Navy recruitment commercial curiosity

[everythingsxen]

I can't seem to find a site that has the Tv commercials archived, alas. However.

There is a Navy commercial talking about working on a destroyer and using the Aegis system. Talks about how awesome the Aegis is etc. In the video however.... it shows the person doing the targeting zooming in on a guard tower with two men inside. However, the operator keeps zooming in.. and zooming in... until it's zoomed in to a fly on the guards uniform.

Which is all well and good, except that a weapon system like the Aegis can only be used to target equipment. Like the tower the guards were in, or a vehicle. Unfortunately what the commercial shows is a naval officer committing a war-crime.

Thoughts or opinions?

[DS1]

1. Why is it a war crime?

That idea about certain weapons not being supposed to be used against people - outside of chemicals - is a myth.

If I'm in the field, and some lone parachutist leaps out of a plane, and all I've got handy to take him down is a howizter, guess what he's having shot his way momentarily.

[everythingsxen]

7. It's not actually a "myth"

It's just one of those "quaint" treaties we signed.

http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/FULL/500?OpenDocument

I suppose that every person I have known, who has been in the military and used weapons greater than .50, are just lying about the training classes they had to take on the Geneva Conventions and how they were not allowed to target people with them was just them "keeping up the myth".

How that realistically applies in the field, I am not debating. All I am saying is, in this commercial, they are showing a crime.

[DS1]

16. My personal experience in the military is that you don't target

someone with a .50 is because it's a waste of money. Much cheaper to kill them with a 5.56 round.

[mymomwasright]

2. Just a side-note....

Aegis cannot defend against Chinese Sunburn missles, which Iran has. It's the age old practice of updating offensive weapons to defeat defensivive systems. I agree on the crime scenario. Anything larger than a .50 caliber weapon targeting a troop is generally forbidden. Knowing that, how is it that we have .50 caliber sniper rifles throughout the services?

[DS1]

5. see post #1

Weapon size/chamber width is irrelevant.

[acmejack]

6. SeaRAM

just a reply note

[everythingsxen]

8. As it has been explained to me...

from multiple veterans. They teach you all about your new shiny .50 cal, how you CANNOT target personnel with it, only vehicles and equipment. Then they point out to you that web-gear and ammo clips are equipment.

[KittyWampus]

13. INteresting thread, thanks.

[dysfunctional press]

9. you said anything LARGER than a .50 cal is generally forbidden-

to be used agaisnt troops.
THAT's why we have .50 cal sniper rifles.

btw- those rifles are designed/intended more for use against equipment- i.e. stopping trucks, helicopters, planes, etc. than actual personnel- but it works on them, too.

[file83]

3. Sounds like false advertising to make the kiddies think the Navy

has technologies that aren't supposed to exist (like zooming into millimeter resolution from space). Slick ad campaign though.

[bananas]

4. those are genetically engineered flies

they make an rfid antenna in their wings,
which the aegis locks onto.

[JHB]

10. I must be way behind the times...

Last I knew, Aegis was primarily an anti-aircraft/anti-missile system.

(Not that the Aegis system on the USS Stark was very successful when one of Saddam's airplanes put an Exocet missle into it -- the one case where Iraq actually DID attack us, not that Reagan did much about it except give Saddam MORE stuff...)

[Joe_VB]

12. The USS Stark is not an Aegis platform. It is a FFG-7 class frigate.

The reason the Stark was hit is that its CIWS system (Self Defense System) was broken when they entered the Gulf, and they lied to their Type Commander. If they reported that there CIWS system was broken it would have been a bad mark for the CO, XO, Ops Boss, and Combat Systems Officer. So they "gundecked" the readiness report.

I know alot about this because two of my friends died. They were in RICER when the first missle hit.

[JHB]

15. Yup, I was conflating it with the Vincennes (another case of Reagan-era...

... "cover your brass"-ism).

My condolences about your friends.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

11. Push a button, murder people. "Killing is fun!", as the general said.

It's not at all like what the "terrorists" do with suicide bombs. They die. The button pushers go home and have a beer.

[genie_weenie]

14. NO everyone read this

Any weapons system (that is not outlawed can be used in an Anti-Personel mode. It is a complete misconception that a .50 cal can not be used to shoot people.
Post #9 also points out the Sig Sauer .50 cal sniper rifle.