Soldiers, What Is Combat Really Like? (Reddit Stories r/AskReddit)

serious redditors who have experience in military combat what things depicted in action movies and games are not true in real life nothing I've seen in movies is like the combat I experienced except one thing the first 20 minutes off Saving Private Ryan gets one thing right bullet noise not the shot a bullet passing close by it has weight like a piece of incredibly long thin rebar just appearing out of nowhere right beside you gets your undivided attention Frick the guy who got that right drove me right out of the theater the temporary shell-shocked parts were good too from a sound perspective except for the fact that in the movie they were temporary I roll everything sounds like you have saran wrap over your ears death isn't always a quick process it can take more time than the length of any movie out there combat medic here unfortunately I can confirm this to be true currently in the Royal Air Force mainly the thing they for obvious reasons leave out in the movies is the sheer length of time you could be coming under contact for I've spoken to a lot of regiment guys who have been on tours to Iraq and Afghan for around two five years of their life and coming under contact with the enemy can be seriously psychologically demanding you could be having to wait out oncoming mortar fire for hours on end literally non-stop shells that can be metres away from you and all you can really do is take cover and keep your body to the floor behind shelter in a bunker crap is not fun same sort of thing with firefights really I was in Armored Core and I was going to say something along those lines the amount of time spent sitting in cover is beyond exhausting that is a direct order no crap all orders are frickin direct orders there was never a dynamic where my leadership had to tell me they were serious cick wit playing lol none of Hollywood is true in real life military combat is boring monotonous mixed with seconds of adrenaline your weapons Jam your hungry tired and sleepy the gear is heavy and burdensome it looks cool on television but it's fake source USMC veteran war is 99% bored 1% sheer terror I used to live with an Army Ranger who described being in combat as absolutely terrifying but only afterwards in the heat of combat he would default to his training but only realize how freaked up and scary things were after it was all over he also said he was cold and hungry a lot and he would have paid 1 million dollars for a slice of cherry pie the enemy doesn't always just die I've seen enemy combatants take more damage than you could possible imagine and keep going I've seen them pass out on the field and wake back up to fight some more magazine changes whilst moving are freakin tricky well if you want to keep the empty one anyway nobody in movies seems concerned with keeping them when contact is made combatants from both sides fire a ton of ammunition and don't hit very much a wounded soldier is a subjective term I've seen a soldier with nine gunshot wounds be fully conscious and smoking a cigarette I've seen a soldier with a very minor shoulder wound go into shock and nearly die most of the soldiers who appear very tough and talk about wanting to be in combat all the time don't do very well in an actual combat situation the clear thinkers are usually the quiet guys female soldiers can be a force to be reckoned with a lot of soldiers are actually hesitant to engage the enemy when it actually comes time to fire on enemy combatants there's still something there inside of us that has to be overridden in spite of the training and the situation one of the most difficult things about being in a combat situation is that you can't hear a goddamn thing no one is wearing hearing protection and your ears are ringing like crazy communication can be very difficult noise firing handguns and firearms inside is really quite distressing on the ears the number of actions movies where it's no big deal and they fire round after round without flinching in a confined space as pretty and realistic as in our 64 D Apache helicopter crew chief the entirety of the Nicholas Cage movie Firebirds I feel like Neil deGrasse Tyson watching gravity when I see that flick I don't think anyone can point out anything occur it's about Firebirds other than those are indeed helicopters in the most intense battle it can be total chaos the only thing that gives an edge is the constant practice of contact drills et Cie and your initial training and general day-to-day squad section platoon and company training communication is one of the most effective winners of a battle whether it's sign radio or sheer brute voice though often the latter doesn't work except to get some attention from an enemy rifleman gunshot sunt constant they are intermittent and the most random peaceful things will occur smack bang in the middle of a battle like being offered a cup of tea most grenades don't go up in a fireball you really have to tinker with cars to make then blow up weapons jammed reasonably frequently though if you clean to the right environmental conditions you'll usually be fine initiative and smallest angles of fire will often her bigger outcomes than you originally thought most battles occur over significant distance 300 800 meters urban warfare is usually incredibly slow and then amazingly fast this is obviously subject to numerous variables if you are shot most people don't notice in the initial milliseconds following and most of the toughest guys are the ones who mentally process stuff well there can be a significant amount of downtime but that's to compensate for the full of moments despite all the training science shows that only less than 20% of soldiers will actually fire directly into another combatant and less that combatant is directly threatening they're more a friend I found the HBO series Generation Kill to be the most accurate portrayal of noir I did two tours both year-long in Iraq agreed it's the perfect balance of [ __ ] around during firefights and getting crap done along with the platoon dynamics and individual characters there are no back-to-back headshots and people don't die right away during initial contact you want to gain fire superiority you don't have to kill the guy just get their heads down so you can't move to cover or flank also it is very loud ie we got in a firefight inside a building and I couldn't even hear the guy next to me shouting out orders my ears rang for two weeks after it can also be a lot of boredom sitting on guard for hours at a time staring at the same area for days weeks even months grenades don't cause huge balls of fire when they explode cos don't blow up anything like in movies or games people don't go flying back when shot knife kills are not a real thing most of all you don't respawn or sit and magically heal I would say that knife kills a rare not common not a real thing a guy in my unit has two knife kills defending himself from an insurgent attack on his free on board in no way was it planned it just kinda happened parachute infantryman arauco 7 + o 9 Caza really resilient we've had a 240 249 m4 w 203 rounds and the Barrett pumping rounds into that mother and he just kept going ski died of blood loss later in the hospital but naive 19-year old me thought it was going to be a lot different maybe with fire and whatever no M 203 rounds are really weak and don't blow up with fire or anything just kicks up dust and makes loud noise nobody gets confirmed kills it's extremely rare and almost always reserved for a good sniper section on special missions most people that tell you they got this or that are most likely lying it makes you go insane while you're there you can't wait to come home and then once you come back you miss being deployed regular civilian life is actually harder to deal with in the military everything is provided for you even the mental support of your fellow soldier then once you come back it all disappears and you feel alienated from society no one knows what you've been through then after a while you start to forget and carry on with life would go to college when you're 25 with a bunch of 18 year olds that you can't really identify with and then you start a job and hopefully find a few friends that you can it all gets better with time real PTSD is the worst the kind where when you hear a helicopter you start to cry uncontrollably because you've seen so many mangled bodies come off them the thing that's weird is that while you're over there it nothing fazes you it's just a job and training muscle memory kicks in this only from personal experience not everyone is the same but we are all human and real war takes our toll on everyone I haven't played a game that has depicted war correctly a movie though lone survivor and Das Boot is pretty accurate both are movies at what happens when everything goes bad confusion for one you rarely know where the guy until they expose themselves to fire shots at you training kicks in meaning you work well together doing complex things without Direction movements and other orders have been trained on so everyone knows what their role is there is a real phenomenon called bullet time what seemed like 12 20 minutes of an engagement was really 5-7 minutes your overall mission and procedures for combat are different for each unit your orders could be returned fire and exit the area if under attack or engage and defeat the enemy the randomness of it while you extensively train for scenarios reality is extremely random the terrain whether you're in their position size of your force size of enemy force capabilities of equipment and ferocity of both of your force and theirs are just some examples the largest thing not depicted to me is the intelligence or lack there off that is information of the battlespace location of where you and friendlies our overall objective tasks enemy intelligence etc you have an understanding that your unit is like one of many pins holding a gear that is a part of an engine that is a part of a bulldozer that is a machine a part of a construction site one stroke 327 in 101st TBN Kunar province I've been through the korangal valley featured in Restrepo the Sharia Valley featured in lone survivor what a Pahlavi and many other crevasses in that mountain as heck scape that is Eastern Afghanistan a beautiful countryside though one of my favorite things to do is watch action movies and tear them to pieces mother suckers don't even know one battle drill anyways things that annoy me mother suckers not seeking cover why the Frick are you standing in a doorway while someone is firing on you the lack of ammo supply awareness if you run out of bullets before the bad guy life's going to suck and by the way every 100 rounds of 7.62 is about 7 pounds a crap gets heavy real fast gear is heavy cumbersome and a B to keep quiet velcro pockets are you kidding at me the sense of confusion often times you're fired upon first there's usually a couple seconds of where the Frick did that come from until someone eventually shouts out where it's coming from and how far by this time you should have sought cover behind a solid object or you're sprawled out prone and as low to ground as possible if there is none currently which brings me to my next point all those sweet hiding spots and perfectly placed cover and video games and movies don't freaking exist the smart Taliban would wait until access to cover was limited or you were awkwardly situated then fire on you also any Taliban fighter worth a w penny knew to put plenty of open space between us and them so we couldn't get close without having to bound through a field large terraces down a freaking mountain and up another one etc the ones that rarely did and suffered greatly I mean they all usually did we have Apache attack helicopters for Fricks sake it's freaking loud gun smoke and other smoke gets in your eyes and it's all you can smell it's an assault of the senses and you have to ignore it I don't feel like thats ever depicted enough weapons jam every now and then and it's sometimes a real B to fix a weapon malfunction but it does happen firing from a fixed position isn't ideal it gives your opponent the chance to maneuver on you I suggest you maneuver also there were times when firefights went on for hours but that was rare air support would usually butter long firefights but they weren't always available so it's not anything like constant action it was usually sparse and lasting only a few minutes when it did happen patience was key if you ever think you can be a one-man army you're an ignorant crap the first person to win in a fight is the man whose battle buddy shows up first three of my battle buddies for every one of your battle buddies is usually prime conditions Vietnam veteran here something that can never be captured on film or in a game the smell of death there are a lot of great answers here are a couple things I'd add from my experience in southern Afghanistan where the OEF rules of engagement were pretty restrictive the constant anticipation of that first shot coming in was incredibly unnerving even though it got a little more lacs toward the end due to experience and then just another day attitude not because it was any less dangerous I remember how instantaneous either hitting the ground or finding covers everyone freezes up given the right situation whether it be rounds impacting within inches of your face or hearing I'm hit luckily this usually lasts a couple seconds at most before getting back to the task at hand or taking the proper steps given the situation the noise of it all was mentioned earlier I just heard that everyone is yelling as well at least at first in many environments the direction of shots that are fired is hard to locate especially when you add the panic and urge to find cover so you have guys yelling out direction distance number of combatants weapons jams etc it's a combination of ringing weapons firing people yelling and any other noises the dull mumble of the radio any grenades yada-yada you're shooting that truck while the good guy is crawling through it he heroically makes it through the back with lots of holes above and around him reality the tracers immediately catch the interior on fire and he is coughing and hacking on white phosphorus that is burning him alive if that doesn't kill him pretty quickly than the spall and bullet fragments impacting from the outside will Smith men fly up in the air when shot reality dudes just fall down like they tripped myth contact is always a heroic endeavor reality getting shot at his surreal until it's scary as Frick driving around is boring until you are dead from the bomb buried in the road mat you'll never even see me going to war is fun reality it's boring until you're dead or you don't want to be there anymore it's always at the inopportune moments when you are crapping or spacing out thinking about home that you get hit and have to do something about it source mi weenie attached to an MP BN with a psycho for being commander I'm happy I've had cookies hashtag feature me if you are new to the channel you can subscribe I publish new videos every day until then check another video or don't either way have a great day you magnificent people

Channel: Updoot Everything

Views: 505,877

Rating: 4.8984828 out of 5

Keywords: #updootst, updoot, reddit, r/askreddit, askreddit, ask reddit, r/, \r, r\, best of reddit, reddit stories, reddit story, top posts, funniest posts, funny, funny posts, funny reddit stories, funny askreddit, reddit funny, askreddit funny, askreddit stories, reddit stories 2019, people of reddit, sub, reddit cringe, memes, toadfilms, updoot everything, updoot reddit, story, stories, TZ reddit, rslash, comedy, fresh, soldiers, combat stories, combat, action movies, war, games, PTSD, military

Id: hyKg5f6pXbM

Length: 15min 51sec (951 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 02 2019