10 common myths about modern warfare

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Our reader, under the pseudonym Brother Rabbit, who spent three years in the territory of hostilities, is about why it's time to stop believing in what is shown about the war in films and write on the Internet, and begin to really perceive things.

Articles about modern military conflicts often collect a huge amount of comments. In them, savvy survivors share experiences based on cliches from movies and books, or fantasize about nuclear war from Fallout. Less often, the war seems like an adventure from old Soviet films. Such discussions are frightening with their aggression and naive ideas.

Get all these templates out of your head. The war of the 21st century has nothing to do with them.

1. During war, people go hungry

Over the past three years, I have seen real food problems for only one short period - at the very beginning of active hostilities. First of all, they affected the old people, the poorest part of whom spent the money set aside for the funeral and was forced to beg and beg. This period lasted no longer than three months.

I have not even heard of mass cases of starvation. This is largely the merit of various foundations. At some point, when the situation stabilized, the excess of free food was such that pasta, expired canned food and spoiled flour were thrown into landfills. A whole category of humanitarian aid kit hunters emerged, filling apartments and garages with food to the ceiling, queuing up every day wherever possible, and then reselling these supplies to shops and traders in the markets.

Is the real hunger option possible? Yes. But over the three years of hostilities, this has never happened, even in places where less than 10% of the surviving houses remain from the settlement. More often than not, I watched the media deliberately whipped up hysteria, completely far from reality.

2. Everyone lives in basements and bomb shelters

There are few bomb shelters. Almost all of them have crooked ventilation, which is why it is already a problem to stay inside for more than 20 minutes. In addition, you still need to run to them. No one had ever warned anyone in advance about a real shelling. Only false, deliberately spread rumors appeared, which forced the most impressionable to go to shelters or basements and sit there.

To run closer to the basements, but often they are either in a completely deplorable state, or have already been bought out for someone's warehouses and offices. Only residents of the first floors and parents with children from nearby apartments run into the basements. Most people usually limit themselves to hiding in the bathroom, staircase, or just lying on the floor. And this is much more correct. The chances of surviving so much are much greater than trying to run to the bomb shelter or go down to the basement during shelling and direct hits into the building.

The shelling is unpredictable. The best thing to do in this situation is to fall where you stand.

Nobody lives in basements for weeks or months. Even residents of very, very (no jokes and pathos) bad places, where people should not be by definition, often only spend the night in basements or go down during periods of exacerbation. The rest of the time they spend in their apartments and houses, if they survived. The situation is exactly the same with cellars and basements in private houses.

3. Everyone needs to get a personal pistol and machine gun

There is a special category of aggressive and all-knowing commentators, versed in cold, firearms and any other weapons, methods of survival and "killing" people. Modern war does not look like episodes from a zombie apocalypse or excerpts from cheap books about retired heroic special forces. If you want to survive - go to the mountains or the forest. If you want to fight - go to the army. Being in the middle with a trusty rifle, knife and canned food stash in the forest will not work. I haven't even heard of such characters in real life. Apparently they survive on the couch sitting on Facebook.

The life of people during the war changes very, very much. But at the same time, it remains commonplace.

Not everyone takes up arms and goes to war. A huge number of people continue to live, work, give birth and raise children, drink, walk and have fun. Children will play in mine craters, schoolchildren will do their homework to the sound of volleys and arrivals, summer residents will plant potatoes under the whistle of bullets, and grandmothers will go for bread even during shelling. Gradually, a person gets used to everything and reacts only to very strong stimuli, simply ignoring the rest.

In this everyday military life, you do not need to break into other people's houses to get a filter for rainwater, kill passers-by for a backpack with canned food, dig caches and carry a grenade with you. You simply live with the risk of being killed by a shrapnel or a bullet.

Don't listen to aggressive and self-confident know-it-alls about the need for a personal arsenal, ammunition and grenades. These are the first candidates to go to jail. In a war situation, only the military takes up arms. The rest, if they have it, sit silently and do not protrude.

4. You need a supply of soap, matches, salt, candles, stew and a bag of porridge

In minimal volumes, this is convenient and necessary (although a lantern is better than candles: wiping wax from clothes is still a pleasure), but do not turn into Plyushkin. Do not deliberately create anchors that will hold you in place when you need to drop everything and leave. If a situation arises when there is nowhere to buy food and soap, then complete hell has come. In such cases, only old people or people who have rooted in this place remain in the city, ready for any sacrifice, just not to leave their land.

In all other cases - even when the city is bombarded every day and a lot, even when there is no electricity, water and communication - the shops continue to work. Small business clings to life to the last, even when all large networks, government agencies and banks leave.

5. War makes people better

This is not true. It reveals and sharpens some character traits, but in general, people do not change. The one who drank continues to thump, but stronger. Whoever was irresponsible and unreliable becomes a completely useless ghoul. Those who were normal in peacetime will remain so during hostilities.

Don't expect any magical transformations. It's just that your own emotions will become clearer, clearer and more honest. They will stop worrying about some meaningless little things, but they will start to delight simple things like hot water, a calm day without shots, or meeting with loved ones.

6. Only the strong in spirit remain

First of all, there are those who are afraid of change and relocation more than war. Who has nowhere to go, people over 45 and old people. Survivors, lone heroes and other extreme lovers leave either the very first, packing their survival kits in suitcases, or having previously gone into the army and making sure that the drill is not for them.

The most amazing thing is that among those who stayed, you often come across perfect talents: people with golden hands, capable of forging and making fantastic things, against the background of which the goods from the craftsmen's fairs in civilian life look like wretched crafts; people with perfect pitch and talented musicians; good teachers and doctors, agronomists and mechanics. In the absence of the flashy mediocrity of creative white-collar people, the talents of ordinary people are finally becoming visible.

7. My home is my castle

Neither thick walls, nor iron shutters, nor a high fence will help you. Modern artillery, in principle, does not care about the thickness of the walls. Even those who spent a suitcase of money on the construction of an underground bunker (and there were really such), in the end, abandoned everything and left.

It is one thing to dream of how you will survive in comfort, it is quite another to climb into a stone cage with the knowledge that a normal, normal and peaceful life is already 50 kilometers from the place of shelling.

The world has not died or disappeared, and you are not among the lucky ones in your bunker. A personal bomb shelter is one of the dumbest and most useless waste in the world. The only thing worse is a cache of canned food in the nearest forest.

8. War can change someone's mind

It cannot, has not changed and will not change, no matter how crazy, wild, terrible events occur, no matter what a person becomes a witness. In 10 cases out of 10, he will remain true to his principles and views. And this is the main madness of the war.

Over the years, the opinion may change, but in three years - no. A cannon firing directly from the city 20 meters from the houses is bad, but it protects us! Bribery, smuggling - nothing, this has always been, we will tolerate. Difficult economic situation - they will surely save us and help us!

A person will stand his ground to the last, will find an explanation and justification for everything. This is the nature of humans.

9. Children suffer the most from war

Children by and large do not care about the war. They play and live as before. They chase the ball, play on phones and tablets, make friends, fall in love, try smoking and drinking. Teenagers dream of sex, quick and big money and a good walk. Most simply do not notice the sounds of shots or arrivals. For them, this is all a background, like the noise of the wind. The exception is very strong and close shelling, which can put both children and adults into a state of stress.

Children are just a very bright and convenient picture for TV and photo reports. They are sweet, innocent and defenseless. Only to take them out of the territory of the war is the task of adults. Uncles and aunts with cameras, voice recorders, crusts and powers. Take it, if you feel so sorry, and not make an icon for the audience.

10. Alcohol and cigarettes are the best commodity during the war

Another common fantasy is to buy a wagon of vodka, hide it, and then sell it 10 times more expensive and become a local king. Vodka and cigarettes are definitely goods that are timeless and timeless. The more they shoot, the more they drink. Or, on the contrary, I will definitely not vouch. Civilians start drinking a lot during the fighting. A sober round-the-clock shelling can withstand no more than a week. Then either interrupt the voluntary pangs of going somewhere, or drink.

The problem is that a priori war means the existence of a state machine. And no one will let you just sell stew, vodka or cigarettes. Register, pay taxes - and off you go to the honest world of business. Just ask yourself first, why aren't you trading now?