News Video: Explosions rock Michigan neighborhood as US Army urban training begins

More urban training exercises by our military. We've seen many threads in the past couple of years about these exercises, such as the video of the attack helicopter flying through downtown Miami. And then you have Jade Helm going on. I'm not positive but I don't think this was common practice ever before until now. Why is that?



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And in this case, they gave the public a 2-hour heads up, so how many people are going to actually hear about it in that time. A spokesman said that they don't like giving much heads up because they don't want the public coming to watch, and yet, the training exercise is going to run for ten days and I'm pretty sure the public is well aware now after being scared sheetless from the unexpected booms that rocked the city of Flint. They can go watch for the next ten days but they couldn't be alerted for the first wave of training. Sounds like BS to me. Makes me wonder if they do these things to test the pubic reaction.

a reply to: Rezlooper

I'm kinda disappointed that there was no video or audio of the blast. What did they blow up anyway? Why blow stuff up?

a reply to: Rezlooper

A city spokesman says that they didn't announce the exercise beforehand because they didn't want 'sightseers' to come watching what was going on.
But they are fine with people that don't know anything about stumbling into the area with zero knowledge???

WTH are they letting the Army hold exercises in the city, completely unannounced?
Stupid.

a reply to: Rezlooper
yes that could be the case or they may be trying to start desensitizing the general population. The more they do the more people get used to them. Then if they need to go against the population it would take place without much protest "cause it's only one of those training exercises".

They have been doing this for 40 years in North Carolina....it's called Robin Sage exercises....and yes, they do demolition and explosives all over out there. It goes on for a number of days too.

Robin Sage

That link has some explanations and links to videos that have explosions in them.

It's Flint for Gods sakes nobody would even notice another blast unless it's during the daylight hours when everybody is sleeping. The north end looks like a warzone so I suppose that's why it was picked. You never know though it might just scare some people down the road. Best thing to happen to Flint in a long time.

Why after 100 years of this do people declare it something new every year? I guess we are lucky the internet was not around for two world wars or the Cold War or people would have really been flipping out.

This is in my backyard. They didn't tell anyone for the very reasons they stated. NOBODY and I mean NOBODY has a thing to do around where the excercise was and hundreds if not thousands of spectators would of showed up, There's a giant abandoned middle school that was ripe for the flash banging but they didn't want it turned into a live show.

Hmmmm send guys based around Michigan to jade helm or to robin sage? Or find a way to do it somewhere around here?

Il bet my bottom dollar that the army paid a pretty penny to come flash bang flint. Flint was probably begging for it. They need it something fierce right now.

And in all honesty, I doubt anyone was too scared or surprised when they heard the booms and gunshots and helicopters... I worked for a pizza joint 1 mile down the road from where this took place for a few years... PLENTY OF GUNSHOTS TO GO AROUND. New Year's Eve for real sounded like a clip form a Sebastian yunger film. 100 rounds a minute easy for a good half hour. This was all before ammo prices went through the roof lol I haven't been in flint on New Years since that but I reckon it's prolly a little more controlled.. STILL, point being, that neighborhood is no stranger to boom boom.

Heck like a month ago my mother was on her way to work and passed a guy on someone's front lawn emptying a magazine into the front of the house like 2 blocks from the school these guys were using.

Long story short, flint prolly got paid, they figured it prolly wouldn't be too far outside of the normal daily parameters of the area, would of been a much different story had they advertised they "army show" was coming to town, woulda turned into a live exhibition and someone coulda got hurt.

originally posted by: alienscot1
a reply to: Rezlooper
yes that could be the case or they may be trying to start desensitizing the general population. The more they do the more people get used to them. Then if they need to go against the population it would take place without much protest "cause it's only one of those training exercises".

Yep, there seems to be a lot of desensitizing lately...like Ferguson, seeing heavily armed police marching through the streets that way, attack helicopters flying above city streets, aircraft circling major cities, massive spying, etc....

originally posted by: Vasa Croe
They have been doing this for 40 years in North Carolina....it's called Robin Sage exercises....and yes, they do demolition and explosives all over out there. It goes on for a number of days too.

Robin Sage

That link has some explanations and links to videos that have explosions in them.

Is this an actual test range? There's a pretty big difference between test ranges and urban cities.

originally posted by: MrSpad
Why after 100 years of this do people declare it something new every year? I guess we are lucky the internet was not around for two world wars or the Cold War or people would have really been flipping out.

No need for the nasty attitude. I'm simply asking. I even said in my OP that I don't know if this is something that is common or not.

a reply to: Rezlooper

No it's not An actual test range. Police have shot and killed and wounded army participants for believing the army participants in civilian attire were actual threats. The army volunteers thinking the officer was part of the excercise opened fire with blanks to deadly result. Several misunderstandings have taken place.

I think deep deep down the army probably likes this aspect because it really ratchets up the realism and intensity of the traing BUT they could probably never take that stance publicly.

Just like the military will usually condem "confidence training" by shooting right by your buddies heads to a target, it happens all the time. No better training for a forward deployed SOF operator. Gets the heart and adrenaline going A LOT more then just pokin holes in paper.


In this situation it was more about the building and not the "training scenario". As far as I know it's not a live scenario active the entire time for a week or 2. It's just a 9-5 training course sorta thing.

originally posted by: mindseye1609
This is in my backyard. They didn't tell anyone for the very reasons they stated. NOBODY and I mean NOBODY has a thing to do around where the excercise was and hundreds if not thousands of spectators would of showed up, There's a giant abandoned middle school that was ripe for the flash banging but they didn't want it turned into a live show.

Hmmmm send guys based around Michigan to jade helm or to robin sage? Or find a way to do it somewhere around here?

Il bet my bottom dollar that the army paid a pretty penny to come flash bang flint. Flint was probably begging for it. They need it something fierce right now.

And in all honesty, I doubt anyone was too scared or surprised when they heard the booms and gunshots and helicopters... I worked for a pizza joint 1 mile down the road from where this took place for a few years... PLENTY OF GUNSHOTS TO GO AROUND. New Year's Eve for real sounded like a clip form a Sebastian yunger film. 100 rounds a minute easy for a good half hour. This was all before ammo prices went through the roof lol I haven't been in flint on New Years since that but I reckon it's prolly a little more controlled.. STILL, point being, that neighborhood is no stranger to boom boom.

Heck like a month ago my mother was on her way to work and passed a guy on someone's front lawn emptying a magazine into the front of the house like 2 blocks from the school these guys were using.

Long story short, flint prolly got paid, they figured it prolly wouldn't be too far outside of the normal daily parameters of the area, would of been a much different story had they advertised they "army show" was coming to town, woulda turned into a live exhibition and someone coulda got hurt.

Understandable, but what about the next 9 days of training exercise. How do they keep the spectators out now?

a reply to: Rezlooper

Hopefully the booms the first day were enough to keep them away ?

My guess is you use a different building Ina different part of town every day. HUNDREDS if not over a thousand abandoned commercial buildings and schools and factories and hospitals and entire blocks of abandoned houses all over flint.

I'd bet one day we see door kicking on abandoned blocks.

And before someone asks "why don't they use Detroit, way more abandoned?"

Well my guess is, way more spectators and possible opposition too. If something goes wrong and someone gets hurt that's not part of the training... That could turn into black hawk down in a hurry. The "possible opposition per square mile" is probably MUCH lower in flint with almost as much abandoned.

If anyone had heart failure that day.... $$$

originally posted by: Rezlooper
More urban training exercises by our military. We've seen many threads in the past couple of years about these exercises, such as the video of the attack helicopter flying through downtown Miami. And then you have Jade Helm going on. I'm not positive but I don't think this was common practice ever before until now. Why is that?

NORTHCOM and SOCNORTH are relatively new. So, training.

originally posted by: Rezlooper

Is this an actual test range? There's a pretty big difference between test ranges and urban cities.

It runs over a number of counties, through parts of Bragg, up and down the highways, and across people's farms. A lot of the farmers/county folk are NPCs for the exercise, and have a lot of fun doing it, considering there's a waiting list to become a participant. Was, anyway.

originally posted by: mindseye1609
a reply to: Rezlooper

Hopefully the booms the first day were enough to keep them away ?

My guess is you use a different building Ina different part of town every day. HUNDREDS if not over a thousand abandoned commercial buildings and schools and factories and hospitals and entire blocks of abandoned houses all over flint.

I'd bet one day we see door kicking on abandoned blocks.

Thanks for the info, didn't know all this about Flint, but I can tell by some of the responses on here that it's not far off from the status of Detroit these days.

a reply to: Rezlooper

It's much more isolated but I'd say flint is somewhere around 30% abandoned. It's concentrated around the Beecher area and the industrial areas around 475.

Saginaw and flint are definitely not detroit... But they're definitely not doing good by any stretch of the imagination. Flint has all kinds of budget issues compounding into some pretty serious social issues compounded by very little work within 30 minutes of town.. Lots of good people working hard to try and fix it, but who knows, the green Rush is about all flint has going for it right now.