Discuss Rambo III
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Theories on how Rambo was able to simultaneously pilot and fire a T-72 tank?
posted by Reb_BrownSTAFFMOD on April 10, 2018 at 11:55 PM
I miss the IMDB forums quite a bit as we had a debate going as to how the climax of the film was even possible. I've heard two theories that maybe make sense but I wanted to know what your thoughts were on them before making my own conclusions:
1) that while Trautman killed the commander and Rambo killed the gunner and loader, that the (off-screen) driver was somehow still alive and obeyed Rambo's commands while Rambo merely operated the gun turret. The main issue with this is that usually the T-72 would have only 3 crew members, though the gunner riding on top could possibly have not been one of the tankers but someone riding on top (unlikely, I would think due to his very obvious tanker headgear).
2) (my theory) that Rambo slipped back and forth from the driving compartment to the turret (off-screen) to alternate between firing and driving. We merely don't see this because it would have been difficult for the editors to maintain excitement while depicting this.
3) that maybe it's just a hole in the plot and/or shoddy understanding by the writer, director, technical advisors, and crew, on how tanks work?
Reply by AlienFanatic
on April 11, 2018 at 8:51 AM
Someone answered that question on Quora.
https://www.quora.com/Is-it-possible-for-just-one-man-to-drive-a-tank-simultaneously-shooting-with-its-main-gun-as-shown-in-Rambo-III
In short, it's impossible. If you watch the sequence, they cheat--bigtime--by placing the steering controls beneath the gunnery controls. That's literally impossible in a tank designed to be operated from specific crew member stations. The weapons tech would literally had to have been seated on the driver's lap. Even if you believe the Hollywood setup in the film, Rambo would have had to fire from a stationary position every time since the T-72 is steered using a dual-tiller system. It's even portrayed that way in the movie. That means he'd have to have forward pressure on each yoke to maintain forward momentum. Since he was firing on the go, he'd have to have rigged some kind of elaborate system to hold forward pressure on the controls. No such animal in the movie. So they couldn't even maintain continuity in a fantasy cockpit they designed themselves.
As I said, it's impossible as are most of the ridiculous stunts in the movie.