The tank vs. helicopter battle in Rambo 3 doesn’t make any sense, says a military expert. Released in 1988, the third movie in the Rambo series saw Sylvester Stallone’s one-man killing-machine heading to Afghanistan on a mission to rescue his mentor Sam Trautman from his Soviet captors. After the carnage of Rambo: First Blood Part II, Rambo III escalated the mayhem even more, resulting in an over-the-top action flick that critics lined up to crush (as reflected in the film’s current 41% Rotten Tomatoes score). Audiences still enjoyed watching Stallone kick butt however, and the film grossed a respectable $189 million worldwide.
The third movie in the Rambo franchise is today regarded as the weakest, and according to military expert Nicholas Moran, the movie earns its bad reputation. In a piece for Insider, Moran breaks down one key Rambo III scene, a climactic battle that sees Rambo in a tank, facing down a Soviet bad guy in a heavily armed helicopter. Unsurprisingly, the ridiculous scene that ends with Rambo crashing his tank headlong into the chopper gets low marks for realism. Moran amusingly crushes the scene for inaccuracies regarding the capabilities of the vehicles, and bad tactics on the part of the chopper pilot and on the part of Rambo. Check out what he said in the space below (around 7:36 of the clip):
So Rambo has gotten into his, I'm going to call it a T-72. It's not actually, but the helicopter here represents a Hind. I think it's actually a Puma, but the Hind, the Mi-24, was a gunship that still actually has a troop-carrying capacity, as well as carrying a lot of rockets and missiles and being heavily armored. It's basically a flying tank, for lack of a better term.
So hang on, is he driving, or is he gunning? There's only one tank that I can think of that is fully combat-capable with one crewman, and that is the Swedish Strv 103, commonly known as the S-tank.
The driver functions as the gunner as well, and this is why you're supposed to go with anti-aircraft vehicles in company with you, because their job is to defend you against air threats.
So our enemy is in an attack helicopter, a gunship, and it's got missiles on the tips, AT-2 Swatters probably, that are effective from several kilometers away. And instead, he's firing unguided rockets at the front of the Rambo tank. Why doesn't he just fly around the back and shoot the rockets into the engine deck or the rear turret, or you know, some place that'll actually cause damage?
And so the enemy pilot dies the death that his stupidity deserved. Officially, if you must charge towards an aircraft, do it at an angle. He has to not only aim for lead, but also the change in distance at the same time. Whereas if you're charging straight at him, you're simplifying the problem for the aircraft that's coming at you. He doesn't need to worry about aiming. It has a tank, so I'll give it a one.
Rambo III Epitomizes ‘80s Excess
The original First Blood, released in 1982, told a relatively straightforward story about a misunderstood Vietnam vet (Stallone) facing off against law enforcement in a small Pacific Northwest community. By the time Rambo: First Blood Part II was released in 1985, Rambo had been re-conceived as a violent one-man army, and any pretense to realism had been thrown out the window. Rambo III then took things to their logical extreme, creating an exercise in excess to rival other over-the-top Stallone vehicles of the era like Rocky IV and Cobra.
That Rambo III would get low marks for realism from a military expert should come as no surprise to anyone. At the time of the film’s release, Stallone was far more dedicated to showing off his physique and pleasing his rabid fans than he was to telling plausible stories. The relatively thoughtful Stallone of Rocky and First Blood had been left in the past by the time Rambo 3 rolled around, to be replaced by an oiled-up, violence-dispensing living action figure.
Source: Insider/YouTube
