• @[email protected]
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    537 months ago

    Shooting at a fighter aircraft while in a parachute seems like a very bad idea to me, you’re in trouble if the pilot shoots back.

    • @Nommer
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      757 months ago

      Odds are if a fighter is close enough for a pistol then the fighters were committing war crimes by shooting parachuting aviators. The Japanese were known for shooting down parachutes.

        • vlad
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          487 months ago

          What I’ve learned about “war crimes” is that it doesn’t matter what you do as long as you don’t lose. And if you win you get to punish the loser for their war crimes and pretend like you didn’t commit any.

    • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet
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      237 months ago

      It was the guy in the parachute who was shooting back. The Japanese were known for shooting down ejected pilots.

    • @[email protected]
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      197 months ago

      Iirc he shot at the Japanese pilot because he was shooting pilots who had already bailed which is an unwritten rule of fighter combat.

    • @[email protected]
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      7 months ago

      They’re moving pretty quickly relative to you. By the time they realize you’ve shot at them, they’ll be hundreds of meters away. If they then decide to turn around (since they have to be facing you to shoot you) and come for another run at you…honestly they were probably going to do it anyway.

    • Bonehead
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      7 months ago

      For ever crazy stunt pulled off in one of those games, even crazier shit has happened in real life. Humans under extreme stress in life threatening situations tend to get really creative.

      • Amanduh
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        247 months ago

        So you’re saying someone has jumped out of a moving f16 and shot down another f16 with an rpg and then landed back into their f16 and flew off? Nice

        • @[email protected]
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          37 months ago

          Yeah I did it the other day on my lunch break.

          Well, the F16 is called Prius and shooting down the F16 with an RPG is called grabbing McD from the drive through window. But you know, I was really far from the window and had to open the door to step out with one foot.

  • @[email protected]
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    137 months ago

    During WW2, the Japanese were shooting airmen who have ejected. This was a MAJOR no no in wartime. So the only reason a Japanese plane would have been in striking distance from an ejected airman, would be because the Japanese airman was trying to kill him.

    Another fun fact. During war, snipers don’t ever shoot a person who is taking a shit.

    • @[email protected]
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      7 months ago

      That’s not what happened.

      Dude was parachuting and shot a pilot too close to him because the Japanese pilot shot down his bomber and attempted the war crime of attacking a pilot under chute.

      https://www.thearmorylife.com/when-a-1911-shot-down-a-japanese-zero/

      The Japanese Zero that hit Baggett circled back around for a closer look, intent on finishing him off if he wasn’t already dead. Thinking quickly, Baggett pulled his pistol from its holster, played dead, and hung limp in his parachute harness as the plane came toward him.

      As the Zero pilot neared Owen’s body, he opened the canopy over the cockpit to get a close look. At that moment, Baggett came to life, raised his 1911 semi-automatic pistol, and fired four rounds into the cockpit. One or more of Owen’s rounds hit home, as the Zero spun out and ended its assault against him.

        • @[email protected]
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          97 months ago

          Man if you think that’s the most unbelievable thing a Japanese soldier did between 1937 to 1945 you’re really not going to like hearing about Nanking and Unit 731.

            • @[email protected]
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              37 months ago

              It wasn’t uncommon to open your canopy to get a better view, I don’t know what to tell you besides watch some old dogfight interviews.

              The Soviets were practically infamous for always flying with them open. Not unreasonable to think a pilot that considered combat over might open his canopy.

              And, also, sucks to suck. War crime protections are agreements between nations on standards of behavior, and Imperial Japan violated them all, so even if it was:

              Good, fuck that fash.

        • @[email protected]
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          47 months ago

          You know most deaths in WW1 of pilots were literally small arms, it’s not at all outlandish.

          You’re being obtuse.

    • @[email protected]
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      37 months ago

      A parachuting pilot is protected under the geneva convention.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attacks_on_parachutists

      Such parachutists are considered hors de combat and it is made a war crime to attack them in an interstate armed conflict under Additional Protocol I to the 1949 Geneva Conventions.

      • Protocol I was added in 1977. World War II ended in 1945.

      • While some of the Geneva Conventions – not the relevant ones – predated World War II, Japan was not a party to even those until after World War II.