This clip, which has already been viewed by a half a million people, is supposedly the French part of the Canadian Army shooting an anti-tank missile. Personally I think it is a hoax, albeit funny.
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I buy it. Mechanical things sometimes don’t work, just like biological ones as Vonnegut might say. What makes this credible is that when the dud came out, the camera was dropped and the army dudes headed for cover. If the camera had stayed focused on the dud, then a hoax would be pretty evident.
I was thinking it might blow up in the tube. Glad that didn’t happen.
most of what our military buys is bought second hand.. so this doesn’t surprise me.. although, i suspect there’s a 50/50 chance it could have been operator error.. did they arm it?
I think it is real too judging by the reaction. But how is it that one “standby!” order doesn’t produce a firing but a second one does? Might you expect a “fire at will” or some such thing?
RBG
ERYX: it’s wire guided and it has a “soft launch” feature.
http://www.army-technology.com/projects/eryx/
“A soft launch ejects the missile from the launch tube to give a low-recoil shoulder launch. The soft launch enables firing from inside buildings or covered positions. Once the missile is clear, the larger propellant in the second stage is ignited and the missile is propelled towards the target.”
That from a blurb on the US Javelin below which seems like a better system in that it is “fire & forget” as opposed to active steering during flight.
http://www.army-technology.com/projects/javelin/
/off topic
Is this another JCD 12:01am autopost?
There’s a good video of a guy that can really fly a R/C chopper.
nice find B Dog
A. When a Missile fires, it launches out of the launcher. In this video it sounds like it’s been pushed out by a spring.
B. Then laugh afterwards… In a real situation with weapons no one wound be laughing.
It’s a Hoax…
this link would have had more context in that Quebecois bashing conversation yesterday
Do you get good distance?
Funny and scary at the same time. I assume that the warhead doesn’t arm until it’s well on its way to the target, still I don’t blame them for running.
All that anticipation, and it’s a dud. Sounds like old person sex. No offense to anyone old on dvorak.org/blog!
I expect these guys were from Le Royal 22e RĂ©giment, nicknamed the Van Doos, which comes from the number 22 (vingt-deux) in French.
They’re usually pretty tough guys. For instance, if they draw a knife, they draw blood. That’s literally true as I’ve seen them cut their own hands after drawing a knife. Better their blood than mine, I said.
It’s too bad this video is how they’re being represented to the world. I don’t know if they’d be pissed or just laugh their asses off.
Its not much an hoax than a prank. Those guys who run were really afraid while others laught at their expense. One of them is saying at the end “That was a good one!” …
For fuck’s sakes if they are affiliated with Canada they ARE NOT FRENCH, they are Quebecois. They get extremely pissed at being called french or they did when I lived in Montreal.
And it’s a prank they are pulling.
Este de tabernacle, mauvais anglais.
#13 Can you say Urban Legend??
B. Dog – That R/C chopper pilot is amazing… and the camera operator is pretty amazing too.
A. Lengthy fumbling-around before the shot, as if they aren’t qualified to operate the weapon – or are intentionally stalling the launch.
B. Fumble-f**king around allows time for the video to establish the fire-team on the launcher, and the supervisor near-by – and the camera then shifts to a -prolonged- view of -ONLY- the muzzle of the launcher… but not showing the target down-range, or what is happening with the launcher.
“B” might be explained by them trying to record details of the “soft launch”…
But, in my opinion: B + A = Hoax
I’m just curious to know how many people there were “in on it”?
Hilarious if the team knew of the dud, and was intentionally fumbling-around – just to ratchet-up the irritation-factor on whomever they were pulling the gag on… the fire team supervisor? the person making the video? Both?
#6 Nice, but for some reason makes me think of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines… 🙂
Squadrons of those little things would be hell to defend against, wouldn’t they?
Well, John, theirs no actual french part of the canadian army, only some peppers (derogatory term for people from quebec) that happen to be in the battalion. If this vid is not a hoax it makes me kinda nervous considering i’m enrolling in the reserves in bout a month.
15. It could easily be real if the rocket engine doesn’t kick in. There is smoke coming out of the rocket suggesting the initial small push to get it out of the launcher worked as it should have.
But it also just as easily could be a prank on fellow soldiers. But that would be a pretty serious prank if that rocket was loaded with it’s secondary propellant.
I think back to when the lads and I were in Burma, or was it Myanmar?… No it was in the reserve army as a kid. We had these things called artillery simulators that I was told contained half a stick of loosely packed dynamite. Before they went off, they emitted a sound like an approaching artillery shell. Well, you could deactivate the explosive but keep the whistling noise. Every year some yahoo would throw one of these whistling devices into a tent. Guess how fast the tent cleared.
RBG
20.
The Royal 22e RĂ©giment is an infantry regiment, and the most famous francophone organization of the Canadian Forces. The regiment comprises three Regular Force battalions, two Primary Reserve battalions, and a band, making it the largest regiment in the army.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_22e_R%C3%A9giment
6. Simply amazing. I would not have thought that kind of skill was possible with a helicopter. US Airforce should recruit him immediately.
Anybody catch the Myth Busters episode where they couldn’t even get the remote copter off the ground? Kudos to the camera dude, btw.
RBG
16. – oil of dog,
Can you say Urban Legend??
You might think so but I was shocked the first time I saw it done.
#15 – You’re right. It was a prank. Scared the crap out of the guys up close. Pretty hilarious. It would make a crummy hoax.
I don’t think it was a prank or a hoax. Sometimes, shit just happens.
26. Shit is just what would happen if that wasn’t a hoax not laughing!