Life lesson: Launch Hellfire missiles when using Army helicopters against dragons
Version 0 of 1. The AH-64 Apache attack helicopter has been a workhorse for the U.S. Army since the 1980s, heavily armed and able to quickly respond when U.S. ground troops under fire are in trouble. The Smithsonian Channel has a new question, though: Would it be able to take out an angry fire-breathing dragon? Strange? Definitely. But the video was posted on their YouTube page last night. Army Times pointed it out Friday morning with a warning: “Who triumphs in this video? Not productivity. You’ll never get these two minutes back.” The Smithsonian Channel deserves some credit for breaking things down to such a specific degree. Dragons, it says, can grow up to 85 feet long with a wingspan of 170 feet. They spit fire at 6,300 degrees Fahrenheit, and fly 80 mph. I’m assuming there are detailed analyses that back these figures up, but for now we’ll just roll with them. As the video accurately shows, the Apache is armed with a 30mm M230 chain gun and Hellfire missiles. Launching laser-guided Hellfire missiles at the flying beast won’t work, and the chain gun rounds deflect off the dragon’s two-inch thick armor, they speculate. The last-ditch effort is to launch a full barrage of Hellfire missiles — 16 in 30 seconds. “There is no escape,” the narrator intones. “Game over.” There’s only one problem, of course. What if there are two dragons? |