An Avalanche of Tank Fire?

[George Hill]

This Italian Anti-American Hack that was released by Terrorists who was shot at. I have a hard time believing a word she said.
She says, "feeling yourself covered with avalanche of gunfire from a tank that is beside you..."
Wow. That sounds horrible. This poor thing.
We have obtained photos of the car in question. I put red circles around possible bullet holes. I'm not even sure if these are bullet holes, but these are the only places on the car that looks like bullet holes.
I don't know about you guys, but I am not seeing an avalanche of tank fire here. I don't think this is the work of soldiers who have murderous intent. In fact that's pretty conservative in my estimation. 3 hits. With the spacing of the (possible) hits, to me that looks like a single burst from an M-16A2 which fires a 3 round burst at it's most angry setting.
I'm looking at the military's story and her story... and I'm just not believing this lady. I think she is lying. It's sad that the one guy died... I really am. But it looks to me that the troops trying to stop the car were holding back. A lot. That tells me that the soldiers really and seriously did not want to kill anyone. Because the average grunt is packing enough firepower to turn that little car into something looking like a work of modern art, but that is not what happened.

 

[ZeroX]

I concur.

 

[forquidder]

Commie

I hear that she is a journalist for a communist newspaper in Italy. Me thinks she may have a slight agenda to make this look as bad as possible on the U.S. military to sway public opinion. Even though Italy only has 3000 troops in Iraq, it would be another small meaningless victory for leftists if enough pressure is brought to bear on politicians to withdraw them.

 

[P95Carry]

George - I am on your page totally.

(Where the heck ya bin recently?? Shucks, thought you'd gotten lost in the desert )

 

[Nightfall]

The first couple hits are directly above the tire... maybe we're looking at a hastily aimed 3 shot burst at the front right tire, and some muzzle climb? *shrugs*

 

[jefnvk]

Now the story has morphed into fire from a tank?

Last I heard from the Italians was that over 300 rounds were fired. Either our soldiers need some serious requalification, or someone's lying.

 

[boofus]

That photo is a misreport by the AP.

http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/
has more details.

 

[PvtPyle]

Stand by George, here we go......

Who cares if that is the car? Who cares if she was a reporter for some sudo-commie rag? We are over there to give these people the same rights we have. The right to disagree with what the masses or minority think. The right to form your own opinion, no matter how diluted or stupid. We cant say that the same right does not apply to a reporter in the war zone.

That said, she is a complete idiot. Not only does she think we could care less about what her and her thrid rate hack of a paper say about us (in us I mean we the troops on the ground, and thru us our country as a whole) but she thinks that we can see who is in a car speeding down a road at night. If she thinks that the troops could tell who was in the car under those circumstances then she is giving the US too much credit for our training and technology. We have great toys and great training, but we are not superman with Star Trek toys (well, most aren't! )

Personally, I think she should be glad as hell that she is not dead. But now we have to deal with the $1M in free aid the Italians just gave the enemy. I dont like the fact that ANYONE has fallen into the hands of the enemy and been butchered like an animal. But now they can buy $1m worth of military hardware from the other supporters of terrorism, like france and Syria that ours boys on the ground will have to deal with. If there is karma out there those items will be used on the Italians. Either way, screw her. She should be glad she is free with her head attached. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who wanted the right have perished over the last 20 yrs at the hands of a madman.


BTW George..... where HAVE you been? Drop me a line, same old place.

 

[DRZinn]

She's a reporter, all right - for Il Manifesto. An Italian communist paper. Take anything she says with a whole shaker of salt.

 

[ZeroX]

Ok, throw the car out of the discussion. I still think it's pretty much impossible for someone to survive 300-400 rounds coming at them. And, of course, the fact that she's a commie and a reporter...

 

[DRZinn]

What do we know, really, at this point?

1. Shots were fired.
2. Something wounded the reporter.
3. Something killed the agent.

...and that's about it.

 

[Standing Wolf]

Maybe the soldiers need to put in some more range time.

 

[George Hill]

Misreported by the AP?


I suspected it had to have been.
I was awfully confused about our boys over there only giving a car running a check point only one single burst from a 16.
PvtPyle, I know, would have written his autograph all over that car with a nice long sustained burst from a beltfed.


Been? I've been fixing things... Things that break a lot... like Jeeps and Windows based PC's. And spending most of my THR time prowling the For Sale section.

 

[nico]

PvtPyle, I completely agree. I saw a report earlier this evening that put the ransom at $10-13mil (that's a lot of IEDs )

 

[El Rojo]

It cracks me up how people get so fired up about these incidents. Italians protesting at the US Embassy? Give me a break. If you are driving a car towards a check-point at night and you don't slow down and/or stop, you are going to get shot. I don't care if you are a commie reporter or not. All this story proves is that there are people with agendas out there who could care less about the facts and only seek to sensationalize and use events to further their own cause. If that doesn't sound like an anti-gunner, I don't know what does. The important thing to remember is that most rational adults could care less about this propaganda and we still have hope.

 

[crashresidue]

Excuse ME!

"there are people with agendas out there who could care less about the facts and only seek to sensationalize and use events to further their own cause."

Gee, to me, it sounds alot like our nightly news!!!

Sorry that our troops "shot for protection" of themselves and their comrades, at a vehicle that they were NOT briefed about! Sorry, if you're dumb enough NOT to slow down/stop at a check point, on the most dangerous road in the world, then you SHOULD get shot!!!

No HIT, NO foul!

300 - 400 rounds - gee, again - I DON'T think so! 15 rounds to a clip - that's a LOT of clips to bust on one car! I think that this reporter was not only recently released, but STONED!

Do you know the difference between a "war story" and a "fairie tail?" One starts "Once upon a time" and the other starts "And honest fella's, this is no sh*t". Me, I'm puttin' on my boots, it's gonna' get deep before this one is laid to rest.

cr

 

[RaggedClaws]

Have any of you been to Italy? Those Italians drive like frackin' maniacs! I've never seen worse or more dangerous drivers, as a whole, in all my life, and I grew up just outside of NYC!

Let's see, the car didn't slow down at a military checkpoint, car got shot at, and someone died as a result (the driver I think, right?). What's the problem?

 

[armoredman]

These people lost every war since Caeser died. Who cares what they think....

 

[Antjo]

I wish that she had been hit by a tank round, then we wouldn't have to listen to her.

 

[Lone Star]

Actually, such emperors as Augustus, Trajan, and Marcus Aurelius, if not as impressive as was Julius Caesar, did pretty well. But that indeed a long time ago.

Lone Star

 

[Moondoggie]

Last nite it was reported that she claims that she was purposely marked for asassination by US Forces because of her political orientation. Geesh, AS IF!!!

 

[MrMurphy]

An M16 has 30 rounds to a magazine. Even on burst you can empty one in about 3 seconds.

If they'd been serious about stopping that car, not firing a warning shot/burst, the car would have been seriously ventilated.


That looks like a warning burst that climbed off target.



If they'd INTENDED to kill them all they would have. Even the French can't miss that badly.

 

[Nazirite]

Maybe she was experiencing post dramatic stress syndrome from her captivity.

 

[TheEgg]

Last nite it was reported that she claims that she was purposely marked for asassination by US Forces because of her political orientation.

If this were true, she would be completely and seriously dead right now, not alive in Italia giving interviews!!

 

[c_yeager]

How badly damaged the car was is completely irrelevant. We fired on a car that held "friendlies", killed one of them and wounded another. We arent disputing that fact and wether we fired 10 or 1000 rounds doesnt matter. What is at question is WHY we fired. If these people dissobeyed commands or ignored warnings then we would have been justified to chew it apart. The question is ONLY if we did what we were supposed to do. SO far it looks like we did.