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What It Was Like to Be in the Crosshairs at Homs

There is good enough reason to believe the rebel who shot this video is dead. But that's not the only reason I can't shake it.

There is good enough reason to believe the rebel who shot this video has since been killed. But that's not the only reason I can't shake it.

Listen to this thing. Just listen to it. If you were in any of those ill-fated buildings, which were fireballed a little over a year ago during the shelling of Homs, chances are you wouldn't have even heard it coming. If you were fortunate enough only to have watched those buildings, and presumably all those people caught inside, get obliterated at such close proximity to this guy's vantage point that his simply not running for cover makes tragic sense—where else was he supposed to go?—you too would've had to quickly come to terms with the stock-still horror of knowing that you've found yourself in the crosshairs.

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Notice the artillery pops come at the right, then to the left, then somewhere toward the right again. It's like those on the other end were zeroing in on that perfect angle from which to pump off rounds, before locking into place. This is what's known as "bracketing" a position: Oftentimes a first volley of reports from indirect-fire weapons dually serve as throws to firm up the elevation of the angle a munition must split in order to engage a target.

Than again, "field artilllery is scarily accurate now compared to how it used to be," as this Reddit user points out:

…but there are still small things that can change the trajectory of a round. The rounds didn't impact far from each other (relatively) and the fact that you didn't hear a shot out tells you that these rounds are coming from quite a distance away.

Either way, this is arguably some of the most frightening footage to come out of civil-war torn Syria. It is terrifying to a degree someone like me probably won't ever be able to comprehend. In an ever-growing corpus of civilian videos of modern warfare, which includes this incredibly stylized and trailer-like reel of Syrian rebels in a fire fight with Assad's goons, this is raw terror laid bare.

@thebanderson