Military Exercises with a Helo shooting Blanks on Flint Michigan in a Populated Area

I know that the title of the video is "50 Cal LIVE FIRE In Flint Michigan #JadeHelm - Troops Practicing 20 Story Extracts For Afghanistan? ". But that claim is obviously exagerated. We can only see one helo and it's most probable shooting blanks and not live rounds. However, imo that is where the exaggeration ends.

But first the video.



At 2 minutes 20 seconds you can hear that lone chopper firing blanks at 12:10 AM. You can also see a lot of people out in the streets right where the exercises are occurring.

First of all, why just have one helo shooting blanks? Are they planning on just sending one helo overseas? This seems to be more of a scare tactic and trying to condition the populace on the presence of military helos shooting in our streets, than a real military exercise intended to train our troops for oversea ops.

The same thing happened in Miami Florida back in 2013.



In Florida 2 helos were used and at least one was shooting blanks in the middle of a busy highway.

It happened in Texas as well in 2013.



And the drill in Texas happened close to an elementary school. The worst part is that the public was not informed this would happen which scared a lot of people, and children. Not even the fire department was notified.

So again, if these exercises are intended for overseas ops, then why the use of only one or two helos in each exercise? That's not a real proper military exercise. I know it takes a lot more personnel to get one or two choppers ready for a military op that people don't get to see. But if you are training for overseas ops, you don't simply train one or two helos and their personnel in a squadron. This is more of a conditioning of civilians and scare tactics imo.

a reply to: ElectricUniverse

I was wondering if it was the same story from 2013.. Glad you included that so no one gets confused.
Going in to read later.

It's kind of hard to have a military exercise and not use weapons.

But if you are training for overseas ops, you don't simply train one or two helos and their personnel in a squadron.

Yes you do if this is training for a small strike force.

originally posted by: buster2010
It's kind of hard to have a military exercise and not use weapons.

But if you are training for overseas ops, you don't simply train one or two helos and their personnel in a squadron.

Yes you do if this is training for a small strike force.

Not really. If you are training for oversea ops in a real war zone where the enemy is heavily armed you don't send one, or just two helos. You need support from other helos/gunships.

Besides, if these training exercises were for extraction, or infiltration purposes then why is it that they only have a helo shooting? What they are simply doing is shooting blanks in the middle of busy American streets. Neither in Miami, or Houston in 2013, or this latest "exercise" in 2015 did any of the military personnel from the helos touched ground.

You don' t just send one, or two helos to simply shoot it out in a real war zone.

Firstly
A 20 story building.......afghanistan........yeah loads of them there
Secondly we had all the practice we needed in Iraq, particularly faluja which has evolved CQB to a high degree
So kinda rules out the Iran prep angle aswell
This all stinks of policing action in a developed nation
a reply to: ElectricUniverse
Op Spartan, kukri and kreighton (can never remember correct spelling) as my credentials

a reply to: ElectricUniverse

They purposely don't inform people to see the reaction they get. Otherwise how is it possible that the news and people say in every town that no one was informed?? That's not some small detail one can miss.

Am I the only one that thinks that for a .50 cal MG, that sounds awfully strange...? The cyclic rate seems slower and choppier/jerkier than I seem to recall them. I would post a video for comparison but somebody might just wind up offended by people in combat having fun.

Anyway, using one helo on an exercise isn't strange at all of the training op only needs one helo. If you're going to insert or extract a small team you don't send a fleet of transports so everybody has their own ride.

The tallest building in Afghanistan is Kabul tower, which is 18 stories. Don't think doing an extract at 20 floors is a big reach. But I suppose they could've tried harder to find an 18 story building so that it was 100% accurate.

Finally, flint has been telling people that there will be training going on. A quick search on the Google monster brings up multiple articles and a press release or two about ongoing training. The press releases also say Flint PD was contacting residents of the areas training would be conducted in to give them a better heads up.

a reply to: Shamrock6

Residents of the "area"??

That sounded pretty loud to only affect a certain area.

What do you think was the need for the public being part of it?

Did they have some bad guys painted among the friendlies?

Pretty cool but pretty ignorant. The US must be serious about using these skills soon if they arentrying to get this detailed about it. Isn't there mock-up towns or places they normally do this type of training?

a reply to: MALBOSIA

I can hear sirens all day where I live. Doesn't mean I'm affected by them.

originally posted by: Shamrock6
a reply to: MALBOSIA

I can hear sirens all day where I live. Doesn't mean I'm affected by them.

Sirens/Repeated gunfire

Ya I can see how you could find the 2 similar.

No comment on my actual question?

a reply to: MALBOSIA

Hearing blank fire in an area that the media and police have said there's going to be a military exercise? No, still wouldn't bother me any more than sirens do.

As for the "why" part of your question, I'm not involved in the exercise so I don't know why they used the areas they used, whether the public was involved, or whether anybody was blending in with the civilians or not.

Yes. Small ones. With small buildings.

Gunfire in Flint is a normal event and there isn't a 20 story building within 20 miles or more.

originally posted by: Shamrock6
a reply to: MALBOSIA

Hearing blank fire in an area that the media and police have said there's going to be a military exercise? No, still wouldn't bother me any more than sirens do.

As for the "why" part of your question, I'm not involved in the exercise so I don't know why they used the areas they used, whether the public was involved, or whether anybody was blending in with the civilians or not.

Yes. Small ones. With small buildings.

It seems like you are purposely trying to make small of this or you are very used to living around gun violence. Is Flint Michigan so used to frequent gun violence as you are?

"Small ones with small buildings"

Looking forward. Are they going to build any bigger ones? or is incorporating the public with military exercises going to be the norm, in your opinion?

a reply to: MALBOSIA

The military has conducted training off post for decades. People on ats like to act like its a new thing, and it's not. Not at all. So no, I'm not going to freak out because I'm not totally oblivious to what's going on where I live and if it was reported that training was going to be on somewhere, I would take note of it.

The military didn't just roll into Flint and say hey we're going to train. The city government signed off on it. If you want to be mad at somebody over it, be mad at them.

a reply to: Shamrock6

First of all, if you watch the videos, even the older ones from 2013, it is said that the public was not informed. The exercise in Houston in 2013 they didn't even notify the firefighters.

Second of all, I have already stated that if these exercises were for secret infiltration or extraction ops, then why is it that the only thing they did in the exercises is fire blanks in the middle of busy American streets?...

The military personnel that were present in those helicopters did not get off any of the helos at all in any of the exercises... The helos didn't even land in public areas. So again, it's not possible for these "exercises" to simply be practice for quick infiltration or extraction ops...

BTW, since when do we send infiltration/extraction units without air support? Just a lone helo shooting blanks in a packed city at 12:10 am, and without notifying the public... yeah, that seems normal...

Not to mention that using helos in exercises while shooting blanks in American streets full of citizens is not something the military used to do...

And one more thing. Since when is it normal in infiltration/extraction exercises to just shoot from the helo giving out your position before any extraction/infiltration attempt?...

a reply to: KnightLight

This event/exercise happened on June 2015.

Is Jade helm starting early, was on the the way home from work in Vegas tonight and there was a pave hawk helicopter that was flying lower than the hotel rooftops.

originally posted by: Shamrock6
a reply to: MALBOSIA

The military has conducted training off post for decades. People on ats like to act like its a new thing, and it's not. Not at all. So no, I'm not going to freak out because I'm not totally oblivious to what's going on where I live and if it was reported that training was going to be on somewhere, I would take note of it.

The military didn't just roll into Flint and say hey we're going to train. The city government signed off on it. If you want to be mad at somebody over it, be mad at them.

I did not say I was mad about it. I daid it was an ignorant thing to do regardless.

How far back do these gunfire over populated urban area exercises go back? Tou make them sound so common so surely you could list off a few dozen no problem since you sound so familiar with them.

a reply to: ElectricUniverse

That's great. Multiple media sources say the public was informed.

There's multiple press releases informing the public.

I'll go ahead and take the media reports that have specific dates and locations in them, and the dates line up with the events as they happened. You can stick to believing everything you see on YouTube.

I'll pass on that.

a reply to: MALBOSIA

Since you want to make it sound like military training is so uncommon off base that it almost never happens, can you cite all those times it didn't happen?

I never said it was "common." I said it's been going on for a long time. That can mean "one time a year" as easily as it could mean "every other day." You attached you own definition to my comment and then asked me to defend it. That's not how this works.

So, in a word, no.