Remember that opening scene of Saving Private Ryan? The landing at Normandy? The landing ships open their doors and the Germans unleash a furious barrage of machine gun fire on the Americans and the rest of the Allies. So the troops leap over the side and into the water to escape the sights of the gunners. But for all too many, their desperation is fruitless. The bullets follow them into the briny depths, whizzing through the water with ease and tearing into the poor unfortunates.
And surely the forces landing at Normandy on D-Day had it unimaginably bad. They faced a horror the rest of us can rightfully hope we'll never know. That's what their sacrifice was all about. But when it comes to Hollywood's recreation of that scene, how did the producers do?
Well, daredevil physicist Andreas Wahl put his body on the line to show that those soldiers who jumped over the sides of the landing craft probably didn't have to worry about the bullets. It's all a matter of resistance.
Bullets have a much easier time moving through air than they do moving through water. To illustrate just how massive the difference in resistance is, Andreas got in a pool and placed a rifle in front of himself, just about 10 feet away. When he pulled the trigger with a string, high speed cameras caught the bullet exploding from the barrel and cutting a path through the water...
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