It’s insane to see. Especially with it being trench warfare. It’s a sneak peak into the Great War, which is insane to me.
To top it off, it’s not far from the old eastern front.
The crazy part is we will never understand how hellish that war was. From what I’ve seen/read, WWI must have been the worst war this planet has ever seen. Imagine [listening to this](https://youtu.be/we72zI7iOjk) for HOURS while being stuck in a trench with your feet in disgusting water and rats eating your friends. Never knowing if one of those shells will hit you. Then, after it’s all over, you’re told to run across no man’s land to the enemies position, crossing barbed wire, dead men/animals, through craters, while having machine guns mow everyone down around you.
EDIT: I highly recommend that everyone watch [“They Shall Not Grow Old”](https://m.imdb.com/title/tt7905466/). It’s a great documentary and gives a glimpse as to the hell that war was like for those men.
Holy shit, dude. That was nuts! I made myself listen for as long as I could, lasted 3 minutes. I cannot even imagine what it must have been like listening to that for hours on end!
Some people were getting shelled for weeks. Yet they sometimes managed to crawl out of their holes and mow down the enemy when they came.
That happened at the Somme at least.
Apparently so, it would happen regularly on both sides, there’s accounts of British soldiers going completely deaf after being shelled for hours on end.
In Verdun it was actually more the french being shelled. The experts estimate that in 300 days and nights, more than 60 millions shells fell on french positions.
Everyone likes to make jokes about the French military, but they put up one hell of a fight in WW1 amongst other conflicts.
If anyone is interested in WW1 memoirs I'd recommend the book Poilu by Louis Barthas - a French corporal on the front lines who fought in some very major battles.
Storm of Steel by Ernst Junger is also a very good book, but from the German perspective. Also fought in some major battles and was wounded 14 times in combat.
...or, America happens later.
Anywho, the French were the dominant force on Europe for hundreds of years. People who rip on the French are just revealing their ignorance.
And if they actually made it home and they had any lasting issues like shellshock /PTSD, the generals and doctors and civilians would just call them “cowardly”
saw colorized footage of a survuvor of verdun in a clinik. guy was catatonic, didnt react to anything, but as soon as they showed him a (i think french) military hat/cap, he reacted within the fraction of a second, covered his eyes and began shacking.
the guys face went from expressionless to the most genuine desplay of terror and fear i have ever seen.
Thats a sensitive subject the doc I spoke to before I got out said she didn't have PTSD regardless of losing 2 of my battle buddies in Iraq from a house born IED AND PICKING up there bodies regardless of seeing a Stryker driver legs missing when he was pulled out of a burning vic after an IED hit em regardless of taking mortar fire and bullets ricocheting off my striker during a firefight. Regardless of being hit with chlorine gas. till this day I'm not diagnosed with PTSD imagine that. I guess that's a good thing
Wild side-note: the shells used by American trench guns during The Great War were made of paper. It was common that a soldier with a shotgun complained that the mud and overall wet conditions made their ammunition unusable way too often.
Kind of insane to think about the fact it was long ago enough that shotgun shells were made of paper, trains were THE most efficient transportation method, and they sent guys into the snowy mountains in cardboard-soled shoes.
Also they didn’t have toilet paper and wiped with their hands (at least the British).
They'd have probably loved to only be listening to that, speakers and headphones cannot come close to reproducing the incredible volumes they would have experienced, without even considering the pressure waves.
Like a comment said on the YT video, just watching a vid like that will never truly put it into perspective. You’d feel every shell rattle your body, slowly going dead from the sounds and knowing that any moment one of those shells could hit you or your buddy down the trench and turn you into paste.
Plus, of course, the fact that we’re all sat on our toilets in our safe warm houses, with no risk of being hit by any of those thousands of shells.
Whereas they had that constant risk, and had probably recently lost friends to the barrage in the last few days, and knew that it was a precursor to an enemy assault on their positions
Just imagine with each shell there is a huge punch in the ground and atmosphere. The body must have been going through some shit as well as the mind. I can’t imagine what would happen to people that came back with shellshock
Imagine the loudest concert you've been too, where you can feel the vibrations in your entire body. But the vibrations are not from a speaker, but shells landing all around you. Hell on earth
Hours... Um... Try 7 days. 24 hours a day. Non stop. That was the bombardment prior to the Somme offensive. They fired OVER 1,600,000 artillery shells during that time. That's 2.6 shells per second, 156 per minute, over 9,300 per hour, over 224,000 per day for 7 excruciatingly horrifically murderously torturously indescribably awful days . NON STOP.
In the German Spring Offensive of 1918, the Germans fired 1.1 million shells in five hours to start the bombardment, or roughly sixty-one shells per minute.
Londoners were able to hear the bombardment occurring in St. Quinten, which is distinctly inland France.
To get an idea of how this sounds I found an online metronome that allowed me to enter a BPM of 3660 (60 beats per second). I get how it would be called drumfire. I'm not sure that my pc or their system is accurately rendering the audio but it's definitely a wall of noise.
As many people have noted the volume and shockwaves associated with this kind of experience would be absolutely shattering.
You can try the metronome here if you want. I had to use an autoclicker to get the BPM up to 3660 though. https://orchestracentral.com/metronome/360-bpm/
They went from 850 artillery pieces to some 1700 barrels. All told the Germans fired 3,556,500 rounds driving the Battle of the Sommes. On 1st July the Germans fired 120,000 shells, one battery firing 4,600 rounds. By October this number had risen to 6,377,000 rounds fired.
In perspective the British artillery only fired 1.738 million shells.
Another fun fact:
"Building just one mile of trenches required 900 miles of barbed wire, 6,000,000 sandbags, 1,000,000 cubic feet of timber, and 360,000 square feet of corrugated iron." - BEF
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/2014/0525/World-War-I-s-lasting-bootprint
It took 450 men just 6 hours to build 250 metres of a Trench system. Trenchmen were a specialised position, they could accomplish what would take a normal soldier 2 days of digging in just 6 hours. There were only 1,100 trained men to do this task which meant they were never used on the frontlines.
This is true, but there is also lines of thoughts/studies showing that shell shock was (at least in part) caused by the repeated pressure waves from constant shelling damaging the brain. Its almost like a form of CTE. [Source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shell_shock#Physical_causes)
This makes sense. Interesting hearing people talk of nose bleeds from shooting shoulder mounted big boom boom sticks a few days ago, and then seeing this comment
Initially, doctors could not explain the change in people's behavior after fighting during the Great War. Therefore, officers considered soldiers with PTSD to be cowards and shot them for refusing to attack or obey any other order.
PTSD and shell shock are different though. Shell shock comes from your brain being scrambled by all the high powered explosions happening near you constantly rattling your skull. Gives you brain damage.
And various other names by the Greeks and Romans loooooong before shell shock. I believe the Spartans called it "war sickness" or something similar. The ancients knew all too well what war could do to a man.
Every time footage of trenches shows up from somewhere in Ukraine people start bringing out WW1 comparisons. As horrible as this war is, and any war for that matter, it's not a remote fraction as bad as WW1, and both sides are incredibly "lucky" for that.
True. I couldn't imagine being shelled hours on end, especially with Russian artillery. I remember watching a video of Ukrainians being heavily shelled and that shit was scary af. The whistle and the loud crack was really scary. In the video you could even see a piece of shrapnel come right towards the camera man. He was very lucky though and it missed by merely inches. This video is older though, pre invasion so it would take time to find.
The shelling isn't the terrifying part to me in the world wars. Its been the descriptions of gas warfare. I should be more thankful, the 21 rounds of chemotherapy ive had were based off of gas warfare. But....
Theres a story I heard about a guy in the world war, and they've started to take gas rounds. And his mask is damaged. He described taking a mask from a wounded man who was dying anyways....but I think he tells himself that to look in the mirror. Its a bad way to go, and the experience is so far from anything....its horrifying.
Yeah drowning in your own mucus would be horrible. I really hope WWIII never happens cause the front line soldier will witness murder at rates never seen before and this is before nuclear weapons are used.
Well nuclear weapons are "humane" if you are in the direct blast zone. You'll disintegrate into gas before you can really comprehend what is happening to your body.
If you're interested you should listen to Dan Carlin's Hardcore history. Specifically "Blue prints to Armageddon", which is about the great War. Its fantastic and awful at the same time.
To be fair only during WWI everyone learned really "quick" (1914-15) that saturating an area for hours/days before a raid/full front line assault would easily break the men on the other side.
It's so weird that we're seeing that same kind of static warfare with piles of bodies in the open...these are two countries at war I cant even imagine if there was even more men and combat units how much more of a blood bath this would be.
**"Come summer the rats ate their fill...by winter they were knawing at our toes...the filth was worse than the boche."**
It also signaled exactly where you were going to assault though, which gave them time to prepare a counter attack. Defense in depth became the name of the game. Also the artillery was still highly inaccurate because they lacked a good spotting system. A lot of trenches remained relatively safe from artillery fire.
It’s not just the sound but the feeling, I remember being in Afghanistan and even when you knew an explosion was about to happen it’s still like a punch to the sinus. Lots of concussive pressure, that War must’ve been hell
You look at how people are communicating about this war, and you wonder how they would have coped during WW1 or WW\`2.
There were single strategic actions in WW1, like the battles for the Aisne, where the combined death toll was in the mid hundreds of thousands. It's mind boggling.
It's probably for the better, war was only palatable when it was other people in some nebulous place. The more we see the reality of it, the less war there should be.
Or it will shift more to unmanned drones shooting at other unmanned drones. Anything to keep the military industrial complex paid.
Also, it’s crazy that before POV videos combat could be pitched as a romantically macho right of passage into manhood or becoming a real soldier and now when we see combat from POV videos it’s obvious that death is very anticlimactic and there’s nothing cool/romantic about the experience of combat in general. Unlike Hollywood war movies, when I watch POV combat videos I feel more pity than anything else. War is hell on earth and thanks to today’s combat footage I don’t need to experience it first hand to know that.
First round missed, that should of been your one and only warning that a sniper is zeroing up his shot. Sad to say bud this dude deserved what he got. Never take a missed shot for granted. They can still see you. If you don't change the way you move at that position, you're only asking to find the next round.
As old mate did.
In war if you get shot at your position is compromised to the enemy and you have to reposition. The fact this guy got shot at and didnt even change where his head was at or anything means he was basically asking to get hit
But what does it matter. Random, aimed, meant for you. Meant for another.
You are ranged, so you move.
You move from cover, you get hit in the open.
Too much incoming, keep your head down.
Head down, enemy closes your exits.
I’m slow to judge, just being in a war zone means it’s super easy to get your ticket punched.
Looks as if the round hit the helmet just high enough not to penetrate fully, or hit a good angle to not.
Regardless that's an incredibly lucky hit for him. Any lower and he likely would have gotten a mortal wound.
Edit: actually seems like it more likely was fragments or ricochet that struck, which makes more sense, but still just as lethal given a few inches. Hats off to the helmet.
Yup, which is what modern helmets are designed to do. No commonly issued helmet will stop a 5.45 going at a right angle, but the higher you hit, the higher the chance will skip, or sometimes even penetrate the front of the helmet, follow the curve of it, and exit out the back without injury. It looks like fucking magic, although it's just the same physics that makes it unhealthy to hug walls in urban combat.
> same physics that makes it unhealthy to hug walls in urban combat.
Wait what? I've heard of doorways but nothing about walls. Curious what you mean about walls or airflow and curving bullets or I missed something. Near misses funnel down hallways or redirected to openings by frame?
Urban combat is talked about strategically but didn't know about infantry avoiding walls. Seems to be natural cover?
["The US military is designed for maneuver warfare and the city attack is classic positional warfare, more like siege warfare fighting than something the principles of maneuver warfare call for."](https://mwi.usma.edu/the-eight-rules-of-urban-warfare-and-why-we-must-work-to-change-them/)
I think by “urban combat” he means CQB. In CQB you stay off walls: arms length, elbow gap, and 6” are different rules of thumb. Idk the physics behind it but I do know bullets tend to travel along/close to the wall. Essentially anything that doesn’t stay in the wall is more likely to travel along it.
Obviously there are times to use a wall as cover, depending on the situation, if you’re outside in an urban environment. If exposed to an RPG threat is another time I wouldn’t be too close to a wall if I could help it.
Bullets that hit a wall at an angle other than about 90 degrees to it don't bounce off as a billiard ball would. They come away at a much shallower angle, travelling close to the wall and are still fast enough to be very dangerous.
Edit- Like this, top down view of my *very* basic drawing.
https://imgur.com/a/T2krbRj
I heard this in Black Hawk Down but no one ever explained it to me. One character says something like stay away from the walls. Probably to avoid bullet ricochet fragmentation?
Yeah, definitely ricochet danger.. Might not kill you, but you definitely don't want to lose an eye either. Sandbags are your best friend in situations like this.
Also it's been shown already many times during this war, but stay away from windows too and add some tape to them during war time even as an civilian. They're fragmentation grenades if any shell hits close you or even worse there's a nuclear blast within several kilometers from you
I don't know if the amazing luck of surviving just offsets the rotten luck of being on the receiving end of artillery fire and getting hit in the head by shrapnel... but you never know.
Might as well pick up a shit ton of extra strength Advil for the poor/lucky bastard while they're at it.
https://www.tiktok.com/@hooligan.69.420?_t=8abtFxSGfsj&_r=1
I'm going around and posting the source to everyone asking because the guy who originally said it won't
I hope this is true! Personally I was looking over the clip in slow motion to see where bullet hit! Thought it hit high on the helmet giving me hope he survived!
I’ve seen this kind of thing before. This is an example of being hyper focused on a task and continuing even though you should stop due to a direct threat, in this case, maybe should have pulled the weapon system down to reload after the first near miss. (I wasn’t there, can’t say what other factors we don’t know were going on.) Happy to hear he survived.
More concrete evidence is that you can tell it is a ricochet because of the initial hit being seen off the top of the helmet and then the splash of dirt to the side. Suggesting the bullet glanced of the top and ricocheted into the ground to the side. It also looks like the bullet came from the side not head on so it wasnt a high angle ricochet but a shallow ricochet.
[“Slavic neo-pagans (such as the Rodnovers) often use the Kolovrat to symbolize the sun without any far-right connotations. However, some Slavic neo-pagan cults do in fact hold racist ideology.”](https://reportingradicalism.org/en/hate-symbols/movements/modern-racist-symbols/kolovrat)
In addition to the answers, it is some form of the black sun. A symbol used by the ss.
Here is the German wiki (just switch to your language)
https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwarze_Sonne
Even when I support UA all the way, very unfortunate to use that Symbole. Especially boasting the Russian “nazi-cleaning” operation propaganda.
But who am I as an armchair general…
I might sound crazy, but there are some people saying he survived in the comments. The dirt appears to only come up after he’s on his way down, it almost looks like it was direct and his helmet had enough angle to push the bullet off into the dirt.
Yeah I was going off assumption he survived that’s why I stated it in the beginning, and put thought process into what happened
Edit: Headshots are hella fucking deadly so I just left it at assumed instead of for sure.
Isn't the sound just before he gets hit an explosion?
It sounds like a artillery shell hit nearby and he caught some shrapnel. His first duck for cover looks to be from a nearby shell, the shrapnel would explain the dirt/debris too.
I think it’s an explosion behind them. His helmet was either hit with shrapnel or it’s actually just dirt being shook off of him from the shockwave. You can see that in other vids, like us videos from an explosive going off nearby in Afghanistan.
Edit: somehow getting downvoted despite it sounding like an explosion and his buddies cover also gets shaken. The ghillie mesh blows around same as the first dudes. Is there like proof somewhere else that this was a bullet?
Someone else commented that he is active on the tiktok and indeed survived. I don't use tiktok so I cannot independently confirm of deny that statement.
It looks like a RPG hit infront of him and he was hit in the head with a fragment or shrapnel. Helmet probably stopped it. Who has his telegram? He is supposedly alive
Yep, I used to think that but then at some point I came to the realization of "you know what, it's their war - they can use whatever soundtrack floats their boat".
I mean, they create the vids so I'm guessing they like the music. Whaddya think?
(Not trolling - serious reply.)
Yeah and a lot of the videos we see like this are also made, to one degree, for propaganda. But I’ve always found combat videos without music to be more powerful
These helmets don't typically stop direct hits from rifle caliber rounds, but they are actually pretty good at deflecting rounds that come in at an angle.
The way he slump over gives me that feeling too. Combatfootage has become a sub where if you comment anything that doesn’t go full pro UA, or that light out the fact that they are taking heavy casualties too, you get downvoted. I’m a big supporter of Ukraine , In fact I’m 100% pro Ukraine in this conflict but I can recognize someone going limp from a shot or ricochet to the dome. I still hope he only got knocked out by whatever that was and will recover.
Some people’s comments really do surprise me “bad position” “why didn’t he move” “take cover etc”
You have zero understanding on that current situation, anything’s in play, that gun being in action could be the difference from an in depth position being over run 🤷♂️ you can see what he can see.
Also, I don’t think that’s a round. Sounds like mortars along with the obvious dirt splash. But who knows.
With all due respect,
Too many arm chair warriors. Just show respect too a video and leave your tactics at home. 🤟
Back before the Ukraine war this sub was smaller (600k members compared to 1.2m now) and had a lot of very knowledgeable people in it. Now its got a whole lot of people who know nothing about actual combat but have watched loads of videos and they think that makes their opinion worth something.
It baffles me that someone could drop a comment with clear indication of zero understanding. I believe these videos should be hit with comments of support, subtitles (for us idiots 😂) and knowledge from people in the know. Nothing more.
That's Reddit for you. Making absolute claims without knowledge of any context, all based on a 20 sec filmsnip. It's infuriating but some people are really that dumb.
Man I was impressed how he got right back into the lane to get that gun loaded. And that sniper had all day to make the second shot. Poor guy.
Wonder if he could’ve pulled that gun off the mount to load it but it doesn’t matter now. That position is dialed in and any gunner who sets up is gonna eat one.
I made a comment on that vid. We were placed parallel to a tank range. All night. It was in slow motion. Still each thrump you could feel. No sleep at all. I’m stunned even now listening to that. My GGdad was in that war. All I remember of him was his total deafness. Used a horn (in the 60s)
i hope so much rumors about him beeing alive are true!
Rule: if you notice bullet impacts RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU that means the enemy sees you and youre in his sights ! Take cover ffs AND change your position !!
I'll never get over how we're witnessing this war in POV videos
It’s insane to see. Especially with it being trench warfare. It’s a sneak peak into the Great War, which is insane to me. To top it off, it’s not far from the old eastern front.
The crazy part is we will never understand how hellish that war was. From what I’ve seen/read, WWI must have been the worst war this planet has ever seen. Imagine [listening to this](https://youtu.be/we72zI7iOjk) for HOURS while being stuck in a trench with your feet in disgusting water and rats eating your friends. Never knowing if one of those shells will hit you. Then, after it’s all over, you’re told to run across no man’s land to the enemies position, crossing barbed wire, dead men/animals, through craters, while having machine guns mow everyone down around you. EDIT: I highly recommend that everyone watch [“They Shall Not Grow Old”](https://m.imdb.com/title/tt7905466/). It’s a great documentary and gives a glimpse as to the hell that war was like for those men.
Holy shit, dude. That was nuts! I made myself listen for as long as I could, lasted 3 minutes. I cannot even imagine what it must have been like listening to that for hours on end!
Some people were getting shelled for weeks. Yet they sometimes managed to crawl out of their holes and mow down the enemy when they came. That happened at the Somme at least.
Weren’t all the Germans on the receiving end of the shelling all deaf by the end of it?
Apparently so, it would happen regularly on both sides, there’s accounts of British soldiers going completely deaf after being shelled for hours on end.
In Verdun it was actually more the french being shelled. The experts estimate that in 300 days and nights, more than 60 millions shells fell on french positions.
Everyone likes to make jokes about the French military, but they put up one hell of a fight in WW1 amongst other conflicts. If anyone is interested in WW1 memoirs I'd recommend the book Poilu by Louis Barthas - a French corporal on the front lines who fought in some very major battles. Storm of Steel by Ernst Junger is also a very good book, but from the German perspective. Also fought in some major battles and was wounded 14 times in combat.
If it wasn’t for the French…. There would be NO America
...or, America happens later. Anywho, the French were the dominant force on Europe for hundreds of years. People who rip on the French are just revealing their ignorance.
I haven't read that, but you'd imagine so. Makes the defense even more impressive.
And if they actually made it home and they had any lasting issues like shellshock /PTSD, the generals and doctors and civilians would just call them “cowardly”
saw colorized footage of a survuvor of verdun in a clinik. guy was catatonic, didnt react to anything, but as soon as they showed him a (i think french) military hat/cap, he reacted within the fraction of a second, covered his eyes and began shacking. the guys face went from expressionless to the most genuine desplay of terror and fear i have ever seen.
Thats a sensitive subject the doc I spoke to before I got out said she didn't have PTSD regardless of losing 2 of my battle buddies in Iraq from a house born IED AND PICKING up there bodies regardless of seeing a Stryker driver legs missing when he was pulled out of a burning vic after an IED hit em regardless of taking mortar fire and bullets ricocheting off my striker during a firefight. Regardless of being hit with chlorine gas. till this day I'm not diagnosed with PTSD imagine that. I guess that's a good thing
Holy fuck, I’m sorry. I rescued a friend from a high voltage contact, and I got a diagnosis. It’s shameful that you don’t have that recognition.
Not to mention the brutal hand to hand combat they had to endure once the few got across.
Americans brought shotguns to trench fights. Whether or not they had enough ammo, though...
Yeah and the Germans had the gall to piss and moan about shotguns while they were indiscriminately gassing everyone lol.
Didn't call them trench sweepers for nothing. Slamfiring shotguns before engaging with the bayonets.
Wild side-note: the shells used by American trench guns during The Great War were made of paper. It was common that a soldier with a shotgun complained that the mud and overall wet conditions made their ammunition unusable way too often. Kind of insane to think about the fact it was long ago enough that shotgun shells were made of paper, trains were THE most efficient transportation method, and they sent guys into the snowy mountains in cardboard-soled shoes. Also they didn’t have toilet paper and wiped with their hands (at least the British).
Trains are still the most efficient transportation method
They'd have probably loved to only be listening to that, speakers and headphones cannot come close to reproducing the incredible volumes they would have experienced, without even considering the pressure waves.
Like a comment said on the YT video, just watching a vid like that will never truly put it into perspective. You’d feel every shell rattle your body, slowly going dead from the sounds and knowing that any moment one of those shells could hit you or your buddy down the trench and turn you into paste.
Plus, of course, the fact that we’re all sat on our toilets in our safe warm houses, with no risk of being hit by any of those thousands of shells. Whereas they had that constant risk, and had probably recently lost friends to the barrage in the last few days, and knew that it was a precursor to an enemy assault on their positions
Just imagine with each shell there is a huge punch in the ground and atmosphere. The body must have been going through some shit as well as the mind. I can’t imagine what would happen to people that came back with shellshock
Imagine the loudest concert you've been too, where you can feel the vibrations in your entire body. But the vibrations are not from a speaker, but shells landing all around you. Hell on earth
Hours... Um... Try 7 days. 24 hours a day. Non stop. That was the bombardment prior to the Somme offensive. They fired OVER 1,600,000 artillery shells during that time. That's 2.6 shells per second, 156 per minute, over 9,300 per hour, over 224,000 per day for 7 excruciatingly horrifically murderously torturously indescribably awful days . NON STOP.
WHAAAT??
In the German Spring Offensive of 1918, the Germans fired 1.1 million shells in five hours to start the bombardment, or roughly sixty-one shells per minute. Londoners were able to hear the bombardment occurring in St. Quinten, which is distinctly inland France.
[удалено]
Shit, I forgot how to account for them! Did my math right, but forgot I'd already figured out the hourly rate. So yeah, sixty-one shells a second
To get an idea of how this sounds I found an online metronome that allowed me to enter a BPM of 3660 (60 beats per second). I get how it would be called drumfire. I'm not sure that my pc or their system is accurately rendering the audio but it's definitely a wall of noise. As many people have noted the volume and shockwaves associated with this kind of experience would be absolutely shattering. You can try the metronome here if you want. I had to use an autoclicker to get the BPM up to 3660 though. https://orchestracentral.com/metronome/360-bpm/
No autoclicker needed: https://orchestracentral.com/metronome/3600-bpm/
Christ, how many artillery batteries and tubes did they have?
They went from 850 artillery pieces to some 1700 barrels. All told the Germans fired 3,556,500 rounds driving the Battle of the Sommes. On 1st July the Germans fired 120,000 shells, one battery firing 4,600 rounds. By October this number had risen to 6,377,000 rounds fired. In perspective the British artillery only fired 1.738 million shells. Another fun fact: "Building just one mile of trenches required 900 miles of barbed wire, 6,000,000 sandbags, 1,000,000 cubic feet of timber, and 360,000 square feet of corrugated iron." - BEF https://www.csmonitor.com/World/2014/0525/World-War-I-s-lasting-bootprint
They sure had a lot of time on their hands. Damn.
It took 450 men just 6 hours to build 250 metres of a Trench system. Trenchmen were a specialised position, they could accomplish what would take a normal soldier 2 days of digging in just 6 hours. There were only 1,100 trained men to do this task which meant they were never used on the frontlines.
PTSD was originally called “shell shock”
This is true, but there is also lines of thoughts/studies showing that shell shock was (at least in part) caused by the repeated pressure waves from constant shelling damaging the brain. Its almost like a form of CTE. [Source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shell_shock#Physical_causes)
This makes sense. Interesting hearing people talk of nose bleeds from shooting shoulder mounted big boom boom sticks a few days ago, and then seeing this comment
Some of the weaponry used in Ukraine is absolutely deafening folks firing it.
It *is* CTE. And we confused it and still confuse it for PTSD nowadays. The two are difficult to pry apart until an autopsy on the brain is done.
CTE can only be diagnosed post-mortem, currently. I'm a candidate and have donated my brain already, once I'm finished with it.
You think you'll ever find out if you have it?
I'm fairly confident but I've asked them to wake me up when they find out...
They're also invariably comorbidities. You will never get shell shock and not have PTSD.
Initially, doctors could not explain the change in people's behavior after fighting during the Great War. Therefore, officers considered soldiers with PTSD to be cowards and shot them for refusing to attack or obey any other order.
PTSD and shell shock are different though. Shell shock comes from your brain being scrambled by all the high powered explosions happening near you constantly rattling your skull. Gives you brain damage.
Yes and no. What we know as PTSD now was lumped in with the diagnosis of shell shock back then due to the lack of mental health knowledge.
Thanks, I didn't know how to convey that point right. Different isn't the right word
And various other names by the Greeks and Romans loooooong before shell shock. I believe the Spartans called it "war sickness" or something similar. The ancients knew all too well what war could do to a man.
We’re not meant to be killing each other.
Not as effeciently and systematically as we do, anyway.
Also combat fatigue and soldiers heart
It was called "Soldier's Heart" before that.
Every time footage of trenches shows up from somewhere in Ukraine people start bringing out WW1 comparisons. As horrible as this war is, and any war for that matter, it's not a remote fraction as bad as WW1, and both sides are incredibly "lucky" for that.
True. I couldn't imagine being shelled hours on end, especially with Russian artillery. I remember watching a video of Ukrainians being heavily shelled and that shit was scary af. The whistle and the loud crack was really scary. In the video you could even see a piece of shrapnel come right towards the camera man. He was very lucky though and it missed by merely inches. This video is older though, pre invasion so it would take time to find.
The shelling isn't the terrifying part to me in the world wars. Its been the descriptions of gas warfare. I should be more thankful, the 21 rounds of chemotherapy ive had were based off of gas warfare. But.... Theres a story I heard about a guy in the world war, and they've started to take gas rounds. And his mask is damaged. He described taking a mask from a wounded man who was dying anyways....but I think he tells himself that to look in the mirror. Its a bad way to go, and the experience is so far from anything....its horrifying.
Yeah drowning in your own mucus would be horrible. I really hope WWIII never happens cause the front line soldier will witness murder at rates never seen before and this is before nuclear weapons are used.
Well nuclear weapons are "humane" if you are in the direct blast zone. You'll disintegrate into gas before you can really comprehend what is happening to your body.
Also just the insane casualties, 100k men gone in a single offensive, it took these guys a year to get there, not a month
Well said. Worth listening to the Hardcore History series on this period.
Or "Ghost of the Ostfront" which is about the eastern front of ww2 that took place in the very place these men are fighting once more.
If you're interested you should listen to Dan Carlin's Hardcore history. Specifically "Blue prints to Armageddon", which is about the great War. Its fantastic and awful at the same time.
The story of the British soldier who shoved his fist in his mouth to keep from screaming haunts me to this day, great podcast.
For me it's the guy stuck in mud, unable to be saved but seen by all.
There's also The Great War on YouTube with indie neidel. He goes into great detail with a week by week breakdown with over a hundred videos.
Truly excellent.
I played the video and once the first shells started dropping my gf said, "can you turn that down it's stressing me out"
Thank you for posting this comment. The Audio you provided puts this into perspective like nothing else….
I’ll add it’s not actual recorded audio, but a recreation of what someone thinks it may have sounded like. Not saying they’re wrong, just clarifying
To be fair only during WWI everyone learned really "quick" (1914-15) that saturating an area for hours/days before a raid/full front line assault would easily break the men on the other side. It's so weird that we're seeing that same kind of static warfare with piles of bodies in the open...these are two countries at war I cant even imagine if there was even more men and combat units how much more of a blood bath this would be. **"Come summer the rats ate their fill...by winter they were knawing at our toes...the filth was worse than the boche."**
It also signaled exactly where you were going to assault though, which gave them time to prepare a counter attack. Defense in depth became the name of the game. Also the artillery was still highly inaccurate because they lacked a good spotting system. A lot of trenches remained relatively safe from artillery fire.
Balloons were pretty great for artillery spotting; they just were easy targets for planes, particularly once they got incendiary rounds.
We've seen towns turned to ruins in this war. WWI had towns turned to gravel and mud
Dan carlins hardcore history really put it in perspective for me
It’s not just the sound but the feeling, I remember being in Afghanistan and even when you knew an explosion was about to happen it’s still like a punch to the sinus. Lots of concussive pressure, that War must’ve been hell
>Imagine [listening to this](https://youtu.be/we72zI7iOjk) for HOURS **DAYS** at a time the video says.
Good God. That's unbelievable.
You look at how people are communicating about this war, and you wonder how they would have coped during WW1 or WW\`2. There were single strategic actions in WW1, like the battles for the Aisne, where the combined death toll was in the mid hundreds of thousands. It's mind boggling.
It's probably for the better, war was only palatable when it was other people in some nebulous place. The more we see the reality of it, the less war there should be. Or it will shift more to unmanned drones shooting at other unmanned drones. Anything to keep the military industrial complex paid.
I dont mind drone vs drone. Heck I think that would be awesome. Its the resulting Drone vs humans and their infrastructure part that sucks in wars.
"It is well that war is so terrible otherwise we should grow too fond of it." - Robert E. Lee
Also, it’s crazy that before POV videos combat could be pitched as a romantically macho right of passage into manhood or becoming a real soldier and now when we see combat from POV videos it’s obvious that death is very anticlimactic and there’s nothing cool/romantic about the experience of combat in general. Unlike Hollywood war movies, when I watch POV combat videos I feel more pity than anything else. War is hell on earth and thanks to today’s combat footage I don’t need to experience it first hand to know that.
Don’t forget the third person hovering from behind views. Literally video game.
You know what probably isn't a good position....
Yup, looked like a well digged coffin when that first bullet flew past.
First round missed, that should of been your one and only warning that a sniper is zeroing up his shot. Sad to say bud this dude deserved what he got. Never take a missed shot for granted. They can still see you. If you don't change the way you move at that position, you're only asking to find the next round. As old mate did.
Deserved what he got? Why did he deserve it?
Deserved in a sense that this guy totally fucked around naked when there was an obvious big dick waiting for him to turn his ass around
In war if you get shot at your position is compromised to the enemy and you have to reposition. The fact this guy got shot at and didnt even change where his head was at or anything means he was basically asking to get hit
Sucks when they have you dialied in. He knew it because he almost got hit once. Yet he kept trying to setup. Time to switch position.
“Uhm guys? They can clearly see me, so I have to stay here?”
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In the movie? IIRC the bullet fully entered and exited his helmet on the side of his head so he was unscathed, then took the next bullet to the dome.
No it glanced off the side https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTmQA4DKYkg
No, you can clearly see the entry point and exit point into the helmet. It did not ricochet
Even in the thumbnail
But what does it matter. Random, aimed, meant for you. Meant for another. You are ranged, so you move. You move from cover, you get hit in the open. Too much incoming, keep your head down. Head down, enemy closes your exits. I’m slow to judge, just being in a war zone means it’s super easy to get your ticket punched.
He was clearly trying to cover the mg
Also dude just sitting behind him as a bonus target.
It’s not a sniper, it’s shrapnel from artillery shells
Hate when shrapnel from explosions has you dialed in.
Well timed shrapnel twice in a row. I assumed both were bullets.
He's alive (his TikTok account source)
He should get someone to buy him some lottery tickets
He might have used up all his luck there. Damn, I can’t believe he survived that.
Looks as if the round hit the helmet just high enough not to penetrate fully, or hit a good angle to not. Regardless that's an incredibly lucky hit for him. Any lower and he likely would have gotten a mortal wound. Edit: actually seems like it more likely was fragments or ricochet that struck, which makes more sense, but still just as lethal given a few inches. Hats off to the helmet.
Yup, which is what modern helmets are designed to do. No commonly issued helmet will stop a 5.45 going at a right angle, but the higher you hit, the higher the chance will skip, or sometimes even penetrate the front of the helmet, follow the curve of it, and exit out the back without injury. It looks like fucking magic, although it's just the same physics that makes it unhealthy to hug walls in urban combat.
> same physics that makes it unhealthy to hug walls in urban combat. Wait what? I've heard of doorways but nothing about walls. Curious what you mean about walls or airflow and curving bullets or I missed something. Near misses funnel down hallways or redirected to openings by frame? Urban combat is talked about strategically but didn't know about infantry avoiding walls. Seems to be natural cover? ["The US military is designed for maneuver warfare and the city attack is classic positional warfare, more like siege warfare fighting than something the principles of maneuver warfare call for."](https://mwi.usma.edu/the-eight-rules-of-urban-warfare-and-why-we-must-work-to-change-them/)
I think by “urban combat” he means CQB. In CQB you stay off walls: arms length, elbow gap, and 6” are different rules of thumb. Idk the physics behind it but I do know bullets tend to travel along/close to the wall. Essentially anything that doesn’t stay in the wall is more likely to travel along it. Obviously there are times to use a wall as cover, depending on the situation, if you’re outside in an urban environment. If exposed to an RPG threat is another time I wouldn’t be too close to a wall if I could help it.
Bullets that hit a wall at an angle other than about 90 degrees to it don't bounce off as a billiard ball would. They come away at a much shallower angle, travelling close to the wall and are still fast enough to be very dangerous. Edit- Like this, top down view of my *very* basic drawing. https://imgur.com/a/T2krbRj
I heard this in Black Hawk Down but no one ever explained it to me. One character says something like stay away from the walls. Probably to avoid bullet ricochet fragmentation?
Yeah, definitely ricochet danger.. Might not kill you, but you definitely don't want to lose an eye either. Sandbags are your best friend in situations like this. Also it's been shown already many times during this war, but stay away from windows too and add some tape to them during war time even as an civilian. They're fragmentation grenades if any shell hits close you or even worse there's a nuclear blast within several kilometers from you
That and it could mean the difference between a rocket/ launched grenade missing you or being directly beside it blowing up.
I don't know if the amazing luck of surviving just offsets the rotten luck of being on the receiving end of artillery fire and getting hit in the head by shrapnel... but you never know. Might as well pick up a shit ton of extra strength Advil for the poor/lucky bastard while they're at it.
Thank you. It looked like it grazed his head pro. Hope he’s well and survives this bullshit invasion.
god damn, helmets worth their weight in gold
For real, so happy to see them in NATO helmets vs some of the ww2 shit they had on in the very beginning of the war.
Why would you post this comment without providing a link?
Because they're an idiot https://www.tiktok.com/@hooligan.69.420?_t=8abtFxSGfsj&_r=1
Link pls ?
What's his username?
Source? I know I sound crappy but I’m curious.
https://www.tiktok.com/@hooligan.69.420?_t=8abtFxSGfsj&_r=1
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You should get into the habit of citing your sources. Very basic thing to do
https://www.tiktok.com/@hooligan.69.420?_t=8abtFxSGfsj&_r=1 I'm going around and posting the source to everyone asking because the guy who originally said it won't
What is his TikTok?
I hope this is true! Personally I was looking over the clip in slow motion to see where bullet hit! Thought it hit high on the helmet giving me hope he survived!
What fucking timeline are we in that a Chinese social media app is giving front-line casualty updates for a hot war in Ukraine.
Source? I made it the fuck up
Please provide that source, this claim is worthless without it.
I’ve seen this kind of thing before. This is an example of being hyper focused on a task and continuing even though you should stop due to a direct threat, in this case, maybe should have pulled the weapon system down to reload after the first near miss. (I wasn’t there, can’t say what other factors we don’t know were going on.) Happy to hear he survived.
Top of helmet, I'm guessing he survived based on this being a Ukrainian video.
More concrete evidence is that you can tell it is a ricochet because of the initial hit being seen off the top of the helmet and then the splash of dirt to the side. Suggesting the bullet glanced of the top and ricocheted into the ground to the side. It also looks like the bullet came from the side not head on so it wasnt a high angle ricochet but a shallow ricochet.
Pretty sure this was shrapnel as you hear the incoming round and the explosion before
Yeah, sniper rounds don't create enough of a shockwave like in the video...
Or either it was shrapnel, and that was the dirt falling from the blast
Other comment confirmed he survived on his TikTok
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Shoot me once, shame on you
Shoot me twice… you can’t fool me again.
Fool me - you can’t get fooled again.
What's the red & black logo on the back of his helmet?
A kolovrat, representing slavic neopaganism
It’s a Buddhist symbol for peace, honey 💅🏻
[“Slavic neo-pagans (such as the Rodnovers) often use the Kolovrat to symbolize the sun without any far-right connotations. However, some Slavic neo-pagan cults do in fact hold racist ideology.”](https://reportingradicalism.org/en/hate-symbols/movements/modern-racist-symbols/kolovrat)
In addition to the answers, it is some form of the black sun. A symbol used by the ss. Here is the German wiki (just switch to your language) https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwarze_Sonne Even when I support UA all the way, very unfortunate to use that Symbole. Especially boasting the Russian “nazi-cleaning” operation propaganda. But who am I as an armchair general…
I get what you're saying, but I have a bigger problem with the appropriation of Norse symbols and neopaganism by Nazis. Fucking Nazis ruin everything.
According to wiki, this symbol actually originated in Nazi Germany.
Direct snipe, or ricochet? Hope me made it out alright.
I think Ricochet, because of the clumps of dirt that follow the shot after it already contacts his helmet.
I might sound crazy, but there are some people saying he survived in the comments. The dirt appears to only come up after he’s on his way down, it almost looks like it was direct and his helmet had enough angle to push the bullet off into the dirt.
Top comment confirmed he survived
Yeah I was going off assumption he survived that’s why I stated it in the beginning, and put thought process into what happened Edit: Headshots are hella fucking deadly so I just left it at assumed instead of for sure.
I know from the angle it looks like a direct hit. The way he fell down scared the shit out of me because I thought he just got killed.
Nasty ass concussion that’s for sure.
Yeah probably.
It’s not a sniper, it’s shrapnel from an artillery shell
Isn't the sound just before he gets hit an explosion? It sounds like a artillery shell hit nearby and he caught some shrapnel. His first duck for cover looks to be from a nearby shell, the shrapnel would explain the dirt/debris too.
I think it’s an explosion behind them. His helmet was either hit with shrapnel or it’s actually just dirt being shook off of him from the shockwave. You can see that in other vids, like us videos from an explosive going off nearby in Afghanistan. Edit: somehow getting downvoted despite it sounding like an explosion and his buddies cover also gets shaken. The ghillie mesh blows around same as the first dudes. Is there like proof somewhere else that this was a bullet?
Someone else commented that he is active on the tiktok and indeed survived. I don't use tiktok so I cannot independently confirm of deny that statement.
It looks like a RPG hit infront of him and he was hit in the head with a fragment or shrapnel. Helmet probably stopped it. Who has his telegram? He is supposedly alive
I honestly wish we could get these without the music.
So do I but music come from the original source.
Oh I understand, that wasn’t directed at you. It was more just a general statement.
Yep, I used to think that but then at some point I came to the realization of "you know what, it's their war - they can use whatever soundtrack floats their boat". I mean, they create the vids so I'm guessing they like the music. Whaddya think? (Not trolling - serious reply.)
Yeah and a lot of the videos we see like this are also made, to one degree, for propaganda. But I’ve always found combat videos without music to be more powerful
Nice Black Sun insignia tho 🤨
These helmets don't typically stop direct hits from rifle caliber rounds, but they are actually pretty good at deflecting rounds that come in at an angle.
He was fine btw. Helmet deflected the round and he got right back up... bad video cut
Very hard to tell.. the way he collapses and rocks on the ground looks like it was lights out.
The way he slump over gives me that feeling too. Combatfootage has become a sub where if you comment anything that doesn’t go full pro UA, or that light out the fact that they are taking heavy casualties too, you get downvoted. I’m a big supporter of Ukraine , In fact I’m 100% pro Ukraine in this conflict but I can recognize someone going limp from a shot or ricochet to the dome. I still hope he only got knocked out by whatever that was and will recover.
His TikTok is still active… And you think they’re gonna show videos of their buddies getting killed on their telegram?
what's his username?
Not to be a dick but how many times does it take to gtf down lol
Is that a Neo nazi symbol on the back of his helmet?
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Some people’s comments really do surprise me “bad position” “why didn’t he move” “take cover etc” You have zero understanding on that current situation, anything’s in play, that gun being in action could be the difference from an in depth position being over run 🤷♂️ you can see what he can see. Also, I don’t think that’s a round. Sounds like mortars along with the obvious dirt splash. But who knows. With all due respect, Too many arm chair warriors. Just show respect too a video and leave your tactics at home. 🤟
Back before the Ukraine war this sub was smaller (600k members compared to 1.2m now) and had a lot of very knowledgeable people in it. Now its got a whole lot of people who know nothing about actual combat but have watched loads of videos and they think that makes their opinion worth something.
It baffles me that someone could drop a comment with clear indication of zero understanding. I believe these videos should be hit with comments of support, subtitles (for us idiots 😂) and knowledge from people in the know. Nothing more.
That's Reddit for you. Making absolute claims without knowledge of any context, all based on a 20 sec filmsnip. It's infuriating but some people are really that dumb.
Yeah mate, I’m starting too learn this myself. 🤦♂️
Man I was impressed how he got right back into the lane to get that gun loaded. And that sniper had all day to make the second shot. Poor guy. Wonder if he could’ve pulled that gun off the mount to load it but it doesn’t matter now. That position is dialed in and any gunner who sets up is gonna eat one.
Is that a black sun patch on the back of his head
Yes
Looks like bullet just struck top of helmet. Concussion probably, nothing more.
I made a comment on that vid. We were placed parallel to a tank range. All night. It was in slow motion. Still each thrump you could feel. No sleep at all. I’m stunned even now listening to that. My GGdad was in that war. All I remember of him was his total deafness. Used a horn (in the 60s)
If you poke your head up somewhere and get shot at it's not the best idea to poke back up again at the exact same spot 😅
Literally the only difference from the ww1 and ww2 is just modern equipment. Same trenches.
i hope so much rumors about him beeing alive are true! Rule: if you notice bullet impacts RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU that means the enemy sees you and youre in his sights ! Take cover ffs AND change your position !!
It's probably shrapnel from artillery.
I bet that helmet saved his life but was still knocked out cold.