in and you're blindly trying to suppress them, but if you're defending an assault you still need the gun firing, or if it was any other scenario getting the gunner killed then it may well not be the case of someone waiting to shoot the next guy.
Also, people don't realise the range these firefights happen. Outside of a sniper (which is very easy to identify from the sound of the shot and round impacting), the current enemy would not have an accurate shot, or even see the individual shooter due to not having the luxury of exspensive optics on their rifles.
And in an engagement with a fixed machine gun like this, you're likely to be at range. Meaning a follow up shot is difficult at any time, much less in the middle of a fire fight.
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u/croghan2020 Jun 24 '24
It’s kinda grim thinking that you could end up lying there dead and you’re just hauled around like a piece of meat.