Comments on: Fact or Fiction?

Fact or Fiction?

Niahmas — Mon, 08 Oct 2001 08:25:35 -0800

Fact or Fiction? It looks fake to me but my friend swears it is real. Any ideas?

By: zempf

zempf — Mon, 08 Oct 2001 08:30:29 -0800

You might note that this is a direct link to a 4+ megabyte MPEG video.

By: monkeyJuice

monkeyJuice — Mon, 08 Oct 2001 08:31:49 -0800

looks kinda real.. the target could have been "painted" with a laser aimed at the tank from some distance away - come to think about it - where the hell would someone get a laser guided missile from, and a tanks as well - " did u see how high that turn went" quite worrying

By: rcade

rcade — Mon, 08 Oct 2001 08:32:45 -0800

They blowed it up real good.

By: rcade

rcade — Mon, 08 Oct 2001 08:33:26 -0800

" did u see how high that turn went" quite worrying Turret. My first language is redneck, so I had no trouble understanding them.

By: Snotty

Snotty — Mon, 08 Oct 2001 08:34:14 -0800

Warning Warning, bullshit detector going crazy

By: billder

billder — Mon, 08 Oct 2001 08:35:42 -0800

all three shots looked real, but it feels like creative splicing. "let's see... the first shot will be swinging a baseball bat and the next shot will be a home run. Yay iMovie!"

By: monkeyJuice

monkeyJuice — Mon, 08 Oct 2001 08:35:51 -0800

looks like someone has disscused this b4 else where google cache

By: BlueScreen

BlueScreen — Mon, 08 Oct 2001 08:36:43 -0800

I think that tank blew up pretty completly for such a small missle. I think it would take a much larger explosion to destroy a tank that badly.

By: Qubit

Qubit — Mon, 08 Oct 2001 08:38:25 -0800

Why do I hear the first rocket explode before I see the flash? Light is so much faster than sound. Looks faked to me.

By: Niahmas

Niahmas — Mon, 08 Oct 2001 08:39:06 -0800

Thanks MonkeyJuice.,...

By: th3ph17

th3ph17 — Mon, 08 Oct 2001 08:41:36 -0800

Here are stills from that...on another site. the javelin is a pretty standard missle...and the t72 is a russian tank i believe, i'd say it is a real test firing.

By: monkeyJuice

monkeyJuice — Mon, 08 Oct 2001 08:42:05 -0800

pause it at the very instant it hits the tanks (around 28 secs..) -

By: th3ph17

th3ph17 — Mon, 08 Oct 2001 08:42:35 -0800

heh.

By: physics

physics — Mon, 08 Oct 2001 08:44:06 -0800

looks real, but the tank could possibly be just a shell and not a "real" tank? the rocket may be small, but if there's anything that modern warfare has taught us it's that size doesn't always matter.

By: th3ph17

th3ph17 — Mon, 08 Oct 2001 08:48:45 -0800

look at the stills i linked to...the engine of that tank landed 65 meters away...i dont think it was just a shell. That is what anti-armour missles do, they pierce the armour and explode from the inside, and they do it really well.

By: yesster

yesster — Mon, 08 Oct 2001 08:51:34 -0800

Uh, for those of us who refuse 4MB downloads from untrusted sources, or hate the media format and refuse to use it -- can someone please give a text explanation of what this is supposed to depict?? and give the standard journalistic info - who, what, where, when, why???

By: NortonDC

NortonDC — Mon, 08 Oct 2001 08:54:54 -0800

What exactly is there to hate about MPEG? Not proprietary enough? Insufficient user tracking technologies embedded in it? And is JPG an offensive technology, too? I mean, that is what's keeping you from following th3ph17's still image link, right?

By: da5id

da5id — Mon, 08 Oct 2001 09:08:34 -0800

This is an actual weapon used by the US Military. Not sure who these guys are, if they are civilian contractors or otherwise, but the Javelin is designed to be fired as a shoulder-launched weapon... It is guided to its target where it performs a 90 degree verticle climb and then "DIVES" down onto its target. Basically designed to be used against tanks as the thinnest armor on a tank is either at the top of the tank, or the bottom.

By: da5id

da5id — Mon, 08 Oct 2001 09:13:07 -0800

The individual firing the weapon appears to be Military personnel, and this is possibly a "live-fire" demonstration that the Military likes to perform. Advanced Anti -Tank Weapon System - Medium (Javelin) (IC) The JAVELIN is a man-portable, fire and forget, 2500+ range advanced antitank missile system capable of defeating all known armor threats. The system consists of a reusable Command Launch Unit, a missile contained in a disposable Launch Tube Assembly and a suite of training devices. It is in full-rate production and was fielded to US Army in June 1996.

By: da5id

da5id — Mon, 08 Oct 2001 09:16:10 -0800

What I find amazing, is that in the last few frames, the missle not only knocks the tank out, but completely obliterates it... That is some serious firepower. The missle system used by troops before the Javelin, was the Dragon, which was wire-guided, and required the shooter to remain in position until the missle impacted its target... It also had less "knock-out" power then the Javelin does.

By: Hildago

Hildago — Mon, 08 Oct 2001 09:35:58 -0800

That was cool, but.. damn.. Maybe I'm just too used to what missiles look like when launched in Hollywood movies, but that video looked a little fakey.

By: Potsy

Potsy — Mon, 08 Oct 2001 09:40:27 -0800

The sound effects, at least, are definitely faked. There is no time delay when the first explosion goes up, even though it is obviously far enough away to produce at least a couple of seconds worth of delay (1 second per 1,000 feet is the approximate speed of sound travelling through air at sea level atmospheric pressure). And if you freeze frame it just as the missle hits in the first close up, as monkeyJuice suggested, it looks almost like the missle is still just striking the target, but the explosion has already started, and it's not coming from the point of contact. On the other hand, why the hell would somebody fake a video like this when weapons like this really do exist?

By: jpoulos

jpoulos — Mon, 08 Oct 2001 09:53:33 -0800

And if you freeze frame it just as the missle hits in the first close up, as monkeyJuice suggested, Actually, it's the second close-up that I think Monkeyjuice was referring to. You can actually see the edit jump. On the other hand, why the hell would somebody fake a video like this when weapons like this really do exist? Um, for the same reason they didn't really blow up the White House in Independence Day? I can afford iMovie, but not a Javelin missile.

By: BentPenguin

BentPenguin — Mon, 08 Oct 2001 09:54:11 -0800

For all you arm-chair Jane's types, given to off-the-cuff analysys (and if you weren't why log in to MeAFI??), note that mpeg are notoriously poor in terms of synchronizing audio to video. Join us next week on Farm-Film Blow-up....

By: NortonDC

NortonDC — Mon, 08 Oct 2001 10:05:33 -0800

I don't think it's an AV synch issue. It seems much more likely that there were multiple audio sources (to go along with the multiple video sources) and the closest one (which could easily be audio only) was used for the impact and detonation.

By: nicwolff

nicwolff — Mon, 08 Oct 2001 10:12:53 -0800

If you trim the URL and poke around the guy's site, you'll see that he's a full-on gun nut, probably from Texas. He and his pals make silencers and play with full-auto rifles and SMGs. Where they'd get an anti-tank rocket and a tank, I don't know.

By: Tubes

Tubes — Mon, 08 Oct 2001 10:35:21 -0800

Is there some obscure, undocumented way to frame-advance in Windows Media Player, or that an unbelieveable ommision?

By: techgnollogic

techgnollogic — Mon, 08 Oct 2001 10:56:23 -0800

You can open the file in Quicktime and frame advance there.

By: cps

cps — Mon, 08 Oct 2001 11:05:05 -0800

Tubes: perhaps there is but I've never seen it. Lots of those Microsoft/Real/Apple type programs don't have framestep, and often only teensy little analog position sliders. Dumb but true. There are a bunch of freeware mpeg players out there though that might.

By: totee

totee — Mon, 08 Oct 2001 11:05:37 -0800

the missile itself looks like budget cgi. look at the video full screen and watch the behavior of the projectile. it just looks... wrong, i guess.

By: Hildegarde

Hildegarde — Mon, 08 Oct 2001 11:10:06 -0800

Is there a reason why people use the windows media player instead of quicktime? I heart my quicktime player.

By: nickonomicon

nickonomicon — Mon, 08 Oct 2001 11:15:50 -0800

As a former Anti-tank Infantryman (TOW gunner), this looks realistic. The Javelin is much, much better than either the TOW or the Dragon. One thing you have to be aware of is that this is a T72 with a full tactical load. This means lots of fuel and ammunition. Doesn't take much to get the other rounds to cook off. We had a few civilian observers during some of our live fire training, especially force modernization stuff. Apparently people like to see what their tax dollars are buying. If you can find any info on the KEK (Kinetic Energy Kill) system that was being developed in the late '80s/early '90s, you'd love it. The missile is a 3 meter long depleted uranium baseball bat. 5km in 3 seconds. It was supposed to be mounted on the Bradley chassis. I saw a video of a test firing (since all the 11H's were supposed to be changed over to 11K) and I couldn't wait to have one.

By: gleemax

gleemax — Mon, 08 Oct 2001 11:24:54 -0800

Is there a reason why people use the windows media player instead of quicktime? Quicktime (for Windows) has a horrible, nonstandard UI. Windows Media Player (the version before the one that supports skinning) isn't horrible, for a built-in player, but there are a ton of better players. (Although at least it looks like an application and not a hunk of metal.)

By: mattpusateri

mattpusateri — Mon, 08 Oct 2001 12:03:56 -0800

That looks like bad TV special effects... Like something from "Sliders"...

By: th3ph17

th3ph17 — Mon, 08 Oct 2001 12:26:38 -0800

Thank you nickonomicon. Real life often looks like bad TV special effects. Ever see something horrible in real life and think that it didn't look as Real as in the Movies?

By: Tubes

Tubes — Mon, 08 Oct 2001 12:44:58 -0800

Hm. Okay, using Quicktime (thanks for the tip) to frame-advance it, the first segment looks pretty real but the closeups of the tank explosion are not very convincing. Can't say if it's a fake or just really bad editing, though.

By: delmoi

delmoi — Mon, 08 Oct 2001 13:55:47 -0800

The only thing that made this suspect (in my mind) was the lack of a delay between the image of the explosion and the sound. But as someone mentioned, it could have been re-synched. But it definetly looks real to me, the rocket gets an inital boost to get out of the launcher, and once it's a safe distance away it takes off. To those of you who say it's 'wrong', have you ever seen a real missle take off? And there is definetly no CG involved in this, just look at the smoke near the guys after they launch (7-9 seconds), You can see it ebbing and twisting in the wind. No off the shelf software is going to do that. These guys definetly fired a missle, and a tank was definetly blown up... wether those things are related or not, well...

By: CrayDrygu

CrayDrygu — Mon, 08 Oct 2001 14:34:35 -0800

"Real life often looks like bad TV special effects. Ever see something horrible in real life and think that it didn't look as Real as in the Movies?" Absolutely. Especially things like fist fights, which are never as spectacular, things falling over/down (which don't happen in slow-mo in real life), car crashes (which rarely result in explosions), and explosions (which also don't happen in slow-mo, and usually aren't as big). Strangely, though, the WTC disaster looked very Hollywood to me. That was one of my first thoughts -- wow, Hollywood got it right.

By: dhartung

dhartung — Mon, 08 Oct 2001 21:56:38 -0800

Cray: The thing was, all the jet fuel. Hollywood loves to make its explosions out of jet fuel because you get this lovely big orange fireball (to have your actors bluescreened in front of, flying like Superman on the shockwave, yet never getting hit by debris). An explosion of the WTC, sans jet and thus sans jet fuel, wouldn't look anything similar.

By: mrben

mrben — Mon, 08 Oct 2001 22:55:55 -0800

quick note .. i work in animation and effects and we test render stuff to avi's quite often .. microsoft media player USED to have frame advance but not the honking great new ones .. which is why i'm sticking to media player version 4.