A reality in Hollywood - what's that?

[four.rings@mcione.com]

Virtual Bob wrote:
> 
> >Also, every car that crashes or rolls immediately bursts into flames. Are
> >all US cars _that_ unsafe?
> 
> Not just the cars, I'm afraid. Just watched James Bond - Goldeneye several
> days ago on TV. When the radar site in South America (?) got destroyed, it
> went down in explosions and flames. Now, I don't know about you, but I
> have the faintest idea of why bunch of steel bars would explode and go
> down in flames when they're destroyed.
> 
> For Hollywood, anything can explode (or not explode).

Every time I see a bad Hollywood flick (are there any good ones?) I laugh my
butt off at those A-bomb-like mushrooms created by any miniscule car collision.

When I received my formal combat shooting training we were shown an educational
film in one of the parts of which the narrator adressed the audience: -"now lets
see what does it take to get a car to explode and if it is anywhere as easy as
inr the scenes you see in the movies".

They shot pretty much every mobile firearm that I know of at a poor junked car.
Of all that firepower only a sniper rifle with armour piersing ammo and an AK47
hit the cardboard siloueto of a man hidden behind the car's door. _All_ of the
handguns, especially those shooting the hollow point ammo, were compleately
harmless. That's why the Police hide behind the car doors in a shootout. The
door offers a quite adequate protection.

After that they procedeed to shoot trough a near empty gas tank (to increase the
chance of explosion). Nothing happened as well. The bullits were piercing the
tank without much drama.  _None_ of them exploded the tank.

Finally the narrator said: -"I know that by now you are pretty much blood
thursty and do want to see the explosion, so we decided to satisfy your desire".
They installed a burning torch 1m behind the tank _and_ shot at the tank with a
large caliber machine gun (perhaps 30mm). The round pierced the tank and the
escaping gasoline vapours exploded in the burning torch rather violantly.

BTW, anyone who saw an excellent movie "Heat" with DeNiro and Al Pacino
remembers that none of the dosen cars involved in that violent shootout in front
of the bank
exploded, quite consistent with the documentary movie that I saw. Evidently they
had good professional consultants. Then again, I don't recall any bad movies
with either DeNiro or Pacino.

Igor Kessel
Two turbo quattros