Libya....

Watching the events unfold in Libya, one thing has stood out to me more than anything else. The amount of ammunition being fired and normally in any direction in gay abandon. I wonder how many 'friendlies' have been injured by the cavalier way in which they seem to blast away all the time. From AK47s to machine guns, 20/30mm AA cannons, they just seem to blast away in just about any direction. They have what look to me like aircraft rocket pods mounted on the back of 4x4s, I wonder how accurate they can possibly be? and then just as the shooting seems to subside, they celebrate by firing another 20,000 rounds up into the sky for fun... I am not sure if a bullet fired straight up has the power to kill someone when it comes back down, as I guess it will be falling a lot slower then but what about the 20/30mm stuff? surely that lot must be a lot heavier and one of them falling on you would do you no good I'm sure and are any of them explosive too?

Only time will tell i guess but at the moment it seems there will be a lot of innocents injured from so called celebratory firing.
 
Paul,

Have a firearms license, and before I got it, I was told the reason you don't fire a rifle or pistol in the air is because the bullet falls as fast as when it was shot. And if it hits you, it will kill you.

Saying that, I was recently in France, visiting an old pal. In his early military career, he shot long range, big bore guns. I will let you guess his job.

But the bullet looses a considerable speed on its flight trajectory. At roughly 8000 feet, a British sniper killed a terrorist in Afghanistan and the bullet took roughly 4 seconds to arrive at the target from being fired. And the gun wasn't a .50 caliber.

I don't have this Iphone ap, but it can be bought for relatively little money.
 

Jim Craik

Lifetime Supporter
Myth Busters, a great US TV show recently did a program on this, they did a number of test, but in the end, they went out into the salt flats.

They fired many many shots straight up, finding the bullets was something of a problem but in the end they found several and they found the speed was greatly reduced, well under the "kill" speed.

By the way, it appears that the Libya issue is coming to and end without the US military getting involved on the ground. Great job US Govenment!
 
Jim, don't forget it was Sarkozy, and Cameron who started it. Obama got involved because of the "special relationship" between the US and GB. Now whether it was US involvement that helped the Brits and French move this forward, don't know.
 

Rick Muck- Mark IV

GT40s Sponsor
Supporter
Yes,

We have helped remove a dictator and despot, one who sponsored terrorists. But what will take his place? Libya was at least somewhat stable. Now there will be a power struggle amoungst all of the factions that want control, the fundimentalists, the democratic faction, the gangster faction, the military, etc.

We never seem to learn we need to be careful what we wish for, it always seems to come back to bite our ass.

Remember we once supported Saddam............

And what is with the middle East and the "fire into the air" thing?
 
Myth Busters, a great US TV show recently did a program on this, they did a number of test, but in the end, they went out into the salt flats.

They fired many many shots straight up, finding the bullets was something of a problem but in the end they found several and they found the speed was greatly reduced, well under the "kill" speed.

By the way, it appears that the Libya issue is coming to and end without the US military getting involved on the ground. Great job US Govenment!

Hmm - I thought that too but the BBC thing seems to say that a .303 falls at about 300m/s and you can be killed by one travelling at 200m/s. Also, I seem to remember an event last year in the US? where a child died in a church after being hit by a falling round fired elsewhere in the neighbourhood.

I have a 30mm round head (been fired) knocking about and it's bloody heavy, so being hit by that falling I reckon would definitely finish you off.

It also seems that when they hear a shot, they all turn and blast away in the general direction of where one of them thinks it came from. As Tripoli is well built up in areas and these rounds travel a long long way, any misses not fired straight up could well do serious damage elsewhere...

All a bit sad really...too many weapons in too many untrained/unrestrained hands..
 

David Morton

Lifetime Supporter
We had a run in with so called Libyan commandos during the Mintoff (PM of Malta) days in 1971. 42 Marine were at the airport in readiness (prev. Intelligence) and the O/C of the Libyans was invited to disembark from his one of two aeroplanes for earnest discussions about the rest of his life and how he thought it might develop.
He and his aeroplanes were totally surrounded. They were escorted as far as 35 degrees. North en route back to Tripoli by an escort from a Royal Navy carrier.
Gadaffi fumed for about a week and Mintoff went berserk but we didn't care and went about our business wrecking everything the RAF had installed since WW2.
 

Pat Buckley

GT40s Supporter
I suspect a lot of the seemingly random firing are just crowd pleasers. TV cameras can cause some wacky behaviours.
 

Jim Craik

Lifetime Supporter
Yes, the Myth Busters looked into several deaths from bullets fired into the air. It turned out that these bullest were not fired straight up (where thay slow to almost a stop and then fall). The bullets that killed were fired at an angle, where they maintaind much speed through their flight, thats a different thing all together.
 
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Yes,

We have helped remove a dictator and despot, one who sponsored terrorists. But what will take his place? Libya was at least somewhat stable. Now there will be a power struggle amoungst all of the factions that want control, the fundimentalists, the democratic faction, the gangster faction, the military, etc.

We never seem to learn we need to be careful what we wish for, it always seems to come back to bite our ass.

Remember we once supported Saddam............

And what is with the middle East and the "fire into the air" thing?


Rick,

Agreed, spot on!
 

Malcolm

Supporter
Hmm - I thought that too but the BBC thing seems to say that a .303 falls at about 300m/s and you can be killed by one travelling at 200m/s.

The good old 303! When I was in the CCF at school we were given 303s to play with and some boys soon discovered that an HB pencil was really 303 calibre! With the blanks given us on our "exercises" it wasn't long before the school got complaints from local farmers about their cows running around with pencils sticking out their bums! Ouch!
 

David Morton

Lifetime Supporter
Malcolm,
Same in the C.C.F. in Wilhelmshaven (B.A.O.R.) in the early 60's. Certain knitting needles were also great and had quite a range. Bloody heavy bit of kit though.
The school was in an army barracks so everything physical was subject to their
regimes and very hard work at some very early times of day, but it was quite nice to get one back on the establishment occasionally. The thunderflash was another fun device.
"I declare I have no live rounds in my posession" ....... Tosh !
 
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Bloody hell. I was in the CCF too. Longer ago than I care to think about now. I still remember doing a barrell roll in a chipmunk, with the instructor letting me do most of the work. 13 years old too....
 

Pete McCluskey.

Lifetime Supporter
Bloody hell. I was in the CCF too. Longer ago than I care to think about now. I still remember doing a barrell roll in a chipmunk, with the instructor letting me do most of the work. 13 years old too....
Thunder flashes and Chipmunks, stop it you blokes I'm starting to tear up.
David a bunch of us just escaped the wrath of the R.S.M. after several thunder flashes and a length of det cord were used to blow up the Officer's bog at Puckapunyal. We were suspected but nothing could be proven.
Gravy I held an aerobatic rate on the Chipmunk, a lovely forgiving aircraft and a joy to fly.(they had to be forgiving for me to fly them).:laugh:
 

Malcolm

Supporter
The curate in our church many years ago had good army contacts so one day during a sermon he was comparing God to the more popular hollywood images of beardy bloke siting in a cloud sending down thunder flashes and as he raised his voice to demonstrate this he let off a thunder flash. Scared the crap out of everyone and possibly increased the church income from funerals later that year!
 
Thunder flashes and Chipmunks, stop it you blokes I'm starting to tear up.
David a bunch of us just escaped the wrath of the R.S.M. after several thunder flashes and a length of det cord were used to blow up the Officer's bog at Puckapunyal. We were suspected but nothing could be proven.
Gravy I held an aerobatic rate on the Chipmunk, a lovely forgiving aircraft and a joy to fly.(they had to be forgiving for me to fly them).:laugh:


Nice one Pete!!!
 
Wow, the good old chipmunk. Flew it quite a lot in the ATC out of Newton doing aeros and stuff. Still remember my first loop and barrel roll from the front seat. Although my overriding memory of the whole thing was the video you had to watch on how to bail out, scared the crap out of me every time.
And I remember firing the .303 as well, I can still feel the pain in my shoulder! I think the best weapon I fired back then was the good old SLR. A 7.62 cannon! I swear the rounds went through the wall at the back of the firing range. I note from the TV some of these are still being used in Libya.
 
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