Armadillo

Saturday, January 26th, 2013

Armadillo could be considered a Danish Restrepo — a rather depressing documentary about Danish soldiers not exactly winning hearts and minds in Afghanistan. Maybe sending white guys covered in crosses (the Danish flag) and armor isn’t the way to win Muslim friends?

Anyway, it ends up demonstrating the usual tactical points, too. When dismounted, the overburdened Danish soldiers can barely cross irrigation ditches. They rarely see the enemy.

The big action scene of the movie has a Danish soldier telling his mates that there’s no way Taliban fighters are three meters away in the brush. They insist, he unloads a magazine in that direction — to no effect — and finally he tosses a grenade — which does take out most of the five Taliban hiding in the ditch. The Danes then close in and finish them off with automatic fire. (The Taliban had an RPG, a couple machine-guns, and an assault rifle.)

The rest of the movie conveys how boring deployment can be.

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