Simply put, 300. So, a few milinea ago there were elephants the size of mastadons, goat headed musicians, guys with bones for arms, and very tall puerto rican men in Persia? Did I miss something in history?

Picking out the errors in war movies are part of the fun.

I'm one of the guys who wishes the movie Waterloo had the soldiers in great coats when marching in the rain.
That the Hussars didn't have their pelisses at Balaclava as depicted in Charge of the Light Brigade.
AND ALL BRITISH SOLDIERS DO NOT HAVE BLUE FACINGS! (as in Patriot and so many others) You see the proper regimental flag in the background with the yellow field and the soldiers in front of it with blue facings. Why can't Tarleton's men have their proper green uniforms?
Oh, the audience wouldn't understand that some British soldiers didn't wear red coats.
Imagine if they had included the Hessians who were along; they wore blue coats!

Did anyone know that the fire commands in the otherwise awful Battle of the Bulge are completely accurate? They matched the manuals. So they did listen to the technical advisors about something.

The old James Bond series. Once 007 was driving a tank (it looked like a T-72) with his head out the drivers hatch[:::] . He smashed through a building and when he came out the other side, his hair was still neat and tidy and his suit was still clean. And he had a car with re inflatable tires that could be driven with a small handheld controller.

Funny you should mention Mr Bond! When I was a kid I remember going with my parents to see one of the Bond movies at our local drive-in - forgot which one - but there was a scene where he gets into a knock down drag out fisticuffs brawl while wearing a white sport jacket. We're talking broken furniture, knocked down walls, rolling around on the floor, punched being landed and landing. After it was over my parents were greatly amused that his jacket was still absolutely pure white, still hung on his frame perfectly, was still buttoned, and as you described, his hair was still perfect.

Just saw a old video called "The Big Red One". A kind of plotless yarn about a squad in the first division. The main technical fopaw that I noticed was that all the German tanks were Shermans with German markings on them. Were there any tank battles before The Kasserine Pass ? If not where did the Germans get the Sherman tanks ????? None the less every German tank whether it be in Africa, Sicily or Europe was.............you guessed it a Sherman.

It's nothing more than the fact that very few German tanks survived the war and post war era in operational condition or even intact. There were lots of Shermans and T-34s made and survived in large numbers.

Ever notice the T-34 made up to look like a Tiger I in Kelly's Heroes? Or the one, possibly the same one, in a quick glimpse in the movie Hannibal about the early days of Hannibal Lecter, serial psycho killer? It was in the scene where the Germans were in a convoy down a road through the forest and it's certainly not a German tank.. Then there's the Kenmore top loader converted to a turret in some thrown together pseudo-tank in the film about the 2 GIs who desert their unit and find a group of partisans who are all children. There was also a Russian film called The Russian Soldier or something like that. I saw it about a year ago and I may have glimpsed some real German tanks in it, but it was hard to tell.

I can think of a lot of movies where the Germans had the wrong tanks, or like a few films about Stalingrad where you don't even see a tank of any type. But again, it isn't like there's a store of functional real ones available anywhere. I notice even worse than tanks being misrepresented are trucks. Almost every German war movie I remember seeing has either Allied 2 1/2 ton and other trucks or some other nationality vehicles and few are even of the 1940s era. I don't know my field guns, howitzers, etc. by sight except for a few distinctive ones, but I can only imagine they are even worse when it comes to depicting the correct stuff in the right place and time.

It would be nice to see some of the WWII movies done with CGI putting the right stuff in, but I don't think the public cares too much for those kinds of films anymore. The last ones from Fly boys to the one with the raid on the Japanese prison camp to free prisoners didn't get much attention with or without any degree of historical or equipment correctness.

With few exceptions, it seems even movies about the war in the middle East get a so-so reaction. Mostly those with big tales to spin like Three Kings which was a modern day Kelly Heroes get a little notice. Even the excellent series on premium TV Generation Kill only got a single season. it seemed after Vietnam nobody wanted to see war movies as much. Platoon and Apocalypse Now! were another pair of those that were tales set against the war and got some attention.

I ordered a bunch of war films listed both here as bad ones and as good films in another thread and have enjoyed them all to varying degrees despite some shortcomings. I was amazed at how many there really were and especially among the good ones, they are relatively unknown except to those who like military history or have some interest in the subject. It's a shame really, but almost everything that is made to make money is targeted to the under 25 or thereabout demographic. Most of them -emphasis on most- don't care about the world as it is today unless it inconveniences them and things that happened in the the early 1900s like WWI and the rise of the Nazis through the 1930s and the war that came from that is of zero interest to them. Again, it's too bad .

I just love this topic. It seems people get in a huff over a movie. I guess they could just make a CGI movie of a war but then I believe that people would still complain. I go to watch just to get away for a while. NOT to rivet count and nit pick all the errors. Then it would just be a Boring documentary.

I think it is all pretty funny. Nothing to huff about. Must keep that sense of humor..................... ......................Al

Yeah, me too. I've said it in other posts as well about me having been an electronics tech among other things and having a background in computers for 30 years that I hear and see stuff in movies all the time that make no sense but I'm the one of maybe only a handful of people that knows what's said is so much gibberish. I'm sure cops, doctors, and about any professional whose job gets portrayed in film has heard and seen more than a few groaners. I heard the expression "a willing suspension of disbelief" once to describe what causes a video gamer to become totally immersed in the game.

But, ultimately I think some folks suffer from an overwhelming need to be right and to have everything in their world to be right as they understand "right" to be. It seems like a way to be continually disappointed!

Good point Jim. Watching an episode of House will leave you brain dead with all the different opinions of what is wrong with the patient. I can imagine a real doctor would be quite amused. The interesting interaction between the characters is the only reason that I ever watch such stuff as House or Bones etc. Back to war movies............caching all the stupid things they try to put over as real (for me) is just part of the fun. We should not loose sleep over nuts, bolts and rivets........................Al

As I see the main problem with realism in war movies (and yes, to some extent this is generalising):

1) Most movies are made for the biggest market - and near certain profit - which is the US, and therefore cater to the US public; this public for a not insignificant part consists of the 'USA! USA! USA!' chanting crowd, especially since the end of the Cold War, let alone since 9/11. O yeah, by and large the general public also desires a (fairly) happy ending, simple story-line and much action.

As a result, there is a definite distortion to make the US/Americans look as good as possible. If it does not, most of the 'average Joe's' simply ignore or disparage the movie. SPR is to some extent a good example of this: Monty and the British (if mentioned at all) are disparaged, the Americans fight Waffen-SS units and face Tiger tanks. Even though by and large this is wholly inaccurate, especially for that time-line. Basically Ambrose's attitude is adopted wholesale by Hollywood to cater to the bulk/most influential part of the American public. Extreme examples are Pearl Harbour as well as U-571.

One of the criticisms I have come across of for instance 'A thin red line' is that there is not enough heroic action for the American troops involved' and therefore it is boring.

Unfortunately this issue is self-reinforcing: the average Joe is represented with a distorted image which leads to him/her expecting movies documentaries that cater to that image. This is not a problem exclusive to movies, but also encompasses (popular) military history as a whole - since the American market is the most lucrative, (with the British a distant second) the whole non-scholarly and semi-scholarly world (books, but also documentaries - History Channel, Discovery Channel) are heavily biased towards catering to the American public.


What I think one of the best movies depicting elements of war - Der Untergang - is all but impossible to produce in Hollywood in the current climate. For that same reason it is unlikely that Tora!Tora!Tora! will be remade. Probably of the biggest chance for a remake would be Battle of the Bulge - since all the preferences of the general public in the biggest market can be easily catered for: heroism, stereotypical Germans, and all USA (Americans do the fighting and win in the end).


2) Some inaccuracies are difficult to excuse, but others are simply the result of technological, logistical and financial limitations at the time the movie were made. Although on occasion it is still difficult to ignore this when watching an old movie, as it is easy to judge it by today's standards.


3) Some inaccuracies are cultural - for instance whether it is acceptable to show the brutality (and chaos) of battle or not (of course technological advances have made it easier as well). Scenes like Omaha Beach in SPR, or the battles in Braveheart would simply have been deemed unacceptable by the public at large in the 1980's and before.


4) Defectiveness of the source on which the movie has been based. Band of Brothers is defective since it is almost completely based on Ambrose's book (whith its deficiencies), just like a Bridge too far (based on Ryan's book, and therefore problematic for the German side), or der Untergang (primarily based on Traudle Jungeés memoires). And of course movies can (and do) profit from advances in knowledge of the events depicted.


And as far as horribly inaccurate movies go:


Robin Hood (the recent one with IIRC Russel Crowe) where the landing scene at the end is a straight copy from the SPR Omaha landings, including landing craft. The battle on the beach is simply embarrassing.

Good point Harm. I'm a bit of an old codger now and some years ago I became very interested in history in terms of how it was made. What affected people and caused events? What reasons lay behind the circumstances and beliefs of the parties involved? What happen that ignited the change? What occurred during the events and how did the players conduct themselves? What came from it and what happened later as a result? In so much of what I learned later in life I found myself both shocked and often dismayed. I was also fascinated by almost all of it regardless of what other emotion it created in me.

So many historical events are indeed glossed over or ignored. I remember when I first learned the internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII. I remember learning of the details of the Treaty of Versailles and how the collapse of the US economy and the domino effect of that plus the relentless pursuit of reparations by several European nations set in motion the events that happened a few decades later. I always wonder why Hitler ignored the historical record of what happened to Napoleon's powerful army when they were lured too deep into Russia to escape her deadly winter. The writings were all there.

I remember after seeing a TV series here on the Tudors and King Henry VIII I went out and read a great deal about him, his family and the times. I learned even today there is still a struggle in Britain for some to come to terms with him and the things he and his family did. I studied about the Dutch and their early colonization of South Africa and was stunned at the similarities between the fate of the Africans and what happened to the Native Americans here from the worthless treaties that were redrawn at will to the slaughter of those who resisted to the view the original inhabitants were less than human..

After the attack on 9/11 happened here and it was almost patriotic to jeer the French for not getting in line with US policy I was amazed at how thoroughly Americans had "forgotten" that were it not for the French it would have been unlikely the US would have defeated the British in the War of Independence. Also forgotten was the ferocity with which the French had waged war at other times. They did fare poorly in Vietnam, but so did we. Even the history of Vietnam made me think that nation should have been called "the Nation of Eternal War" because they certainly have had almost non-stop war on some level for their entire existence.

Even today when I hear politicians speak of the dislike for the US in the Middle East and the reason is given that they hate us for our freedoms and lifestyle I have to shake my head in disbelief. The history of the US and other First World industrialized nations in that area show ample reasons for that hatred. The things that were done in that area for centuries from redrawing boundaries to recent historical events such as installing puppet governments who were essentially paid off to subjugate their populations so some corporations could reap tremendous profits to blasphemous acts of putting people in areas that were of enormous religious importance to others fomented plenty of reasons for that animosity. It's the same in many South American and Central American countries. The US did many questionable things at best to damnable things at worst. In some cases the absolute worst offenders are still perceived by some as national heroes.

And so it goes, I think, with all nations. Each wants to spin history to gild themselves. I suppose that's what it means that history is written by the victors. I have become good friends with a member here who is Russian and ex-military. It's fascinating when we talk and I learn of what life is like where he lives and growing up there. He is still amazed at times that I'm not what he was taught Americans were like. It's the same for me. His life and things there are not like much of what we were taught here. Historical works about the post Stalinist era in Russia/the former USSR are still painfully slow in coming and I have yet to see much I would consider accurate and complete from Stalin's reign.

Sadly, even today people are altering our history here. There is a movement to remove anything but a mention of names of several of the Founding Fathers of the US who believed that church and government should remain separate. There are people who control a panel who guide what's put in the books that are used by students and approve what books are used in the schools. Even though they are in just one of the 50 states, their recommendations are usually adopted by all the other states. In colleges teachers have to be very careful of what they say. They are not allowed to say things that are against a particular set of view points. Say the wrong thing and it becomes a big problem often costing the teacher his/her job and often some punishment for the school such as losing money for research or other things given them by the government. Especially when bad things the country has done in the past are taught teachers are accused of "historical revisionism" and they are accused of trying to damage the idea that everything the US ever did was correct, good, and righteous. It's the same with those who don't teach but write books. The funny thing is that the truth of what they write is seldom challenged, but the authors themselves are attacked and discredited. It becomes a case where if you make the person out to be bad what they say does not matter. I remember a handbook i once read about winning debates. It said "When you have no fact or ideas remaining to argue against your opponent, attack his character." Apparently a lot of people have read that booklet!

So, yes you are 100% correct that films are often made to appeal to their audience's national pride. But just as often they will follow what is the traditional belief of events. Other times it's simply the audience wants to be entertained. Go outside of war movies and many films are just silly stories that can be explained in a few sentences. Instead of story they are full of blood and guts, things blowing up, cars crashing, thousands of bullets being shot, and/or naked people doing various things. I believe most people don't want to be made to think. When they do things like go to films for their amusement, the less they have to think the better they like it. There's nothing really wrong with that because sometimes it is necessary to have a form of "off switch" for the pressures and demands of life. With that, I fear, also comes a dumbing down if it happens too frequently. Eventually If all they have to say after watching a film is "Wow! Did you see that helicopter explode!? How about that chase down that highway? I bet there were 200 cars that wrecked!" and it happens every time, time and again, that is sad. Look at our western films. Do any ever show that most towns had roads full of horse pee and poop plus mud and all kinds of other nasty stuff? The people are always clean and well groomed and everybody has perfect teeth. Even movies going back to medieval times will show a filth encrusted peasant, his face black from soot and a mouthful of luminous white perfect teeth when he speaks. (I wonder if that irks some dentists?)

I guess maybe the focus should be on the occasions that films get it right and still manage to entertain. But, as I've said before, it doesn't seem the public -here in the US anyway- is much interested in WWII enough that unless it's something like Inglorious Basterds [sic] they have no interest in the genre. Even films and series about Iraq don't seem to garner wide audiences if the war is the central theme.

Sorry for the long rant. Your post really struck a chord in me. Thanks for that!

If there is one regret I will have about dying it's that there is so much more to learn.

The US hardly got it's butt royally kicked by the Somalis. Estimates afterward had the US with 17 dead and the Somalis with over 1000!!!!!! That has to be one of the most one-sided battles EVER.

I'd say if you care to repeat such drivel, feel free to meet me and Paul Howe at his CSAT facility in Nacogdoches, TX, and we can show you the error of your statements.

Black Hawk down is a perfect example of the problem between public perception (and expectation of events), the movie and what actually happened.

Note how the non-American forces fighting on the same side as the Americans are almost completely excluded from the debate; it is as if they were not even present. Although perhaps more understandable and acceptable for these specifics there, this is a more general trend, and often something that frankly causes resentment to those fellow countrymen or men themselves who fought on the American side. And yes, this has also infected the telling of the story of WW II and WW I.

The number of Americans who are wholly convinced that they won both world wars and that they liberated Europe (and do not hesitate to tell you so) is astounding. What makes it worse that this is only copied/fostered by the propaganda machine and to a lesser extent (and to some extent also with lesser culpability) Hollywood. I think you can understand that this in general does not foster sympathy for the US in the world outside the US.



Were those events in Somalia a tactical victory for the Americans and associated forces. By all accounts undoubtedly so.

Were these same events an operational success? I cannot judge, but I guess they still were.

Were these same events a strategic loss for the US (and associated forces). Definitely so, and from a strategic point of view they do constitute a butt-whooping. Without that battle, and its aftermath there would not have been the public outcry that forced/triggered the withdrawal of American/UN forces. In public percpetion events have gone down as an American loss, and therefore the public demands the movie to show it as such. Likewise they want the movie to depict their preconceived notion about what that battle was like.

BTW, the obvious parallel to those events is of course the Tet Offensive - which contrary to the direct military outcome has gone down in public memory as a Vietcong victory.

I think there are both a movie and the footage described. I tried finding a copy of the documentary one but all were for Region 2 playback. While many new DVD players are region free now, back a year or two ago I didn't want to take the chance. I had bought some concert DVDs that were for other than Region 1 assuming my DVD player was universal. Alas, they wouldn't play! PAL vs. NSTC I think.

While I was looking I came across two different DVDs of the same title but different content.

That wasn't the purpose of the YB40 program. The idea was to escort standard B17s on missions out of range for escort fighters in 1943. A yb40 was used i the manner you stated though, an Italian was flying a captured P38 picking off damaged stragglers. The YB40 shot him down.

I would have kept up with the conversation, but I don't read online books.
Patton. Italian tanks for Tigers. Walker Bulldogs early in the war. M4A2s with flamethrowes present in ETO. Ask Killroy, he was there.

the bottom line is who really cares because history changes. facts today can become embarrassing mistakes tomorrow. more information is always coming to light about historic events. there are always new documents, new discoveries, especially about WWII. so often facts about certain events may be a mile wide but they aren't that deep. a fabulous stroke of luck or a blunder that turns out well become brilliant strategic planning. a screw up here causes a rout that is credited to overwhelming or gutsy offense.

too often what "really" happened depends on where you were standing at the time the actual event took place, or whose version of events you accept.. it's easy to lay claim to truth when only your side gets to give an explanation of events and it's quite another thiong when the other side gives account and still a third thing when someone with an axe to grind against one or more parties involved tells their version.

a perfect example: last year I acquired a huge 4 volume set of books that was compiled by the Air Corps after WWI in which US Airmen, commanders, crews, and those associated with the involvement in the air war were asked to write of their experiences and thoughts and submit them through channels. it was a huge undertaking and the Air Corp were going to use it to study what effect the air war had and glean what information they could to refine the air theater.

the books are absolutely remarkable because of how vastly different the perspectives are on every topic. one airman sees the german pilots as cowardly devils eager to stab a foe in the back and slink off into the shadows while another sees them as exceedingly brave and well trained, methodical to a fault. others viewed the war with the calculator eye of a bipolar bean counter. others saw it as an adventure while some felt as if they had survived Hell itself. nothing was done to correct or edit what was turned in. it all remains in the language of those who wrote it all.

the thing is, every one of these people who contributed is absolutely right in their perceptions of the war. any of them could have written a book that would have been accepted as historical fact because they were there and that was what they saw and they felt. one is no less accurate than another..

I'm amazed someone would take "2001" out of context as an accurate movie. It was a re-write of Arthur C. Clarke's The Sentinel from Childshood End. It's pure fiction. I suppose this writer also thinks we had a Middle Earth some time ago filled with Orcs!

The others are, of course, inaccurate. 300 being the most inaccurate. But all movies are just the director's interpretation of a story.

As far as the comments go what is wrong with wrong tanks in Patton? The movie is not about the tanks, it was about Patton. Although riddled with errors in the screenplay (by Francis Ford, no doubt!) such as German tanks were diesels, it still tells the story about the General and his relationship with his rival Omar Bradley. The battle scenes are incidental to the story.

Let's talk about a fictional movie that was somewhat accurate: How about Kelly's Hero's? Hey, it had a real Sherman, it had Tigers (albeit made over T-34's, but close!), the uniforms were close enough (though not dirty enough!), etc. You can even see the missed rounds exploding on the hills behind. Pretty good, you think?

And Apocalypse Now was NOT about Vietnam. It was Coppola's interpretation of Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad. If Orson Wells didn't do Citizen Kane, he would have done Heart of Darkness.

Keep watching!

Bill B.

the fact there are very few WWII German tanks left in the world that actually run seems to be regularly overlooked.

I've just sat here and read all six pages of this subject and it really gets me that so many ppl missed the point of this thread or for some reason seem to think thats Orks are real .. in Warhammer 40K orks are real but not in real life ..and nother thing is as clear as glass .. WW2 armour is not parked in huge parking lots waiting to be used in a movie .. show me a couple of hundred Tigers sitting there and its crap myself ..they don't exist anymore ,,i am wondering how many there is still left on this planet .. not many i would bet .. here.s one for you that i havent picked up on in this forum .. at the start of Valkyrie with Tommy Cruise hes in North Africa and walks past a Panzer 4 .. now that thing was so fake it wasn't funny .the drive sprocket was inline with the track guards ,,wrong bigtime but least they made the attempt at having one there ..they could have also looked at a book to see what one looked like ..oh and the net ..i've heard that its a pretty good place to find pics .. then there's that Italian movie using M113's as tanks ..if i remember right they also carried German H&K G3 rifles and all their helmets were painted in gloss OD .. some fokes don't have a clue and this includes the movie Titanic .. how could something so well covered with historic fact get so screwed up ..the story line ,,thats all it is ..gotta make it look good for the punters out there ..if they don't like it then the money won't flow and they won't get richer ..Micheal Bay has many cock ups in his movies ..Bad Boys 2 was another one of his with some cock ups ..like the H2 flying down a hill and you can clearly see the wing mirror going south in one shot and when it lands at the bottom its back on ..paying attention to detail would have fixed that problem but i enjoyed this movie ..hell i've got over 1000 of them and if i was as picky as some fokes out there i wouldn't have any .money is the biggest killer of a truly accurate movie ..its a massive job to be able to bring every detail to life and as one gent on here said ..to accurate and its boring .but i would love to see a remake of Battle of the Bulge ,,that would be great and hopefully this time they do get it right and the Germans don't get within 20 feet of a Allied fuel depot ,cause in the real battle they didn't get anywhere near the big ones ..gotta admit tho some movies are just plain funny because of the inaccruateness of the movie ..1942 was one ,,but hell you did get to see some nice up close shots of the M3 Lee .and some old Harleys ..the Bofors was a nice touch .
Basically instead of really watching a movie for every little mistake just sit back and enjoy it for what it is ,,entertainment .

Phill

Reckon I'm with Wardukw on this one.

It's not whether the props used in the movie are 100% accurate or not, as he says authentic Tiger II's are fairly rare, but what is important is the accuracy of the storey.

Sure you can have some dramatisation within a setting like Saving Private Ryan, or some stylisation of actual events like Attenborough's A Bridge Too Far but when you have a total work of utter fiction with out a plausible storey line a la The Battle of the Bulge you get the most pointlessly inaccurate movie of all time.

Crikey they didn't actually get the name right, the movie ends with the stopping of the German offensive, the point at which the bulge was created. I would have thought the Battle of the Bulge would have been what followed with Monty and Patton battling to reduce the bulge.

BTW the M-113's were used in the 1969 Italian film 'The Battle of El Alamein"

You are forgetting time dilation as it happened a long time ago in a Galaxy far, far away the time dilation for the journey means it happened in 1977 from our frame of reference, so really it was actually a documentary on current events.

True though it was a tale of internal rebellion and not an actual war. It only becomes a war once one side wins and is trying justifying their armed revolt.