Reaction to Black Hawk Down (Historian REACTS) 

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Although the setting could have been done better, this movie went through hundreds of thousands of rounds of blank ammunition. No CGI or fake muzzle blast and shell ejection. All real, you will see some extras actually having to clear jams and resolve other malfunctions with their rifles on the fly during a scene. You will NEVER see that anymore in movies due to all gunplay being CGI.

Mogadishu was actually in chaos at the time. There were massive gang wars throughout the city. Remember, we didn't only go in because of the famine. They were in a civil war. The US forces were attacked by multiple factions who united against them.

For those who don’t understand why it’s such a problem that they hired west Africans to depict Somalis, imagine they made a movie about Vikings but all the actors are dark people from southern Italy or Spain or are Armenian

I thought this film was very accurate.

One thing to consider is that it was pretty impressive that the Somalis figured out how to use RPGs to shoot down helicopters, even though that weapon was never designed for such use. Because of this movie, people now associate RPGs for anti-helicopter roles, but that was never what it was made for. An RPG isn't an anti-aircraft weapon, it's an anti-armor weapon. When pointed upward, it only has a range of a few hundred meters, and the rocket leaves a tell-tale smoke trail behind it, which helicopter gunners can easily use to track back to the person to fired it. The fact that the Somalis were able to get multiple helicopter kills with it really is impressive.

The actual aerial footage of both Blackhawks going down is absolutely terrifying and made my stomach churn. You can probably find it on RU-vid or elsewhere on the internet. The movie totally stretched it out for dramatic purposes of course, but both helicopters fell out of the sky and hit the ground in less than 5 seconds.

From my understanding, they called the Somalis “skinnies”, not because of their appearance, but because that was the nickname the soldiers gave the aliens in the novel Starship Troopers.

I also like how they conveniently left out the Cobra attack on a civilian gathering weeks before, which they thought was a warlord gathering. This turned the city's entire population against them. I think it's important to remember things like that, because they keep making the same mistakes that end up costing them wars, despite their doctrine's focus on hearts and minds. One mistake like that can erase all the good intentions that came before. This is why Taliban is running Afghanistan once again.

Gf’s uncle was in the 75th Ranger Regiment and a BlackWater contractor, he said that it’s the most realistic war movie there is. Those fast roping scenes are real, they had a platoon of Rangers and 160th SOAR to shoot those scenes, that’s as real as it gets. One inaccuracy is when Blackburn fell, no rocket was shot. He just jumped out and missed the rope and fell 60ft

The movie shows the militiamen firing regular RPGs but the book says that they were actually modified rockets set to burst in the air and the launchers were also modified to angle the backblast away from the ground when aiming at the sky.

5:23 that's a misconception. People really underestimate the accuracy of a modern rpg. (Mainly due to movies and games who automatically make everything Russian perform like crap) There is plenty of 1990's footage of Chechens shooting an rpg through 1x1 meter windows at over 200 meters, during actual combat missions. Now ofcourse a helicopter is a moving object but they usually fly low, slow and in a relatively straight line during these landing operations. Taking one down with a rpg would not be as hard as people seem to imagine. Hence the Somalis shooting down 2 modern Black hawk Helicopters within weeks, using ancient rpg's.

It was a dark time for Somalia alhamdulliah we're doing better now 🇸🇴

I saw you on insta and damn you’re good this is the content people need

I mean yeah, the americans were definitely horrifying to the locals, but the americans were also pretty damn scared too. Pretty foreign place mixed with total chaos throughout the command structure meant a lot of confusion, which can easily lead to a complete breakdown

I am from Somalia my mom told me after that crush people start to chant "suqaar mareekan sidnaa" in the streats it is somali language , suqaar means a food which is made of meat, onion, potatoes etc The chant means " we are serving American suqaar". people totaly didn't afraid of that so-called special forces , rip to my people 🇸🇴

I thought that the buff angry commander was healthy since they were monopolizing the food drops and therefore had access to food especially since he was commander and could take what he wanted.

I don't think the militia guys not being skinny is a major error. It's pretty safe to assume the average militiaman was more well-fed then the general population (one of the perks of joining such groups in the first place). At the very least, some of the higher ranking militia commanders probably got better access to food than the grunts.

When you ask "what these guys doing just chilling there, makes no sense" No it makes perfect sense. The unemployment rate and homeless rate in Mogadishu is like 95% or something close. You really think that unemployed people just stay home all day every day till someone calls and offers a job? You think they don't just want to go somewhere? You think just maybe those people lived there?

The only honest video I’ve seen about black hawk down on RU-vid great effort mate 👍🏾

the arial surveilance was provided by C2 (Kiowa Recce Helicopter and forward command plattform) and two P3 Orion Sea Recon Planes circling the area. It is assumed that Wolcott and his Copilot Lee-Briley put the Blackhawk down in a way to ensure survival of the crew in the back while sacrificing their own lifes.

"This citty doesn't even look like Mogadishu" - what do you expect them to do, build an entire citty for one movie, or perhalps filming in actual Mogadishu where there is stil fighting going on till today?! You can't always shoot in the exact location - especially if it is still a warzone.

Granted there was a terrible civil war and genocide happening the movie's opening titles completely omit "Bloody Monday", which was an attack by the US military in July 12, 1993 before the raid on Mogadishu happened. A large meeting of tribal leaders was being held to come to some kind of peace agreement to avoid any foreign interventions. However the US attack killed scores of negotiators and turned nearly the whole of Somalia against the US. Would the negotiations have worked? Who can say, but what is for certain is that Blood Monday made the US into a pariah and helped legitimize Mohamed Farrah Aidid. Because one constant in history is the rule of "fuck those guys" and people will become temporary allies to fight off the outsider.

RPG-7 apparently shot down much more hellicopters than any designed for it system. So its was not something no one heard about. US army lost 128 hellicopters in Vietnam exclusevily to RPG-7 and RPG-2 projectiles. Unlike with heat lock rockets - those cant be countered with heat traps.

Just gonna say, when your being overwhelmed by thousands of people. The fact they are 90 pounds means jack shit to a 7.63x39 comin to vibe check your plate carrier homeboy 😂

I am from Somalia and was born in Mogadishu, with due respect, Mogadishu has a similar infrastructure as Morocco. That is why it is chosen to cast the film. You also using some footage or pictures that are entirely not Somali or in Somalia. Other than that, you are right that Somalis don't look like west Africans, and then, there was a famine in the country.

1) Recreating any kind of massive, sprawling city, detail for minute detail, is a herculean task that would cost an incredibly wasteful amount of money to be accurate (in which it never will, no matter how hard one can try). Focusing on the important aspects and ignoring the more sprawling elements, to ensure that the important elements are held closely to the realities of what occurred? Far more important than rebuilding Mogadishu, Somalia from the ground up for a 2 hr, 30 min film. Ex: Its more important to get the roads they operated on, and the hotel they raided, correct, than to ensure that Skinny Bob's Tea Shop two blocks down and right is also in the picture... Nobody cares about Skinny Bob's Tea Shop because it had no effect or prevalence on the events of that day... 2) The militia officers (including the one with the sunglasses and black head covering) were typically well fed. Reminder the whole reason the UN asked for US involvement is because these Somali Warlords and their militias were stealing Humanitarian supplies from drop off points, even slaughtering innocent people, causing the starvation of hundreds of thousands of innocents to fuel their wars against each other. That's a typically average build individual. But if you ever see photos or docufilms of Muhammad Farah Aidid, dude was fat in comparison to his countrymen peasants. Even his political officer (who they capture earlier in the film) is a fat ass. Because they eat and live well compared to the other 95% of the Somali population... It would be reasonable that a Militia officer would be relatively well built, as their system of promotion was, ironically, a form of meritocracy. He didn't get there for being on the inside of the party he fought for. He was an officer because he was effective as a combat leader... 3) Helicopters are most vulnerable when they are flying low, slow, and in an AO with too many nooks and crannies to constantly observe. Pilots can only see from the 12 o'clock to just about the 3 and 9 o'clock respectively, but only at the front. Crew Chiefs are the enlisted personnel who take on the responsibility of being the eyes and ears of the pilots from that respective 3 and 9 o'clock position all the way to the 6 o'clock position of the aircraft, up to and including clearing the blade span, the stabilator, the tail rotor, and the entirety of the belly and landing gears from foreign object and obstacle damage. In such an environ as a sprawling city, not only are the crew chiefs watching for "widow makers" (objects that can deceive the eyes and strike the aircraft, killing the crew), but now also have to observe for combatants armed with weaponry capable of downing their helo... Black Hawks were never meant to be "CAS" assets. They're troop carriers and supply runners. Its a Utility aircraft. And the variant design and exception of extra guns/munitions (as there are a pair of "wings" you can install on the Black Hawk that's capable of carrying two External Fueling Systems (which look like missiles) as well as rocket pods and even extra forward facing guns) reinforces the fact that these Black Hawks were never meant to BE Close Air Support. 160th SOAR (which is the Aviation element of this military detachment) (Special Operations Aviation Regiment), would have that kind of support equipment and weapons platforming... The fact that their decision on using Black Hawks rather than Little Birds as CAS proves that they got damned arrogant and believed the Militias didn't have the means, or more importantly, were too incompetent in taking them down. Or more so that they had overconfidence in these air craft as some sort of "super helicopter". MH-6 Little Birds were well designed, hell, perfectly designed, for just such environs of conflict.

Okay, it was a 101st Blackhawk and not a 160th Blackhawk. I know to the layman that means nothing but in reality it means everything. Training, flight time, doctrine, procedures all are different between units. And yes the 160th were 100% aware of the shoot down and they were on alert for this possibility but the logical thought at the time was it was a 1 in a million hit.

The first helicopter wasn’t shot down in a shanty town the second one was but not the first

Aside from most of your reaction that was reasonable and accurate, I do feel you're giving a bit "too much" when you assume that actors were chosen because Hollywood didn't want to portray US elites being gunned down by skinny, malnourished militiamen. The reality is, whether that militiaman is 110lbs soaken wet, or 180lbs of pure muscle, it's a dude with an AK-47, and AK-47 doesn't discriminate. Furthermore, while Delta and the 75th Rangers are elite in their own rights, they're also humans like you or I, and I think we as non-SF/SOF persons really forget that sometimes. They're brave men made of the same squishy materials as you and I. Furthermore, it's safe to say they local militias were probably far better fed than their non-combatant counterparts. You have to remember that once the UN started trucking in supplies, these local warlords would seize them and redistribute amongst their forces and use the surplus as a weapon to hold the locals hostage. So regardless, I think it is entirely reasonable to also assume that some of the combatants there were probably decently fit lads, at least my Eastern/North African standards. Either way, these were 180+ US personnel against anywhere from 500-1,500 armed combatants in an urban environment, in the middle of daytime with little to no CAS on station due to initial ROE and mission planning. It wouldn't matter if you were Delta, the SAS, Spetsnaz etc, this was an extremely deadly fight. Members of TF Ranger performed admirably and honorably.

The biggest mistake they done is the actors. No one of them looks Somalis specifically the militia men, they should have more look like the one in captain Phillips

Super 6.1 pilot push the nose of the Blackhawk down at the last second To make sure the pilots took the blow to save the crew in the back Both pilots I believe died as a result A true hero right there Same thing with the 2 Delta snipers that dropped to save the second blackhawk crew

The biggest oddity I find of the first black hawk getting shot down is how they jump out of a technical with a DshK mounted to shoot it down. The DshK machine gun was designed in WW2 for anti aircraft purposes.

Good video! How about a reaction to HBO’s The Pacific?

Fun fact: I worked at a Country Club where on Veterans Day they had invited Colonel McKnight (Tom Sizemore’s character) to speak. Sadly, the event was in the evening and I worked the day shift

the game Black Hawk Down got the city kinda... KINDA right

I appreciate your comment about how the Somalis viewed the Americans. Too many Americans still expect the whole world to view us through the eyes of a 1940's Dutch woman.

I lived there and no one saw them as gods. They where seen as untrustworthy and strange. But no one seen them as anything spectacular. That’s why they lost in the street.

So he gets mad that the movie omits one Somali but over all shows how the shoot down worked. You going to get mad they didn't show them Digging a hole in the ground to stop the back blast from burning them cause they are shooting an RPG upwards which it isn't Designed or ment to?

The junk portrayed in the movie was representing the fact that junk was placed in roads to funnel enemy traffic. The also burned tires to signal allies and obscure vision.

“They just came out of a famine they should be malnourished and skinny” “This place shouldn’t look so torn up, they had normal happy lives there, they had food markets” -Bruh

They filmed the movie in Morocco they made streets dirty and added sand to th roads and also had to cut down trees but it still doesn't look like somaloa

A former colleaque of my wife, born in Ghana, made a gesture of spitting on the floor when he heard that we were going to take "refugees" from Somalia here in Finland. He said that they are the gypsies of the Africa. He is an African native, but still said that Somalis have the bad manners of both blacks and arabs. We did not have any previous experiences of them, but after these years, we do...

What's funnier is that some of these guys probably zerod their aks in for 1km because they thought it gave the gun more power

There is a reason why iraqis have strong pride in fighting the americans even if it was 27000vs+5000kia (not including other militaries) Because it's like standing up to space marines

This dude makes a living off of feeding into people's criticalness. It's a fuckin Hollywood movie so of course it's not gonna be totally accurate, but they did a pretty damn good job. Call of Duty on the other hand...

When Super 6-1 crashed, the pilots, Cliff Wolcott and Donovan Briley, pitched the nose down so they could try and save the four guys in the back. They took the brunt of the crash before the chopper rolled on its side, which is crazy considering how little room there was in that alleyway. The one thing that the CSAR team was able to do was use the aircraft for protection for the wounded. They set up a casualty collection point near the tail section and set up Kevlar plates from inside the cargo hold for protection.

It doesn't look like mogadishu because they couldn't shoot the movie there it was too dangerous to shoot it there they shot the movie in morocco

As a somali, this movie did not present the facts even the name of the somali malitia leader General Aidid was not mention and being replaced with some west African blacks and not filmed in muqdisho the real footage of the war are in the end of the video

Most of the People that played somalis weren’t somali plus no somali would ever play that role it’s a disgrace to the community

I saw that recent documentary with Struecker (lead humvee) when he went to the Bakara Market and it really looks almost the same

The real story of this movie is a Malaysian army save the Rangers

160 men vs a whole city? Well trained or not. Those men were the underdogs.

I'd love to see you make a historically accurate movie. You can't? Guess, that's why you're just bellyaching on YT instead.

From 1:50 onwards. You used the one buff somali in the movie as an example, but that guy was a high ranking officer in the militia. Of course he wouldn't be starving. A lot of your assumptions are wrong. The movie used actual somali militiamen as extras. The rest of them as you can see are skinny with a number of exceptions. So this whole point of yours holds very little water. Your whole rant of the point is confidently wrong.

May I ask which book you read? I have also read books on this engagement, but never heard the story of the militiaman who fired the rocket.

You can see where Resident Evil 5 got a lot of its influence.

I am Somali I sow this video today.that movie was a fake. Some Somali is black on skin but they do not same face body. You know this movie when I watch I am absolutely mad.thanks bro.

At the beginning, this does a good job considering the Somali side, but completely forgets it in the second half. I would love to see a victorious flm called "Black Hawk Down!" from the Somali perspective. Not to insult the sacrifice of the international troops who mitigated the famine (let's not forget Pakistanis, Italians...). On the point about overfed actors playing the militia fighters, we should take into account that militia members would likely be better fed than the general population. (The ethnic appearance of the fighters is a good point, but at least it gave African actors jobs.) Good video, but jumps over some stuff.

It’s like casting a European American to play an indigenous Mexican in a movie

RPGs were actually a bigger threat than the 12.7mm machine guns. Aidid milita used the RPGs on advise of the Afghan Mujahideen who used them against Soviet helicopters.

To be fair, most of the somali militia are super skinny. Maybe the commander is well fed?

Oh and dont forget What the Americans didn’t know in the beginning is that the Italian general who was head of the Italian army in Mogadishu was spying on them for Aidid in return his soldiers would never be attacked...which they found out later and caused big beef between the Americans and the italians...

He’s really knit picking the filming location as if Ridley and his homeboys were supposed to show up with military vehicles back in Mogadishu. As if it’s easy finding a suitable location that’s friendly to American film making, can support the thousands of crew members, has the infrastructure to use and maintain military vehicles, and located on the beach

A "safety" feature of the RPG is that it self detonate at 1k meters at that point it becomes an excellent anti air weapon as it spreads explosive debris all over. Probably was used in this manner in this incident. The "drone" you mention is a command and control aircraft fixed wing that you never see that provides Intel and directives from a high point.

The buff dude is a representation of the threat (a big one) it's subliminal, it doesn't matter irl if your 90lbs 0r a solid 390lbs a gun is called the great equalizer for a reason a mass volumes of fire against the very best is still going to get results.

The original mission plan was to have an AC-130 gunship to cover with IR camera but the civilian administrator appointed by the UN advised that would attract too much attention and might trigger a push to veto the entire mission. When they got pinned down the blackhawks were ordered to go low and provide support.

i went on my own during the day when the theatre was pretty empty to see this film, I didn't want anyone around especially people who would be joking or asking stupid questions. when this battle took place I was in standard nine, second last year of school, the next year my year of school I saw an article about it and I'm fascinated with war so this really stayed with me, when I heard about the film I made sure I got to see it in the theater as tv wasn't going to be good enough. I stayed in the theatre until all the credits were run, I was the last one out of the theatre, mainly to give myself time to compose myself had tears during the role call. by that time I had research the events quite a bit so noticed a few details they did get wrong,but overall was really impressed

Malaysia and Pakistan has big role in somalia for rescue mission but everthing focus only America

2:03 big buffed african does not llok somalian, hw is from south of the sahel stock.

I remember seeing this movie while in the army, in theater. . Slept through all of it, non stop shooting and explosions bothering me not a bit. Nostalgia.

The ending was very close. A friend of mine was in the unit that did the rescue. Every single soldier was shot at least once. No one came back without at least 1 bullet in them.

They dont even show the other Foreign UN soldiers hauling their ass out of there.

They killed a bunch of civilians in that intervention and in that operation in particular.

I mean 2:08 yeah they had a famine but they also had a civil war, also famine doesn't mean no food, just mean scares amounts of food. So logically the fighting forces would have the food and everyone else wouldn't have much if any. Also by this time (1993) food has been flowing in for about a year plus now. And the UN/US only got involved after the militias were stealing the food from the civilian population

It's not exactly unrealistic that the warlords and their men would've been well fed. After all, they have guns and could easily take what little food there was

6 days, we need a breakdown of 6 days

I think they did an outstanding job go check the documentary going back to Mogadishu. I had a relative there and they say the movie was prettt accurate soo

my dad war in there at the base and herd it on the radio

The Rebs in this movie reminded me much of Liberian and Sierra Leone RUF rebels.

It got critics from Pakistan/Malaysia because UN Malaysia/Pak that help them out, and it the movie none mentioned

I'm not a pilot but I was airborne in my country, so I got to hang around them quite a bit. They get trained in cases of the main rotor failing and also tail rotors, but what they said about this movie is that, since they were flying so close to the ground, is that they didn't have the energy to counteract the torque with speed to fly home. What the movie does a good job of showing, although tacitly, is that Wolcott & Durant made the best of a crappy situation by "cushioning" the crash using the ground effect. Even knowing they were probably going to die, if they can save 1 person by sacrificing themselves, they'll do it, and they actually did. If you hear the real radio chatter from Super 6-1 & Super 6-4 is that, even knowing they were going down, they kept their cool to the very last moment, displaying an incredible amount of professionalism. Edit: Oh and what you said about the crazy maneuvers, when I saw this movie and seeing the MH-6 Little Birds (AKA Killer Eggs) landing troops in the middle of the street, I thought it was creative liberties, until I flew about 10ft off the ground on a killer egg. They make it look easy because of their training. Some older pilots I spoke said they could "read" the helicopter's behaviour, much like a rally racer "reads" the ground and his car.

Didn’t realize that the 160th Rangers was a thing last I checked it was 160th SOAR and 75th Ranger Regiment but ok let’s let the British guy tell us how accurate and American battle is to an American film because my dad was there and trust me the film is very accurate

If you are seeing this, can you react next to this ww2 German reenactment from War Productions? I think It's from 2019 and the title Is called "Wiking" which I think Is a SS division from the eastern front. They also have another video that takes place on the Western front.

Can you react to "We Were Soldiers" If you didn't already? That movie is my top favorite war movie, I got the copy of it as a kid and I re-watched it over 30 times, every year at least 2 times because I enjoyed it so much.

13:07 only in Battlefield

Good video and reaction, but most I loved was the thought you brought 7:44 - the Somali perspective, just brilliant! It also kind of clears ideological mist. I also really liked the final thought :) Would love to see movie from militia point of view, but sadly they do not have an Empire ;) Cheers. btw: Found your channel via Ukraine commentary, good commentary :)

Quick fact that the real life RPG in Black Hawk Down were actually modified version: "This view of an RPG-7, which can cause a great deal of damage, displays the type of weapon which was used to take-down two Black Hawks during the 1993 battle of Mogadishu. Photo of RPG-7, captured by U.S. Army personnel, online courtesy Nellis Air Force Base. Later, it was determined that an "RPG 7," with a fuse modified so the shell would explode in flight, had struck the Black Hawks. That form of rocket-propelled grenade had been developed in Afghanistan by the Mujahideen ("holy warriors") during their war with the Soviet Union. In his speech condemning what had happened to the American soldiers on 3-4 October 1993, British Prime Minister Tony Blair connected the ambush and downed Black Hawks to Osama bin Laden. Mohammed Odeh (an Osama bin Laden lieutenant), had been sent to Somalia to train and fight alongside the warlords. America-although the country didn't know it-was already at war with bin Laden in the fall of 1993."

One of the key reasons for this American operation going to sh*t is the fact that the US military underestimated the threat of Somali militias. I’ve seen interviews of black hawk down survivors who states that a lack of cohesive leadership combined with downplaying the threat of the Somali militia is what caused this mission to fail!

Please make a video for Generation Kill!

7:50 Is this a joke? I don’t think you drag the dead bodies of your “gods” on the streets

Black folks in the movie do not look Ethiopians also.

I think it was Mh-60l black hawk

RPGs was used by afghan soldiers against soviets Mi24s

I honestly can't watch this film because of the actors playing the Somalis. It'd be like depicting the Chinese Civil War with all Arab actors and being like "ehh.. asian. Good enough." Takes me out.

The point you make that "BHD couldn't tell the American audience that their elite troops went up against guys that were 90 lbs" has no validity. No matter what the people look like or how buff they are, bullets hurt and kill people all the same

my grandpa directed this

Big somali community in the uk..when I first saw the movie first thing you notice is the movie bad guys didn't even remotely look like somalis

the Horn of Africa is very hot. this means that the people there are very skinny, as that helps with dealing with body heat. the famine didn't help, but them being skinny is a regional thing.

Jocko have a podcast with one of the pilots of that second choper.