Surprising quality gun camera footage from japanese theatre.

[julian265]

Well, the OP's vid has gone, so:

Originally Posted by Wutz

Sorry do not agree on that, and yes I have done military service. Maybe I view it differantly, a foe who can fight is one thing a person who can not is another ball game.
With that attitude, if a family with children is between you and the target I guess it is ok to bump them off, though luck. Sorry some one else needs a reality check!
My last comment on that as this will only get out of hand.

I think that's a poor comparison, the family are presumably not combatants.

I think the best analogy to shooting a parachute, is shooting an enemy soldier who has dropped (or hasn't picked up) his gun. I guess the fate of such a soldier is probably usually dependent on whether there's time or resources to take prisoners.

It's interesting that one form of killing is generally more accepted than the other.

[Wutz]

Well I think people have always differed on where the people able to defend themselves or not. You might remember a story about a U-boat that machine gunned survivors in a life boat, and that caused a fair amount of outcry.
That there where always some who thought first when the enemy is dead the danger is curbed, is also true, but in most cases people did frown apon those.
I personally would differ between rendering a enemy from continuing to fight and out right killing, a bit of a differance, even though in many cases it was the same.
Maybe I have a more humanitairen attitude?

[Bowtome]

It is always hard to think what should you do in war.

I hope that in the situation, if it was me, I would not have shot down any pilot parachuting out.

But, by not shooting him, which is pretty much what you are doing when he is in a plane, you are allowing him to get back into a plane and kill 1 or hundreds in the future. What about bombing runways and destroying planes and killing pilots and ground staff, is that okay? So why not just shoot the parachuting pilots?

What about a sniper, his prey have no chance to defend themselves.

What about banning bio weapons, that when a drop of the liquid touches you, you feel no pain but die in seconds.

But, you allow Napalm that sticks to you and burns you alive in pain.

War is Mad, the rules are madder.

[Wutz]

Originally Posted by Bowtome

It is always hard to think what should you do in war.

I hope that in the situation, if it was me, I would not have shot down any pilot parachuting out.

But, by not shooting him, which is pretty much what you are doing when he is in a plane, you are allowing him to get back into a plane and kill 1 or hundreds in the future. What about bombing runways and destroying planes and killing pilots and ground staff, is that okay? So why not just shoot the parachuting pilots?

What about a sniper, his prey have no chance to defend themselves.

What about banning bio weapons, that when a drop of the liquid touches you, you feel no pain but die in seconds.

But, you allow Napalm that sticks to you and burns you alive in pain.

War is Mad, the rules are madder.

Good on that line of thought why not shoot at life boats, sink hospital ships, and aim especially at medics, or even better go especially after civilians as that is where you next soldiers are coming from, shall I continue?

[Bowtome]

You may continue if you wish, it is a free world.

I do not have the answers, I was just making some points. I said I would not have shot the parachutist.

[W32Blaster]

Originally Posted by Wutz

Good on that line of thought why not shoot at life boats, sink hospital ships, and aim especially at medics, or even better go especially after civilians as that is where you next soldiers are coming from, shall I continue?

like it or not, all of these things were acitvely done on purpose by both sides during WWII.

There is no such thing like humantity looking at War. War is most likely a festival of pure violence, a situation where moral measures do count NULL.
All efforts made to set up rules are mostly trampeled under foot when the conflict escalates.

No sense in stating examples since that discussion will never end.

[Trumper]

I do wonder whether war now is actually more humane than it was in days of old.
In olden days towns and cities were attacked by the invading hoards and all and sundry massacred,regardless.
As weapons became more and more accurate,sophisticated the options of whether to kill or not open up,it is then up to the weapons operator to make that final decision.
Media and instant reporting now mean people can get away with less ,especially in the name of war.
Not nice and hopefully i won't happen anymore but thats a false hope,humans have a tendency to destroy.

[Bowtome]

Ghengis Khan always killed all of his enemy in battle to make sure they couldn't raise an army to kill his army.

[Splitter]

Originally Posted by Trumper

I do wonder whether war now is actually more humane than it was in days of old.
In olden days towns and cities were attacked by the invading hoards and all and sundry massacred,regardless.
As weapons became more and more accurate,sophisticated the options of whether to kill or not open up,it is then up to the weapons operator to make that final decision.
Media and instant reporting now mean people can get away with less ,especially in the name of war.
Not nice and hopefully i won't happen anymore but thats a false hope,humans have a tendency to destroy.

First, I do not see the guy being shot up in his chute. Were there tracers I missed? (I make no point with that, I am just asking if others see the tracers)

Second, yes war has become more "sanitized" for some countries. One reason is that civilian populations back home will not tolerate the wanton killing of other civilians. Another is that weapons are more precise and it is much more efficient to take out one target with one bomb in most cases. And finally, most people do not want to kill civilians when it can be avoided, most people are basically "good".

If modern armies targeted civilians with the technology available, there would be infinitely more dead civilians than we see.

Back to shooting someone up in their chute: I think most would agree that not only is it immoral, it is a really bad idea. If the enemy sees their people shot up in their chutes, they are likely to retaliate in kind. As a pilot, you are probably going to be flying against those same enemies in the very near future.

I would not want anyone on my side starting such a practice. So if there were tracers in the OP, was the "victim" receiving payback for shooting at chutes himself? I guess we'll never know.

Splitter

[Sokol1]

Guy talking about shooting (german ) pilots in parachutes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8LVl...layer_embedded

No mercy for Japanese sailors

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6gFQH54k0M

Sokol1