【Military Sub-Plane】: Big Black Star . year
The battlefield is all a mess, how to tell who is your own person?
Recently, Assange, the founder of the famous website WikiLeaks (which has nothing to do with Wikipedia), was arrested at the Ecuadorian Embassy in the UK. Assange's arrest has once again set a video previously posted by WikiLeaks on the Internet.
Assange was arrested at the Ecuadorian Embassy in Britain
Quickly learn what WikiLeaks is
The video, a video of a U.S. helicopter on a mission in Iraq, shows a U.S. pilot mistaking people on the ground for armed men and then firing repeatedly at them at the motive gun button, which later revealed that the shell killed more than a dozen civilians (different reports showed a death toll of between 12 and 18), including two Reuters reporters.
▲ keep shot (continuous shooting)
▲ Ground personnel scattered in front of the cannon and fled
This video of strafing civilians has also triggered many netizens' discussions, and some netizens angrily expressed how can they be so casual? Can't even tell the difference between weapons and cameras, between friend and foe?
In fact, in some cases, it is really difficult to distinguish. In this issue, Junwu will talk to you about why the soldiers always hit the wrong people?
▲ The psychological burden on soldiers caused by hitting the wrong person is very heavy
Picture from: The movie "Life and Death"
Never enough resolution
As the army with the most high-tech equipment and the most experienced in modern warfare in the world, the US military will occasionally hit its own people when it goes to the battlefield, far from saying that in the Gulf War, the US military's Apache helicopter gunships have hit friendly infantry fighting vehicles and armored transport vehicles.
▲February 17, 1991 at 1:00 a.m
The U.S. military attacked two ground vehicles
It was later discovered that it was a friendly Bradley rifle
and the M113 armored transporter
Coincidentally, it was also Apache who shot reporters in the streets in 2007
Although the resolution of the photoelectric probe has gone up, it is still not enough
See exactly what the person is holding in his hand
In addition, the U.S. A10 attack aircraft has also had many licks of the ground only to find that they are playing an embarrassing scene of friendly forces.
▲ American A10 attack aircraft attacked the British convoy
▲ Maybe the British army was frightened by the mistaken attack of the American army falling from the sky
So later there was a saying that British military vehicles saw the sky
A U.S. plane will immediately pull out a big flag
(or contact cloth) on the roof
Although the detection and imaging technology is now very advanced, it is still difficult to see what a person is holding in his hand. From the following perspectives, it is really difficult to distinguish whether the person near the line of sight is holding a weapon or a camera.
▲The image is from a wiki with a related entry in English
The U.S. military did not think it was too much of a problem with its decision at the time
In cases where the resolution is still not sufficient to accurately see the objects in the human body and personal hands, misjudgment is always inevitable. Before the U.S. military mistakenly killed two Reuters reporters in 2007, a Reuters photojournalist, Dana, was also mistakenly killed in 2003 when he was killed by U.S. soldiers on the ground.
▲The footage taken before Dana was unfortunately hit by mistake
▲ Dana's previous work photo, if he was in this position at the time
If you carry a camera against a U.S. tank, then it is really good
May have been miscalculated as armed men carrying bazookas
In order to better identify friendly forces, now the U.S. military has distributed a lot of enemy identification equipment to the troops, such as IR (infrared) identification badges or identification lights for soldiers at night, which will identify the identity of friendly forces in the perspective of night vision goggles.
▲ In the field of vision of the night vision, the flag issued by the US military
IR identification mark
▲ When attacking ground targets in Call of Duty 4
Friendly units can be very clearly distinguished
If you accidentally blow up your teammates, you'll have to read the note again
Always highly strained nerves
Because they have to undertake the task of conquest abroad for many years, and the enemy they deal with is an irregular armed force fighting guerrilla warfare, this makes many US soldiers tense their nerves at any time to guard against possible attacks. Many people also develop PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) as a result.
▲Many people are physically and mentally tortured
Because I don't know when, a civilian who has just returned to the harmlessness of people and animals will become a dangerous person with a murderous weapon in the blink of an eye.
▲ U.S. patrols are attacked daily
In this high-pressure state, it is inevitable that the soldiers will have a psychological state of "seeing who is a hostile element" in their hearts.
▲ Hit the wrong person may go to court
But if there was any hesitation at that time, the flag would be directly covered
Many soldiers chose this multiple choice question
Defend yourself first
Legal constraints sometimes do not necessarily work
Although the regular armies of the major powers have established a series of belligerent principles and fire laws, these regulations may not be fully complied with for a variety of reasons.
▲ Depiction of the principle of firing in the movie "Black Hawk Down"
▲ The famous scene in the American movie "Full Metal Shell"
During the Vietnam War, U.S. soldiers were given to their commanders before committing the massacre in my Lai village, "all possible encounters were resistance elements or supporters of resistance elements." " instructions. (That is, to regard the people in the village as enemy personnel)
Guided by this operational principle, in the early morning of March 16, 1968, officers and men of Company C of the 1st Battalion of the 11th Infantry Brigade of the US Army came to the village of My Lai and shot and killed more than 500 villagers, including women and children.
▲ The infamous Massacre of My Lai Village
After a year of covering up, the matter was finally revealed by the media.
▲ After the disclosure of the event
There was an uproar around the world
▲ Journalists who exposed the massacre in my Lai village
Seymour Hersh
He later won the Pulitzer Prize
After the outbreak of this storm, although many officers of the US military were investigated and prosecuted, only a lieutenant named William Calley was convicted. Although Kelly was sentenced to life in prison, after several interventions, the lieutenant was eventually imprisoned for only three and a half years before regaining his freedom.
Lieutenant Kelly
More than 500 lives, in the end, only to exchange for a lieutenant's three-and-a-half-year prison sentence...
The My Lai Village massacre actually reflects such a situation, that is, when the US side deals with officers and soldiers who kill civilians in other countries, it always has the tendency to "take it lightly" and it is extremely difficult to achieve fairness and justice.
The difficulty of accurately identifying civilian equipment limitations, the high-pressure battlefield environment, and the lack of restraint (the psychological state of some soldiers themselves is also a reason) ultimately led to the repeated prohibition of manslaughter incidents. If you want to completely put an end to the occurrence of this tragedy, the best way is to let your soldiers stay in their own territory, you don't fight me, I don't fight you, peaceful coexistence, mutual benefit and win-win situation.
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