A Complaint I Have Sent to the Military Channel's Public Relations Department:

While I am aware the Military Channel tends to portray a clinical and non-political view of Military Technology in particular, I was supremely upset by interview segments that were aired during the TOP TEN Helicopters Documentary. Despite the glorification of the Apache Helicopter, which I saw as part of the documentary's entertainment and educational value, the comments that an interviewed pilot made concerning the AH-64D Apache Longbow were extraordinarily inappropriate. Describing the advanced avionics and digital weapons targeting systems of the helicopter, the interviewed serviceman saw fit to compare the experience of firing the aircraft's weapons to a video game. He went on to qualify this assertion, stating to the effect that 'some of the best helicopter pilots were actually some of the best video game-players when they were teenagers.' (Paraphrasing)

As a video game and contracted simulator developer, my industry righly falls under incessant assualt over the comparison between real violence and that spurred by video games. The comparison of, forgive the expression, a machine designed to kill, with that of a piece of home entertainment software is outrageous and would be condemned in the military technology circles I participate in.

Perhaps more importantly, I personally regard the comments not only as uneducated and insensitive, but incredibly dangerous. War is not a video game, as anyone who watches your channel’s programming will quickly surmise. In a world, perhaps more specifically our nation, which increasingly views war as a hi-tech game, I would hope the Military Channel would be explicit particularly to its often younger audience, that video games and war never have, nor ever will, be related by more than the electricity which sustains them both. I have never met a soldier who dared dishonor or embarass his compatriots' professions with comparisons to a children's toy.

The day war becomes a video game is a day I hope I never see. I hope the Military Channel affirms this sentiment.

i think that comment was more about the ease with which integrated digital systems make spotting and acquiring targets possible, but i agree, comment can be regarded as a very subjective in nature

polostep, I see this show has hit a sore spot with you, and I can't really disagree with you, but when it comes to video games and real the real world, try not to listen to the Nancy Pelosis and Hillary Clintons of this world.

While not a game programmer (although I'd like to give it a try if my work catches up), I spent 28 years in law enforcement. Now retired, I do traffic crash and crime scene reconstruction and animation.

I think the point the soldier was trying to make was that now that we're in the age of simulators, they can stick a whiz kid in there and within a short time, they'll figure it out and be destroying targets without guidance from instructors. In fact, that point was brought up in one program (don't know which program, because I always have the TV "chatter" on while I'm working and it could be Discovery, Military, or History Channel.

I'm sorry this hit a sore spot with you, but I don't blame you. Turn on C-Span (yawn) sometime and watch them taking up valuable Senate or House floor time while they have a "committee" hearing trying to decide if there's a link behind video games and reality. This goes way back to Doom and Wolfenstein.

Oh, and by the way, the people that program the simulators are, for the most part, game and simulation programmers. I think they even went after "Sonic the Hedgehog" way back. Some people wouldn't be happy if you hanged them with a brand new rope.

One thing that DOES irritate me is a lot of the programs lack of facts and reality. I believe on that same show you had a soldier standing in front of an AH-64 stating "This is the AH-64D Longbow, when in fact it was a standard model, and not a longbow.

I feel that the Hiller 12A-G series helicopters which provided 60% of the Armies' light helicopters up through the middle of the Vietnam war as trainers and as gun ships and observation ships gets short recognition in your series of the top ten helos. It was somewhat similiar to to the Bell 47 but was much more stable due to its Rotormatic system not dismissing the Bell's wonderful flybar.You also neglect the OH5A Hiller whose contract was stolen by Hughes for its OH6 and was late into production with only 12 helicopters produced by the end of fiscal 1965 with only 12 helicopters.
How many of our Boys were killed as a result of this.Babes Boose and Bribes probably killed the Hiller company which developed many remarkaable flying machines.It would be nice to see the real truth about the Hiller companies contributions to Army aviation.Ok; the first Hiller Uh12A's,in Early Korea had too many automotive parts but the Uh12B was a hell for stout unit that performed well including the mapping of Alaska and was preferrered there due to its inherant stability. Read Jay Spenser's "The Hiller Aircraft Story" for some truth and lets give the recently deceaced Stan Hiller some decent rcognition for his Army supplies of 2000 Helicoptersover the years ,not just the story about his teenage dabbling with a coaxial design.There I said it!
Kevin McGuire

The essence of that comment is that it is wrong for /not being enough like/ a video game.

You send an attack aviation battalion over Najaf and 20 odd AH-64s gets shot up by a bunch of irregulars standing on rooftops with RPG and small arms and suddenly the notion that whatever you are looking at through the TADS viewfinder, X is seeing a very real aircraft that he can shoot at is something that just isn't properly dealt with by the show's commentators.

Helicopters never leave the lethal envelope of their opponents. NEVER.

5,000 Hueys lost over SEA proves this and makes it clear why the simulation/video game sense of flying the AH-64 is purely a 1-way sensory illusion.

At least the Russians are now smart enough to let Pchela drones do the 'firefind the target' grunt work ahead of their highly vulnerable, exceptionally noise and _too slow by half_ attack helicopter forces.

The closest we ever came was AMUST.


CJ