Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: Flanker Leader

i saw PH a looong time ago and always thought if the movie was edited to include only war scenes, dropping all the romance crap it might be watchable. i don't even remember the movie anymore, but would it be a decent movie it it was edited as such?

Stratford, Connecticut, U.S.A.

"The Angel of Okinawa"

Home of the Chance-Vought Corsair, F4U
The best fighter-bomber of World War II

quote:

ORIGINAL: Joe D.

How abt 1945's "A Walk in the Sun"? The cast had everyone, even Huntz Hall from "The Dead End Kids" aka "The Bowery Boys"?

Courtesy IMDb

A Walk in the Sun (1945)

"In the 1943 invasion of Italy, one American platoon lands, digs in, then makes its way inland to attempt to take a fortified farmhouse, as tension and casualties mount.

Unusually realistic picture of war as long quiet stretches of talk, punctuated by sharp, random bursts of violent action whose relevance to the big picture is often unknown to the soldiers." (Written by Rod Crawford)

Stratford, Connecticut, U.S.A.

"The Angel of Okinawa"

Home of the Chance-Vought Corsair, F4U
The best fighter-bomber of World War II

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ORIGINAL: US Brake

Pearl Harbor had a very innacurate love triangle.

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ORIGINAL: Doggie

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ORIGINAL: IronDuke


U571 was the worst.

Ingenious American submariners steal Enigma, at one fell swoop writing British efforts (which included some fallen Sailors/real heroes if memory serves) right out of the war.

Ha rumpf. We do so got a U boat. It's sitting up on blocks right off the Chicago Express way. I'd call the guys that boarded a sinking u-boat armed with scuttling charges real heroes.

Where's your U boat? I didn't see any U boats tied up on ther Thames. Didn't see any battleships either. We got battle ships all over the place. That's because nobody sank them.

I thought The Patriot was a realistic war movie. American farmers taking on mean old redcoats. That movie rocked.

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ORIGINAL: undercovergeek

dont know how accurate it is but i always liked - when we were soldiers - unsure of the accuracy BTW if big mels in the cast!!!

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ORIGINAL: Culiacan Mexico

“By innacurate it could be innaccurate props, or innaccurate story lines (unless the movie is intentionally about a fictional battle).”

Gary Childress

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ORIGINAL: IronDuke
U571 was the worst.

How so? U-571 is completely fictional. No such operation every happened during the war, so it doesn't seem to meet the criteria.

"...S-33, being modified to resemble a U-Boat... when S-33 sails, Hirsch explains that the Allies intercepted the disabled U-571's SOS. They are going to masquerade as the resupply ship U-571 called for, board the ship, capture her enigma coding device and then scuttle the U-571."

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ORIGINAL: IronDuke
Ingenious American submariners steal Enigma, at one fell swoop writing British efforts...

Actually Polish efforts.


The only British naval action that even comes close to the premise of the movie would be this:

"On 30 October 1942, U-559 was damaged by five British destroyers in the eastern Mediterranean. After the captain was killed and the crew abandoned the U-boat, a British boarding party from HMS Petard entered the submarine and recovered the signal key books. Then two British sailors drowned trying to remove the Enigma machine when U-559 quickly sunk. However, the recovery of the signal key books was important because the addition of the fourth rotor in the early months of 1942 had prevented the Allied codebreakers from reading messages to the German submarines. The key books from U-559 enabled the Allies codebreakers to understand how the fourth rotor on the Enigma machine worked and to start reading the messages to German submarines again."


Please note: the fourth wheel was in itself not significant to winning the Battle of the Atlantic as the problem never was finding German U-Boat (Donitz was very happy to do that for the British). The problem was that the Germans were reading the British convoy codes, only once the British realized this and changed their codes did the dynamics of the battle change.



"The B-Dienst, created in the early 1930s, had decrypted the most
widely used code of the British Navy already by 1935. When the war
broke out in 1939, the B-Dienst specialists had deciphered the British
naval codes so well that the Germans new the positions of all British
warships. They had further decryption successes in the early stages of
the war; the British were slow at changing the codes. One important
code the B-Dienst could read was the British and Allied Merchants
Ships (BAMS) code, which proved valuable for U-Boat warfare. In
February 1942, the B-Dienst cracked the code used for communication
with many of the Atlantic convoys."

quote:

ORIGINAL: Gary Childress

So that this thread doesn't get locked let's all stop belittling each others roles in WW2 or any other wars for that matter. The intent of the thread is simply to discuss inaccuracies we've seen in war movies (whether it be inaccurate props or storylines), not to point fingers at who fought a war better or worse or what not. God knows, being a bunch of die hard wargamers I figure most of us have spotted PLENTY of inaccuracies in movies we've watched. Let's leave politics out of this please.

Thanks.

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ORIGINAL: vonRocko

"Come on guys,give the Battle of the Bulge a break!  Henry Fonda,Robert Shaw,Charles Bronson,all great actors.
Yes it is innacurate,but it does give the general flow of the battle. From the initial confusion to the Germans fuel shortage.The movie is for the mass public who do not know the battle except for the name.Totally inacurate,but very entertaining."

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ORIGINAL: jacksy

Did you foget about HMS Bulldog? She captured U110 in 1941 including an Enigma machine, secret documents and keys

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ORIGINAL: J P Falcon

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ORIGINAL: vonRocko

"Come on guys,give the Battle of the Bulge a break!  Henry Fonda,Robert Shaw,Charles Bronson,all great actors.
Yes it is innacurate,but it does give the general flow of the battle. From the initial confusion to the Germans fuel shortage.The movie is for the mass public who do not know the battle except for the name.Totally inacurate,but very entertaining."

Being inaccurate does not necessarily mean bad and I have to agree with vonRocko...I was in my early teens when I saw the premier of Bulge in a wide screen movie theater and was enthralled by it...there was nothing like it at the time in terms of scale and the tank battles were exciting...what did seeing the Battle of the Bulge do for me back in the 60's ? Well it got me to read about WWII and I started buildng models and creating WWII dioramas. As a bonus from reading about many wars, I had an extensive knowledge of Geography which got me through many tedious classes at school and finally, I entered the world of board gaming through Avalon Hill and SPI....So, while you may site all of the innaccuracies you want regarding The Bulge, I'll always maintain that it is an entertaining movie.

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ORIGINAL: jacksy

For me it's any war film were Hollywood ignores,belittles or completely writes out the efforts of all the other allies.

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ORIGINAL: Gary Childress

I agree, being inaccurate does not necessarily mean that a movie is not entertaining or doesn't have an effect upon us. The point, however, is that the movie was very inaccurate. Whether we like the movie or not it was, in fact, very inaccurate, which is the point of the thread.

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ORIGINAL: Culiacan Mexico

quote:

ORIGINAL: Gary Childress

I agree, being inaccurate does not necessarily mean that a movie is not entertaining or doesn't have an effect upon us. The point, however, is that the movie was very inaccurate. Whether we like the movie or not it was, in fact, very inaccurate, which is the point of the thread.

I don't like the Battle of the Bulge (Movie), U571, etc not because they may or may not be entertaining, but because the Writers/Directors/etc have a great opportunity to tell a story... on subjects with great depth... and then proceed to throw it away.

They seem to be lazy.

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ORIGINAL: Culiacan Mexico

quote:

ORIGINAL: jacksy

Did you foget about HMS Bulldog? She captured U110 in 1941 including an Enigma machine, secret documents and keys

HMS Bulldog/U110 incident didn't seem to a make much of a difference.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Culiacan Mexico

I don't like the Battle of the Bulge (Movie), U571, etc not because they may or may not be entertaining, but because the Writers/Directors/etc have a great opportunity to tell a story... on subjects with great depth... and then proceed to throw it away.

They seem to be lazy.

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ORIGINAL: gunny

Oh here's a good one. El Alemaine when the British M113's dropped their ramps and the Tommies ran out A'la perfect 1980 mechanized assault syle dressed in their pot helmets with enfields and knee socks.

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ORIGINAL: Obsolete

Every time I look at this thread I get depressed, because I know I am going to have to sit down and watch that Pearl Harbour with the gf soon.  Grrrrr!!!!   Unfortunately, I have no choice in the matter, so I'm just going to do the only thing I can do to get even, I"m going to cheer as loud as I possibly can when anything American get's sunk or destroyed.  Then maybe she'll think twice next time before forcing me to sit in for a war/romance movie (yuk).

I have Battle of the Bulge on my to-watch list, but at least it doesn't have that romance-love from what I hear, so I'm willing to give it a shot.  Though I'm wincing already because I've seen the ending before.

Anyhow, I forgot to add one more nominie. 

Dune!

That whole spice thing was all innacurate, and the way the book portrayed the Harkonnens was much different than the movie.. and...    

Just kidding.


Though I wonder if anyone would be interested in a similar thread on the worst War-Game, instead of movie. 

quote:

ORIGINAL: Obsolete

Every time I look at this thread I get depressed, because I know I am going to have to sit down and watch that Pearl Harbour with the gf soon.  Grrrrr!!!!   Unfortunately, I have no choice in the matter, so I'm just going to do the only thing I can do to get even, I"m going to cheer as loud as I possibly can when anything American get's sunk or destroyed.  Then maybe she'll think twice next time before forcing me to sit in for a war/romance movie (yuk).

When you see the Southern Cross, For the first time
You understand now, Why you came this way