An urban warfare expert gives praise to Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down, praising the film for its realistic depiction of combat. Released in 2002, Black Hawk Down told the true story of a disastrous United State military raid on Mogadishu, Somalia, in which a black hawk helicopter crashed in enemy territory, leading to a desperate fight in the middle of the city. Receiving high marks from critics (reflected in its current 77% Rotten Tomatoes score), Black Hawk Down went on to be a hit at the box office, grossing $173 million.

Given its box office success and strong critical reception, there’s little question Scott’s star-studded Black Hawk Down succeeded as a harrowing piece of military drama, but the movie is more than just a great example of Hollywood storytelling. In a recent breakdown for Insider, urban warfare expert John Spencer took apart Scott’s film and gave it high marks for sticking to the truth when it comes to the ways of combat. Check out what Spencer had to say in the space below (beginning at :35 of the video):

It's very accurate to be behind a wall and you pop out for a second to throw a grenade like that. Where he's throwing the grenade is a little off. Grenades have a timer in them, basically, so they don't blow up in your hand. Once it hits the target. It's not throw, explode.

100% air support is that vulnerable in urban operations, and why usually you don't bring it in. It's low-flying, it's slow, it doesn't have much protection, and usually you drop soldiers offset of the urban battle. In this situation, they didn't expect that level of resistance.

Crossing the street can actually be one of the most vulnerable things of urban warfare because there's so many angles, so many windows, so many doorways which you can get shot. So we teach things like throwing smoke out there so that people can't see you and going one at a time and mixing up the speed at which you're going.

If I didn't know this battle, the battle of Mogadishu, I would say that this is not realistic where you have hundreds of people shooting at a small unit, but that's really what happened. And they got the soldiers pretty accurate, but there's been a lot of criticism about this movie and the depiction of the Somalis and kind of the context of what's going on in Mogadishu at this time.

That's actually an iconic scene, when he says, "Stay off the wall." That was real advice because once the bullets are hitting the walls, then they travel down the wall kind of like a bowling alley, and it can hit if you're standing on that. I wouldn't say it happens in all, because every city is different. You have mud, cement, glass, metal is a little different, but that's real.

You see the bullet holes in the glass because back then we weren't as prepared for urban warfare as we are today, so those aren't bulletproof vehicles. A lot of the weapons there aren't really ready for that environment that they're moving into, but they also were surprised by what they encountered. So I'd give it, like, a nine from realism in urban warfare, not realism in the portrayal of the population and things that are going on.

Black Hawk Down Marked Another Oscar-Night Disappointment For Ridley Scott

Black Hawk Down came out a year after Scott’s Gladiator triumphed at the Oscars with five Academy Award wins including Best Picture. Famously though, one Oscar not snagged by Gladiator was Best Director, which that year went to Steven Soderbergh for Traffic. The Academy had a chance to do right by Scott a year later however, when Black Hawk Down snagged the director another nomination. But sadly, 2002’s Oscar night would only bring more frustration for Scott, who lost the trophy to Ron Howard for A Beautiful Mind.

Since losing the Oscar a second straight year in 2002, Scott has never again been nominated for Best Director. But the veteran auteur may yet have his moment of Oscar glory, as this year he’ll release Napoleon, a historical epic starring Joaquin Phoenix as the French emperor. Even if he doesn’t win an Oscar for Napoleon, Scott will go down in history as one of the great action directors, thanks to a resume that includes the highly accurate, and massively dramatic, Black Hawk Down, among many others.

Source: Insider