# How do you survive being strafed by an Apache helicopter? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 10, 2008, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-survive-being-strafed-by-an-apache-helicopter/456045 "2008-07-10T21:25:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![samarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4da419/32.png) [@samarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samarm)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2008, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-survive-being-strafed-by-an-apache-helicopter/456045/1 "2008-07-10T21:25:34Z")
Just been reading this depressing news story on the BBC News website. Its bad enough soldiers being blown up and shot by the enemy, nevermind being strafed by an Apache from your own side. > **[BBC NEWS | UK | Nine injured by 'friendly fire'](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7500705.stm)** > > Nine British troops are injured in a "friendly fire" incident in Afghanistan, the Ministry of Defence says. You would think they would have sort of system for checking the status of the troops in their sights, before opening up with a 30mm cannon. I cannot figure out how now one was killed (thank god). ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2008, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-survive-being-strafed-by-an-apache-helicopter/456045/2 "2008-07-11T03:00:53Z")
I would count on a lot of “missing”. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2008, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-survive-being-strafed-by-an-apache-helicopter/456045/3 "2008-07-11T03:42:50Z")
[QUOTE=samarm] You would think they would have sort of system for checking the status of the troops in their sights, before opening up with a 30mm cannon. I cannot figure out how now one was killed (thank god). [/QUOTE] There are various methods but none are foolproof. There is a reason why calling for fire that close to your own position is called “danger close”. ETA: I’m not sure what you are looking for with this thread. You put it in IMHO so I put forth my humble opinion that getting shot is bad. ---
**Author:** ![Unintentionally\_Blank](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/unintentionally_blank/32/5418_2.png) [@Unintentionally\_Blank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unintentionally_Blank)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2008, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-survive-being-strafed-by-an-apache-helicopter/456045/4 "2008-07-11T03:51:11Z")
I would avoid it the same way I try to avoid being knifed in an alleyway: I try not to be in a location at a time where that eventuality seems likely. ---
**Author:** ![Yumblie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/76d3ee/32.png) [@Yumblie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yumblie)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2008, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-survive-being-strafed-by-an-apache-helicopter/456045/5 "2008-07-11T04:24:41Z")
This sounds like a good candidate for one of those “Worst Case Scenario” books. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2008, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-survive-being-strafed-by-an-apache-helicopter/456045/6 "2008-07-11T05:05:24Z")
No sure way. The incoming rounds are so heavy they will burrow through any practical amount of overhead cover. Lie down perpendicular to the aircraft’s line of flight. Think about the many benefits offered by Serviceman’s Group Life Insurance. ---
**Author:** ![Declan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecae2f/32.png) [@Declan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Declan)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2008, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-survive-being-strafed-by-an-apache-helicopter/456045/7 "2008-07-11T05:43:56Z")
[QUOTE=samarm] You would think they would have sort of system for checking the status of the troops in their sights, before opening up with a 30mm cannon. **I cannot figure out how now one was killed (thank god).** [/QUOTE] There was a youtube video of an American Apache helicopter firing on insurgents sometime in 04/05. Due to a Hague convention regarding weapons, the 25 or 30 mm cannon is ilegal as an anti-personel weapon. Fine for anti-material but you can’t aim it at folks on the ground directly. How the American crew did it was simply to aim at the truck that they were operating with, which caused the truck to explode as one would think , but the conical nature of the shell pattern meant that the Iraqis got perforated as well. The British crew may have been aiming at a geographical feature, and expecting the same results. Declan ---
**Author:** ![Snooooopy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ee7513/32.png) [@Snooooopy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snooooopy)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2008, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-survive-being-strafed-by-an-apache-helicopter/456045/8 "2008-07-11T05:49:12Z")
Be made out of cotton candy. Alternately, mayonnaise. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2008, 9:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-survive-being-strafed-by-an-apache-helicopter/456045/9 "2008-07-11T09:06:36Z")
[QUOTE=Declan] Due to a Hague convention regarding weapons, the 25 or 30 mm cannon is ilegal as an anti-personel weapon. Fine for anti-material but you can’t aim it at folks on the ground directly. Declan [/QUOTE] No I demur. The Moscow Convention prohibits the use of poison or explosive bullets below a certain size. I know of no other convention setting a size limitation. You are perfectly legal to hunt snipers if you want to. The “.5 is an anti-materiel weapon” is, I maintain just an urban legend that has wide currency. I am willing to be corrected by an authoritative cite. ---
**Author:** ![Wallenstein](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b5a626/32.png) [@Wallenstein](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wallenstein)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2008, 9:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-survive-being-strafed-by-an-apache-helicopter/456045/10 "2008-07-11T09:24:00Z")
[QUOTE=Declan] There was a youtube video of an American Apache helicopter firing on insurgents sometime in 04/05. Due to a Hague convention regarding weapons, the 25 or 30 mm cannon is ilegal as an anti-personel weapon. Fine for anti-material but you can’t aim it at folks on the ground directly. How the American crew did it was simply to aim at the truck that they were operating with, which caused the truck to explode as one would think , but the conical nature of the shell pattern meant that the Iraqis got perforated as well. The British crew may have been aiming at a geographical feature, and expecting the same results. Declan [/QUOTE] There a whole bunch of clips on _[liveleak.com](http://liveleak.com)_ that show Apaches opening up with 30mm on individuals… no vehicles in sight, just lone fighters in the middle of a field getting walloped. ---
**Author:** ![slaphead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9bcb4/32.png) [@slaphead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slaphead)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2008, 9:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-survive-being-strafed-by-an-apache-helicopter/456045/11 "2008-07-11T09:54:04Z")
[QUOTE=samarm] You would think they would have sort of system for checking the status of the troops in their sights, before opening up with a 30mm cannon. [/QUOTE] Unfortunately, no such system exists. Hence this sort of thing is actually pretty common. The only noteworthy thing about this particular incident is that it was a british helicopter strafing british troops. Usually squaddies are being strafed by American aircraft, since the US can afford to field more than 3 aircraft and put ammo on board them. ---
**Author:** ![puppygod](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@puppygod](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puppygod)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2008, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-survive-being-strafed-by-an-apache-helicopter/456045/12 "2008-07-11T11:16:08Z")
There is research aimed at developing single-soldier scale IFF system, but it’s still years before it’ll be field ready. [QUOTE=Declan] There was a youtube video of an American Apache helicopter firing on insurgents sometime in 04/05. Due to a Hague convention regarding weapons, the 25 or 30 mm cannon is ilegal as an anti-personel weapon. Fine for anti-material but you can’t aim it at folks on the ground directly. [/QUOTE] Uh, no? AFAIK explosive bullets are forbidden only if they weight under 400 grams, and it’s only relevant to small arms. As stated in [St. Petersburg Declaration](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Petersburg_Declaration_of_1868). In practical terms anything of caliber 20mm or more is considered artillery and perfectly OK to use it to shell humans into pieces. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2008, 11:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-survive-being-strafed-by-an-apache-helicopter/456045/13 "2008-07-11T11:27:50Z")
Wear a fully charged HEV suit? ---
**Author:** ![Defensive\_Indifference](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/defensive_indifference/32/6502_2.png) [@Defensive\_Indifference](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Defensive_Indifference)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2008, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-survive-being-strafed-by-an-apache-helicopter/456045/14 "2008-07-11T13:13:43Z")
[QUOTE=Paul in Saudi] The “.5 is an anti-materiel weapon” is, I maintain just an urban legend that has wide currency. I am willing to be corrected by an authoritative cite. [/QUOTE] You won’t get it from me! I have no military experience whatsoever! I do, however, have a question/WAG. I wonder if the idea that big guns are only for hard things started as a bit of practical advice to infantrymen: “Save the big, heavy, expensive bullets for things that need big bullets; shoot people with small, cheap, light bullets” and just got boiled down to “Soldier, the BFG50 is not an anti-personnel weapon!” ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2008, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-survive-being-strafed-by-an-apache-helicopter/456045/15 "2008-07-11T14:17:06Z")
[QUOTE=Bayard] You won’t get it from me! I have no military experience whatsoever! I do, however, have a question/WAG. I wonder if the idea that big guns are only for hard things started as a bit of practical advice to infantrymen: “Save the big, heavy, expensive bullets for things that need big bullets; shoot people with small, cheap, light bullets” and just got boiled down to “Soldier, the BFG50 is not an anti-personnel weapon!” [/QUOTE] My guess is that it is some bit of exaggeration that got taken way to seriously. “This weapon is so badass that it just ain’t right to use on a puny human,” morphed into, “This weapon is so big that you can’t fire it on people,” became “Those U.N. human rights pussies say we can only use it on vehicles,” became, “It’s a violation of INTERNATIONAL LAW to target a person with anything bigger than 7.62… until you get to 155mm artillery.” ---
**Author:** ![Cornelius\_Tuggerson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Cornelius\_Tuggerson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cornelius_Tuggerson)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2008, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-survive-being-strafed-by-an-apache-helicopter/456045/16 "2008-07-11T14:58:22Z")
[QUOTE=Lumpy] Wear a fully charged HEV suit? [/QUOTE] That only helps on the easy difficulty setting ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2008, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-survive-being-strafed-by-an-apache-helicopter/456045/17 "2008-07-11T15:31:42Z")
The Moscow Convention of 1899 was called to limit certain arms. The Russians, being technologically backward, proposed (and got) a ban on some types of bullets such as: Glass or x-ray invisible bullets Poisoned bullets Explosive bullets under (some size or another) They did this because the Russians suspected other nations would soon develop such weapons, giving them an advantage. This is, methinks, where the idea of a bullet being too big to be used on people came from. The fifty was big enough to be explosive (but it is not) and so could not be used against people (if it were explosive). Now it is just handed down from sergeant to soldier around the mess table. ---
**Author:** ![PaulParkhead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ea924/32.png) [@PaulParkhead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PaulParkhead)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2008, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-survive-being-strafed-by-an-apache-helicopter/456045/18 "2008-07-11T16:33:40Z")
[QUOTE=Lumpy] Wear a fully charged HEV suit? [/QUOTE] HEV = Helicopter Evasion Vestments? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2008, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-survive-being-strafed-by-an-apache-helicopter/456045/19 "2008-07-11T17:25:55Z")
[QUOTE=Paul in Saudi] Glass or x-ray invisible bullets [/QUOTE] Is that John Carter’s radium pistol? This is merely an extension of not being able to use square bullets on Christians, is it not?