Machine Gun fire from Military Helicopters over Florida

reply to post by Sly1one

I wonder what will happen when a licensed gun owner stops his/her truck and pulls out their rifle single shot or otherwise and starts shooting back.
My thoughts on this is that this is conditioning to get folks used to the sounds of live gunfire and seeing the military presence. Following this, there may be waves of "training missions" where the blank rounds were accidentally not changed over and they were spraying the cities or very select targets with live shots.

Very scary, it certainly isn't being done to recruit new soldiers......

reply to post by Sly1one


Apparently there was some machine gun fire and people could hear


..."blanks pinging off the high-rises....."

How does this happen?
Blanks ping off buildings?

reply to post by newcovenant

I do not own a gun (yet) and am not a military person but would think that the pinging is spent brass and possibly some sort of wadding that is used in the manufacture of the round. Maybe just free-falling or perhaps, propelled by whatever blade wash is generated by the copter.

reply to post by evc1shop


A reporter could hear that on the ground? They were pretty high up there...I guess maybe.

reply to post by Sly1one


Ha that looks like fun. Joint exercises….hmmmm.

Being in Florida that is probably one of my old units. I always thought door gunners had a good job. The ones I knew loved it.

Of course there will always be some that freak out over things like this.


Pinging= sound echo

Blanks do not have wadding, they do not shoot anything out.


They didn’t start firing until they got close to water. One of the door gunners probably asked his crew chief if he could pop off some rounds. Remember these guys are young and dumb and they want to have fun. As long as they were in site of water and fired in that direction even being blanks they were in within the guidelines.

Because it made the news I bet the next mission brief by the CO had some restrictions on where they could fire.

any chance it might be a movie production company doing a location shoot??

reply to post by Grimpachi
Thanks for letting me know about the blanks. I truly do not know much about guns except for what I shot as a teen. Mostly a .22 and a 10 Gauge. I do not have any military training but being a programmer, I have written some Red Flag/Blue Flag scheduling programs for the 505th AF in the past as well as some of the DHS Fusion Center applications. I didn't see a theatre type for a civilian city back then (5yrs ago).

Familiarizing themselves with the terrain... all their Satellite position, ground terrain avoidance, thermal imaging and map uploads of the city at night are being worked with to prepare for...

regular, uhhh repeated, uummm night time, huh something. Some parts of that looked like surveillance and other parts looked like raids on or near government buildings.

Maybe its the American version of Valkyrie ?

Originally posted by TDawgRex

Originally posted by Sly1one
reply to post by TDawgRex

 

I'm thinking more and more toward some psy-op.

WHY use blank rounds or any rounds at all? Its a completely unnecessary aspect of the training for the "best of the best"...they know what its like to shoot a 50cal from a heli already im-sure...

testing target acq? Ok...still don't need to actually pop off blank rounds...you can still line up targets and dry fire...

actually popping off loud blank rounds from a 50cal from a helicopter flying low in the middle of a metropolis has ALL the hallmarks of psych-warfare...

to what end is what i'm having a hard time figuring out.

they trying to draw fire?
they testing to see if they WOULD draw fire?
testing the civilian response to such a scene?

The part of this that has me baffled is the open gunfire...blanks or not....it seems absolutely pointless for training purposes for them to actually be popping off blank 50cal rounds from a helicopter in downtown Miami...

It does tend to lead to the conditioning side of things doesn’t it?

That would fit right in with a PSYOP campaign. Though that is supposed to be illegal on our own citizens.

I’m worried that those in charge are taking things a bit to far.

It's like they are taking a page out of Hollywood. Just for grins and giggles.

Maybe they had blanks loaded as a safety measure and the mission was to just fly, but knowing there were just blanks, the gunner let 'er rip a few and now he's in DEEP S@#&!!

If I put a 'support the troops' ribbon on my car will that keep them from shooting it? Can I get a big one for the roof of my house?

I think we are past the point of no return on the military intervention angle.

I have no idea what they are training for ATM but all it takes is one general to have an idea and they will train for it. I was in an Apache unit in Korea where someone got the bright idea that we should have joint carrier exercise where we landed on navy platforms. It was a logistical nightmare. Incidentally the unit I was in was the world’s only deep strike helicopter battalion where we would train to infiltrate deep behind enemy lines like a spearhead operation that included support units. I think we had one of the shortest life expectancies in that field.

There is no reason for people to get upset over training exercises after all we want them to be prepared for all eventualities’ do we not? So let them train for them.

I think it’s funny and wish I could still be part of it. For those talking about people firing back at them I will say I doubt anyone could actually hit one. It takes practice to hit a moving target like that.

reply to post by apokalupsis33vital


You are probably closer to the truth than you realize.

I was known to pull some bonehead moves when I was in the military that brought me just short of article 15s maybe even close to court martial once all in the name of fun.

There should be no reason to train with the police. If it is for an invasion by a foreign army the military would handle the fight without the police, wouldn't they?

reply to post by roadgravel


I could think of a few reasons to train but they may not be the reasons they are training in that environment. The training wouldn’t have to be for a foreign invasion. Drug cartels, terrorists, come to mind but that is just a couple thoughts.

More unusual stuff.

Today we have had two large groups of military jets and choppers fly over again! Plus one big thing I could not see that vibrated the house and scared all the birds away, was way way louder then all the others.

Or/Ca border on the West Coast.

reply to post by Grimpachi

The US military isn't fighting the drug war on US soil, is it?

I said this in on another thread and I will say it again: wake up and smell the coffee! What will it take for people to believe that they are expecting urban warfare in the US?

reply to post by roadgravel


You asked a question about why the military would train with police so I gave you a few instances however I did leave that reasoning open. Just demonstrating a couple reasons for joint training. I am not in the know of the exact logistics of these maneuvers but even if I was I wouldn’t discuss details. Fact is someone in the command structure came up with a reason to train jointly and I don’t think this is the first time it has happened. It only got airtime because a yahoo popped of a couple rounds that made the news. IMHO it isn’t a big deal whoever did it probably got chewed out for it.

You need to remember they are training and not actually fighting.

Originally posted by apokalupsis33vital

Originally posted by TDawgRex

Originally posted by Sly1one
reply to post by TDawgRex

 

I'm thinking more and more toward some psy-op.

WHY use blank rounds or any rounds at all? Its a completely unnecessary aspect of the training for the "best of the best"...they know what its like to shoot a 50cal from a heli already im-sure...

testing target acq? Ok...still don't need to actually pop off blank rounds...you can still line up targets and dry fire...

actually popping off loud blank rounds from a 50cal from a helicopter flying low in the middle of a metropolis has ALL the hallmarks of psych-warfare...

to what end is what i'm having a hard time figuring out.

they trying to draw fire?
they testing to see if they WOULD draw fire?
testing the civilian response to such a scene?

The part of this that has me baffled is the open gunfire...blanks or not....it seems absolutely pointless for training purposes for them to actually be popping off blank 50cal rounds from a helicopter in downtown Miami...

It does tend to lead to the conditioning side of things doesn’t it?

That would fit right in with a PSYOP campaign. Though that is supposed to be illegal on our own citizens.

I’m worried that those in charge are taking things a bit to far.

It's like they are taking a page out of Hollywood. Just for grins and giggles.

Maybe they had blanks loaded as a safety measure and the mission was to just fly, but knowing there were just blanks, the gunner let 'er rip a few and now he's in DEEP S@#&!!

I actually thought of this possibility but immediately questioned the reasoning behind loading blanks into the gun in the first place...there is no "safety measure" aspect of blank rounds...they are mostly for conditioning soldiers to the sounds of gun fire in their environment. Combat immersion in training scenarios etc...

I don't think they would have loaded blanks into their guns on this particular joint exercise mission unless they actually intended to use them.

Originally posted by Grimpachi
reply to post by roadgravel

 

You asked a question about why the military would train with police so I gave you a few instances however I did leave that reasoning open. Just demonstrating a couple reasons for joint training. I am not in the know of the exact logistics of these maneuvers but even if I was I wouldn’t discuss details. Fact is someone in the command structure came up with a reason to train jointly and I don’t think this is the first time it has happened. It only got airtime because a yahoo popped of a couple rounds that made the news. IMHO it isn’t a big deal whoever did it probably got chewed out for it.

You need to remember they are training and not actually fighting.

I like your insight from an experienced perspective so thanks for posting. I do have a few questions for you though.

The news-anchor implied this training is "routine" which I think most will beg to differ...its only "routine" recently in the past year or so...I have lived in Colorado next to Ft. Carson my entire life and have NEVER seen military ops or joint police military ops being conducted or reported on in this area...they keep it all within the DoD land up here.

I guess what I'm saying/asking is that isn't this a pretty large step doing military exercises within and over very large cities such as Miami? Are the Commanders that brass ballsy to be setting up these exercises where you do have to admit there is a decent bit of liability?

I have a legit question in regards to the blank rounds....why would they be loaded onto the chopper designated for training purposes in the first place if they were not intended to be used? If it was some isolated yahoo popping off blanks for kicks why again did he just so happen to have a gun loaded with blanks in which he could be tempted to do so?

Before doing training exercises isn't their an equipment manifest designed for the specific type of training that bird will be participating in? In which case blank rounds would have had to of been on that manifest and for a reason that pertained to the training no? If the rounds weren't needed they wouldn't have been loaded and the gun would have been dry no?

I'm asking your experience on the matter and how they handle the load-out on these birds for their training exercises.