We all know Band of Brothers is a very accurate portrail of wwII. but on the oppposite end of the Spectrum there are such movies as Iron Eagle. I watched one last night and never laughed so hard in my life.
lol.. they called an m249 SAW a 50 cal machine gun.

I think the movie Patton and Battle of the Bulge have some of the worst inaccuracies.

We're going to Bastogne, tonight.
Go Screaming Eagles

Talk about inaccuracies on movies, now my Dad used to be a railroader all his life, and everytime he saw a movie with a locomotive locking its wheels up on a movie to stop, it would make him so mad.
I told him it is just a movie, but he kept saying, but you don't know how many people believe that junk, and he is right, there is a lot of people that don't know an Abrams from a Bradley, and there is people that think a train can stop quick, all from watching TV, or movies. I do believe these shows shouldn't put stuff like that on for people to see, unless after the show they tell them the truth.

Not to mention that incorrect flash surpressor on the shorty M16 in the movie "Platoon".

(insert the red faced and bustin' a blood vessel emoticon that we used to have here.)

the one thing that has been gnawing at me from Band of brothers are the "88s". In the 2nd or thrid, they attack a battery of 88,s that were really 10.5 lefh howitzers. They also use the 88s to destribe all german artillery fire when in fact, the 88mm gun was not an indirect fire weapon.

Scunge, in the episode where they attack the 88's... I think if you rewatch the episode, Lt Winters actually tells his commander after the action that they weren't 88's... I could be wrong, but I'm almost certain that I'm not... Does anyone else remember?

I just watched it a couple of hours ago so it's still fresh in my mind, Winters said that these were not 88s but I think he said they were 105s. what a bada$$ film is that, I'm still impressed, and I watched 4 chapters in a row!

I watched the whole series when it was shown here on Swedish television. Then I watched it when it was Danish television (cable). My wife bought me the box set for Christmas last year and I watched it a few times.
Then one fine saturday I watched the whole box set in a row... all in one day.
My wife and daughter went away for the day.... and I was home alone. I built Italeri´s M32 OOB on the same day as I was watching.
Now i know there is an afterlife

It´s on Swedish tv now on fridays. Swedish tv 4. First episode last night.
I love it when in one of the final episodes Captain Sable (or is it Soble?) walks by Winters who is now a Major (?) and Winters says: "You don´t salute the man, you salue the rank" and Sable reluctantly salutes.

I love BOB, the only thing that drives me crazy is the use of hand signals. In WWII, they did not use the amount of hand signals, as the show portrays. This is vietnam era type hand signals. But other than that, it is pretty accurate, there are few historically inaccuracies, but who cares, it great!

I have the box set with me. Alas! I haven't watched the entire film! I've just got up to the 3rd part since I am too busy with many things. I love the training part wherein they cut the fence. Lol.

It was in the second episode called "Days of Days". Near the end of the film he reports to his Major that they weren't 88's. Just before he hitched a ride on a Sherman with Lt. Nixon.

Here I have to agree. I too really enjoy Band og Brothers, but the hand signals are out of place. Check out the the link below for some hand signals (accuracy?):
http://www.adtdl.army.mil/cgi-bin/atdl.dll/fm/21-60/Ch2.htm PS: there are 5 chapters of this.


Yeah and a M4A1 (Early) with wading kit to boot!

Savage, cool hand signals! Do you happen to have a link on hand signals for aircrafts or are they the same?

shonen_red
Have a look at Chapter 5 (SIGNALS TO AIRCRAFT):
http://www.adtdl.army.mil/cgi-bin/atdl.dll/fm/21-60/Ch5.htm

I've got a few questions about that show, maybe you guys can help me out. I noticed in the Market Garden episode that the Germans were apparently using some non-explosive tank shells, that just penetrated the armor and then didn't blow up. That's a lot different than all the WWII show's I've seen on the History Channel of turrets getting blown off tanks and large explosions taking place when a tank is hit. Is that realistic? Also, there are a lot of tanks backing up in various episodes. Considering there's absolutely no rearward visibility for the driver, is that realistic?

A couple other things, when that guy was sticking a German hand grenade in the barrel of that "88", would anyone really want to bet their life on that grenade taking a good long time to go off? Or is that just Hollywood? Probably the most unbelievable thing was in that episode where the smoke grenade didn't go off for a while, so one guy ended up running way ahead of everyone else, and coming upon a large group of Germans. He stood there plinking off one German after another after another. Then the rest of the American soldiers showed up and stood there, completely exposed to enemy fire, and shot a whole bunch more. Yet none of them got shot. Then some artillery was apparently called in, which was more accurate than modern day laser guided bombs. Sorry, but I kind of had to laugh.

I really appreciate the fact that there's finally a show where we're seeing actual German tanks, and not just US tanks with German crosses painted on the sides. And some of the action sequences are truly awesome. But the "jiggle cam" that bounces around like on the Blair Witch Project gets pretty old pretty fast - it's way overused and is annoying.

The thing I like is it doesn't make the Germans look like dumb asses. In alot of movies the Allies kill 20 people when they only have 2 or 3 men. Also in most movies they make the Allies tanks look equal to the German tanks but in this it shows the superiority of the Geramn armor.

Rico,

Just to adress a few of your questions (I'm no expert for sure), but the Artillery they called in was on a crossroads, which had been targeted allready by the US. It had even been given a name (Fire Concentration Blue, or somethign, i dont remember). Then Martin also corrected the distance the germans were from the Crossroads (Left 200, drop 100). Since artillery hasnt changed much since then, and this is how we still call in fires, its highly accurate. Besides, it doesnt have to be right, it just has to be close.

scott

I stand corrected about the 88s, but they still say they got blasted by 88s in the episode where they call in their own artilery that blows up all those germans. I guess, 88s was just a general term for german artillery of the time the way that a lot of allied tankers thought every german tank was a tiger.

Rico,

as far as solid shot goes, AFAIK that is correct. This type of round simply relied on the kinetic energy of the round, and on impact generated debris, shrapnel and heat to knock out a tank.. supposedly there have been occasions where rounds have gone straight through vehicles, including tanks. Now if that heat and energy set of the ammo of the vehicle, then indeed the turret couls fly of. Odds are, with the amount of energy that that round has, things will explode, or at least do some serious damage.

A good number of useum vehicles have impact-holes, yet themselves never exploded... but it was still sufficient to knock out the crew, or damage the tank beyond operational capabilities..

I know of a friend who is currently serving in the army, that on modern tanks, by far the weakes element is the crew.. as he stated it:" With modern western MBT's with many rounds, odds are the crew will be dead, but if you clean the vehicle, replace the crew, and if needs be do some minor repairs the vehicle can be used again."

i just baught the d.v.d. boxed set I like the extra footage and the clarity is superb,my only grumble about the show is the episode where they take the high ground outside Ceratan and the armour attacks them,then up pops the Shermans, now with the ranges shown why is that chap on the engine deck firing a .50 cal that Jagpanther could have turned half of that lot to salami before it was knocked out,I put it down to artistic licience like the brit soldier dressed as a german, where did he get that accent from, other than that one of the best ww2 films,programmes ever made.

"In real life, Captain Winters encountered a lone German just beyond the perpendicular dike after his solo run, and the 2 enemies sighted each other in time for both to take offensive action. They exchanged hand grenades. But Winters instantly realized as he tossed his, that he had forgotten to unwrap tape from around the spoon before pulling the pin and tossing his. This of course prevented the grenade from exploding. Then, he ran up atop the dike before the German's grenade exploded and fired from the hip, killing the German with his M-1 rifle at pointblank range. Although the German was crouching to avoid the anticipated grenade blast, he wasn't caught totally unaware. People who went back and re-read Ambrose's book after viewing the miniseries version, have asked, why did this scenario need to be changed? Although Winters shot the man, he did NOT gun him down rather cold-bloodedly as shown in the film. Sure, war is ruthless, but this is the difference between beating an opponent who has a chance to fight back, and the rather unsportsmanlike act of killing a surprised opponent who dosn't have a chance to respond. Does it make any difference? He still would've been forced to take him out as shown (because of the company of enemy troops just beyond). But in fact, it didn't happen that way. Perhaps this was changed to avoid showing Winters making any kind of human error, re: the grenade?"
From the TriggerTime web site, by Mark Bando
Paragraph has been edited.

I think many of the U.S. soldiers didn't actually know the correct names of the German armor, like in Saving Private Ryan, there where two types of german tanks, the tigers and the panzers, and thats it. :-)

I am in complete awe of the BOB series. Watch the making of on disc 6 and u see the armoury and this incredible model destroyed house they built! WOW! Also, in WW2, opposing forces to the Germans feared the 88s as much as the tiger, so you have them calling any artillery '88 fire' and most tanks a 'tiger' even though it is probably a Pz 4!! With the hand signals, the Airborne was elite, or if you will, "L337" as gamers say, and had much additional training to normal infantry. so it's quite possible that they used hand signals.

I've seen this one called 'the longest day' or something and they use M-41 tanks as Shermans! yuk! I also know of this movie (not sure of name) where they have P-51's posing as Me-109's!!!! HA HA HA HA! , but i also seen this Steven Segal movie where he calls a MP-5 an assault rifle! hahaha to him.