Band of brothers

[Oligo 1]

After watching the episodes of Band of Brothers up to the Bastogne episode, I've began to wonder why the presentation of the war in the series does not correlate with the casualty figures reported in history.

The Normandy episode as presented in Band of Borthers and also Saving Private Ryan (parts of the same series of movie warfare) doesn't ever show any battles where allies take the beating. A typical engagement shown in the telly has a bunch of G.I.s assaulting some place and wasting loads of germans as they go, eventually suffering a few dramatic casualties. But statistics report 29000 killed U.S. servicemen and 30000 killed Germans. Furthermore there were 106000 wounded or missing yanks and 290000 wounded or missing krauts. Thus I would expect that the getting wasted spectacularly ratio in the end of a Normandy movie version should be somewhere near 1:1.

In Bastogne, 81000 yanks were killed, wounded or missing whereas 100000 krauts were killed, wounded or missing, again a 1:1 ratio. Still as presented in Band of Brothers, uncountable loads of germans buy it and we have only a small number of dramatic episodes of yanks sent to their maker or to the repair shop.

It's almost like the film makers want to give an impression that you do not die so easily if you're in the army of U.S. of A.

There are also other interesting tricks used by the makers of Band of Brothers. I'll mention the way evil hun soldiers are portrayed in the series. There are three ways this is done:

1. A pile of germans is smoking and talking shit somewhere, hugging their guns. Yanks attack. Krauts fire some return shots (killing some yanks dramatically), but mostly they just get blown to bits. Eventually few surviving krauts run away in distress.

2. Yanks are defending a position. Krauts attack (a glimpse of running krauts is shown). Image of yanks firing like hell. Krauts get blown to bits and eventually the survivors run away in distress.

3. Yanks are defending a position. Krauts attack (a glimpse of running krauts is shown). Image of yanks firing like hell, until somebody orders a retreat. Cut to yanks discussing their retreat in safety.

No way are we going to show any krauts overrunning any positions or doing anything even nearly competent. That might demoralize people.

Again, it's almost like the film makers want to give an impression that you do not die so easily if you're in the army of U.S. of A.

[Guest]

I didn't get that impression at all. On the contrary from BoB I got the impression that the Allied soldiers dropped like flies.

As for unsuccessful missions look at the episode "Replacements" that is about Operation Market Garden, that was a failure.

I should add perhaps that I find BoB to be nothing like SPR. Saving Private Ryan was a piece of commercial propaganda shit with the final message that "the only good german is a dead german". I never liked that movie.

[USSoldier11B 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">The Normandy episode as presented in Band of Borthers and also Saving Private Ryan (parts of the same series of movie warfare) doesn't ever show any battles where allies take the beating. <span id='postcolor'>

What are you talking about? In the opening scene of SPR there are so many dead U.S. GI's on the beach. The tide is red from their blood. How bout when that MG42 opens up on the landing craft and takes out all of the GI's inside like a can of sardines. Or when Cpt. Miller reports to the Batallion commander and gives him a casualty report. About 1/4-1/3 of his company was wiped out in a single battle.

[LauryThorn 0]

The episode where they dropped to the enemy territory was really confusing to me.

I mean, the guys are put against a real enemy for the first time, they

are behind enemy lines, and what do they do?

Beat up some (experienced?) german soldiers, and destroy the (artillery?) guns.

I've always imagined that the first battle is horrible and fatal to most of

the soldiers, and that hard training doesn't make much difference.

[Guest]

Another thing is that Band of Brothers doesn't have the ambition to tell an objective story. It describes the events through the eyes of the soldiers in the 101st and I think it does a splendid job in that.

[LauryThorn 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">What are you talking about? In the opening scene of SPR there are so many dead U.S. GI's on the beach.<span id='postcolor'>

Was the first wave on theOmaha beach effective BTW?

I've always wondered whether the first units that landed, actually broke

the defensive line?

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"> It describes the events through the eyes of the soldiers in the 101st and I think it does a splendid job in that.<span id='postcolor'>

I have no in-depth information about that BoB series, but I think I heard

someone say that it's based on a book. And someone in one finnish

newsgroup complained that the TV series, or movie, is not very "faithful"

to the book, like it takes bits from here and bits from there and adds thing and stuff.

Of course, movies have to be more entertaining than books, so I can understand that.

[Oligo 1]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (USSoldier11B @ Aug. 01 2002,11:27)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">What are you talking about? In the opening scene of SPR there are so many dead U.S. GI's on the beach. The tide is red from their blood. How bout when that MG42 opens up on the landing craft and takes out all of the GI's inside like a can of sardines. Or when Cpt. Miller reports to the Batallion commander and gives him a casualty report. About 1/4-1/3 of his company was wiped out in a single battle.<span id='postcolor'>

In the real Omaha beach battle, first waves of yankees were almost COMPLETELY wiped out. Here is a story of company Able:

ABLE Company riding the tide in seven Higgins boats is still five thousand yards from the beach when first taken under artillery fire. The shells fall short. At one thousand yards, Boat No. 5 is hit dead on and foundered. Six men drown before help arrives. Second Lieutenant Edward Gearing and twenty others paddle around until picked up by naval craft, thereby missing the fight at the shore line. It's their lucky day. The other six boats ride unscathed to within one hundred yards of the shore, where a shell into Boat No. 3 kills two men. Another dozen drown, taking to the water as the boat sinks. That leaves five boats.

Lieutenant Edward Tidrick in Boat No. 2 cries out: "My God, we're coming in at the right spot, but look at it! No shingle, no wall, no shell holes, no cover. Nothing!"

His men are at the sides of the boat, straining for a view of the target. They stare but say nothing. At exactly 6:36 A.M. ramps are dropped along the boat line and the men jump off in water anywhere from waist deep to higher than a man's head. This is the signal awaited by the Germans atop the bluff. Already pounded by mortars, the floundering line is instantly swept by crossing machine-gun fires from both ends of the beach.

Able Company has planned to wade ashore in three files from each boat, center file going first, then flank files peeling off to right and left. The first men out try to do it but are ripped apart before they can make five yards. Even the lightly wounded die by drowning, doomed by the waterlogging of their overloaded packs. From Boat No. 1, all hands jump off in water over their heads. Most of them are carried down. Ten or so survivors get around the boat and clutch at its sides in an attempt to stay afloat. The same thing happens to the section in Boat No. 4. Half of its people are lost to the fire or tide before anyone gets ashore. All order has vanished from Able Company before it has fired a shot.

Already the sea runs red. Even among some of the lightly wounded who jumped into shallow water the hits prove fatal. Knocked down by a bullet in the arm or weakened by fear and shock, they are unable to rise again and are drowned by the onrushing tide. Other wounded men drag themselves ashore and, on finding the sands, lie quiet from total exhaustion, only to be overtaken and killed by the water. A few move safely through the bullet swarm to the beach, then find that they cannot hold there. They return to the water to use it for body cover. Faces turned upward, so that their nostrils are out of water, they creep toward the land at the same rate as the tide. That is how most of the survivors make it. The less rugged or less clever seek the cover of enemy obstacles moored along the upper half of the beach and are knocked off by machine-gun fire.

Within seven minutes after the ramps drop, Able Company is inert and leaderless. At Boat No. 2, Lieutenant Tidrick takes a bullet through the throat as he jumps from the ramp into the water. He staggers onto the sand and flops down ten feet from Private First Class Leo J. Nash. Nash sees the blood spurting and hears the strangled words gasped by Tidrick: "Advance with the wire cutters!" It's futile; Nash has no cutters. To give the order, Tidrick has raised himself up on his hands and made himself a target for an instant. Nash, burrowing into the sand, sees machine gun bullets rip Tidrick from crown to pelvis. From the cliff above, the German gunners are shooting into the survivors as from a roof top.

Captain Taylor N. Fellers and Lieutenant Benjamin R. Kearfoot never make it. They had loaded with a section of thirty men in Boat No. 6 (Landing Craft, Assault, No. 1015). But exactly what happened to this boat and its human cargo was never to be known. No one saw the craft go down. How each man aboard it met death remains unreported. Half of the drowned bodies were later found along the beach. It is supposed that the others were claimed by the sea.

Along the beach, only one Able Company officer still lives -- Lieutenant Elijah Nance, who is hit in the heel as he quits the boat and hit in the belly by a second bullet as he makes the sand. By the end of ten minutes, every sergeant is either dead or wounded. To the eyes of such men as Private Howard I. Grosser and Private First Class Gilbert G. Murdock, this clean sweep suggests that the Germans on the high ground have spotted all leaders and concentrated fire their way. Among the men who are still moving in with the tide, rifles, packs, and helmets have already been cast away in the interests of survival.

To the right of where Tidrick's boat is drifting with the tide, its coxswain lying dead next to the shell-shattered wheel, the seventh craft, carrying a medical section with one officer and sixteen men, noses toward the beach. The ramp drops. In that instant, two machine guns concentrate their fire on the opening. Not a man is given time to jump. All aboard are cut down where they stand.

By the end of fifteen minutes, Able Company has still not fired a weapon. No orders are being given by anyone. No words are spoken. The few able-bodied survivors move or not as they see fit. Merely to stay alive is a full-time job. The fight has become a rescue operation in which nothing counts but the force of a strong example.

Above all others stands out the first-aid man, Thomas Breedin. Reaching the sands, he strips off pack, blouse, helmet, and boots. For a moment he stands there so that others on the strand will see him and get the same idea. Then he crawls into the water to pull in wounded men about to be overlapped by the tide. The deeper water is still spotted with tide walkers advancing at the same pace as the rising water. But now, owing to Breedin's example, the strongest among them become more conspicuous targets. Coming along, they pick up wounded comrades and float them to the shore raftwise. Machine-gun fire still rakes the water. Burst after burst spoils the rescue act, shooting the floating man from the hands of the walker or killing both together. But Breedin for this hour leads a charmed life and stays with his work indomitably.

By the end of one half hour, approximately two thirds of the company is forever gone. There is no precise casualty figure for that moment. There is for the Normandy landing as a whole no accurate figure for the first hour or first day. The circumstances precluded it. Whether more Able Company riflemen died from water than from fire is known only to heaven. All earthly evidence so indicates, but cannot prove it.

By the end of one hour, the survivors from the main body have crawled across the sand to the foot of the bluff, where there is a narrow sanctuary of defiladed space. There they lie all day, clean spent, unarmed, too shocked to feel hunger, incapable even of talking to one another. No one happens by to succor them, ask what has happened, provide water, or offer unwanted pity. D Day at Omaha afforded no time or space for such missions. Every landing company was overloaded by its own assault problems.

By the end of one hour and forty-five minutes, six survivors from the boat section on the extreme right shake loose and work their way to a shelf a few rods up the cliff. Four fall exhausted from the short climb and advance no farther. They stay there through the day, seeing no one else from the company. The other two, Privates Jake Shefer and Thomas Lovejoy, join a group from the Second Ranger Battalion, which is assaulting Pointe du Hoc to the right of the company sector, and fight on with the Rangers through the day. Two men. Two rifles. Except for these, Able Company's contribution to the D Day fire fight is a cipher.

[Oligo 1]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (denoir @ Aug. 01 2002,11:21)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">I didn't get that impression at all. On the contrary from BoB I got the impression that the Allied soldiers dropped like flies.<span id='postcolor'>

There are a lot of allied casualties, but the germanskis are really buying it. It's nowhere near 1:1 kill ratio.

[Antichrist 0]

In real life first two waves got almost completely wiped out only the third wave managed to break german lines.

[Oligo 1]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (denoir @ Aug. 01 2002,11:21)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">As for unsuccessful missions look at the episode "Replacements" that is about Operation Market Garden, that was a failure.<span id='postcolor'>

Yes, this episode especially pissed me off. The operation was a failure and they managed to skim around the issue and portray it as a some kind of half-victory. In the end, they of course retreat nicely to their trucks and drive away safely. There was no footage from "the highway of hell", laden with 88 paks, where the advancing XXX corps got stalled. And I thought those paratroopers were riding with the tanks of XXX?

[Guest]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Oligo @ Aug. 01 2002,12:06)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"></span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (denoir @ Aug. 01 2002,11:21)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">As for unsuccessful missions look at the episode "Replacements" that is about Operation Market Garden, that was a failure.<span id='postcolor'>

Yes, this episode especially pissed me off. The operation was a failure and they managed to skim around the issue and portray it as a some kind of half-victory. In the end, they of course retreat nicely to their trucks and drive away safely. There was no footage from "the highway of hell", laden with 88 paks, where the advancing XXX corps got stalled. And I thought those paratroopers were riding with the tanks of XXX?<span id='postcolor'>

That is the picture a soldiers gets. You get the order to advance, it's not working. You get the order to retreat and you get into a truck that drives you to another location.

I don't know any specific cirsumstances of Operation Market Garden, but I got the clear picture from BoB that they lost.

Another thing I like about the series is that it shows some realities of war that are usually carefully avoided in other movies. For instance Allied soldiers executing defensless German prisoners.

I think that BoB is up till now by far the best American war movie made. Unlike SPR it doesn't try to impose a moral philosophy or view on you. Is it biased? Sure. It is after a book by Ambrose who gatherd the information from American veterans. Are they biased? Hell yes! And the movie is from their perspective.

[Oligo 1]

The new war movies made by Hollywood have all sucked. The best U.S. war movies are the previous generation Vietnam movies like Apocalypse Now, Platoon, Tour of Duty and so on. In these movies yanks take the approppriate amount of casualties (VC and NVA take way more as they did) and everything is totally fucked up like it is in war.

[Guest]

Ok, I should revise my statement. Band of Brothers is the best American ww2 movie.

There are better war movies, like Full Metal Jacket, or Apocalypse Now....

[Oligo 1]

Ahh, we seem to have reached a consensus. First time I've seen it happen on these forums.

[Ruud van Nistelrooy 0]

Its often the case it seems that modern hollywood directors will make these kind of series/films. Wat back when the best war movies such as platoon were made, they couldn't do an american glory movie simply because the americans got raped in vietnam, and to make a glory movie about it would be fairly disrespectful, plus the american public wouldn't neccessarily like it. In modern day though, the introduction of better special effects and sounds means that WW2 movies could be fantastic action films, and they are. But since yanks all believe they single handedly won the war, directors can safely make american WW2 glory movies. America didn't get raped in WW2, and no doubt history lessons in america consist of the brave americans fighting the evil germans and the hobo like russians while at the same having to put up with the brits and every other allie accidentally dropping bombs on them. God forbid with all this ''knowledge'' americans wouldn't accept seeing americans getting raped in WW2, unless of course its a heroic rape which will make the audience sympathetic to all those americans casualties in WW2.

I mean, lets face it, american directors wouldn't make money off a film that shows germans being the equivelent of americans. I mean, how many americans would claim to have had grandfathers in WW2, to see the Germans in any kind of situation where it shows that they actually suffered more than the americans would be dishonoring all the intense fighting and effort they put into WW2.

[ran 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Ruud van Nistelrooy @ Aug. 01 2002,13:10)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">heroic rape<span id='postcolor'>

LOL

why not using the word defeat ?

[Oligo 1]

Ruud, I agree completely with you. The reasons for this heroic presentation of WWII is probably commercial. I wish the germans would make a movie of the western front from their point of view. I think enough time has passed for them to actually do that.

[LauryThorn 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"> I wish the germans would make a movie of the western front from their point of view.<span id='postcolor'>

Or even better than that: If some nations, like Germany, UK and US would

combine their forces and points of view to make a non-biased war movie.

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"> I think enough time has passed for them to actually do that.<span id='postcolor'>

I think so too, but that topic could still be kind of 'flammable' there, like

the civil war in Finland (at 1918) is still dividing some people here.

[Oligo 1]

It might be flammable all right, but if I was german I'd be really pissed how my grandparents who fought in WWII are all labelled as nazis and slaughtered like dumb animals in new U.S. war flicks without any respect granted for the bravery and skill of the german soldier. A little payback would be in order, I think.

I guess I'd want to see Das Boot on land.

[Ruud van Nistelrooy 0]

i think unbiased war movies have proven to be the best anyway (Stalingrad, Platoon etc...). SPR and BoB have great action, maybe the combination of both could become the ultimate war movie.

I think a war movie would benefit greatly from getting rid of naff cliches. I mean, i always think how realistic it would be if the main character, who has developed throughout the movie, who the audience like etc... is just walking along when his squad gets ambushed, and immediatly he gets shot in face and dies instantly - no heroic speeches, no god bless america, no soppy shite, just shock, and i'd assume with all the fighting, soldiers would experiance shock a lot more than sadness (of course, in times when sopldiers have a break you can do the whole sadness thing). I think that'd be a lot more effective than what spr did with hanks for example, because its more realistic and a brilliant way to convey the sense of war - you make friends, often they become like your family, and then one day, they get shot and die instantly...

I think if someone could combine and make a modern film about the russian front it'd kick ass. Brutal fighting (Urban fighting, massive tank battles, civlian brutality) and the insignificance of human life, all on a massive scale with many main characters from both sides it'd be amazing, especially with the special effects of spr for example. I think the russian front was probably thebest example of how terrible war is, so what could be a more effective setting for a WW2 war movie? It could potentially be an epic, and would probably rake in millions if done right

[R. Gerschwarzenge 0]

If you want to see some good war movies then you should try Russian movies. I've seen a few of those and most of them were really good and they are far from the Hollywood bullshit. Too bad I can't remember any particular names though.

[Oligo 1]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (R. Gerschwarzenge @ Aug. 01 2002,13:46)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">If you want to see some good war movies then you should try Russian movies. I've seen a few of those and most of them were really good and they are far from the Hollywood bullshit. Too bad I can't remember any particular names though.<span id='postcolor'>

I've seen a bunch of russian war movies and they're really good. No bullshit in them. It seems that after being liberated from commie oppression, the russian film makers have no reason to try to depict the russian as the "good guys". They concentrate more on the fact that war is crap and that both sides of the conflict get stained with atrocities and madness.

[R. Gerschwarzenge 0]

Can you remember any names of good Russian war movies?

[Antichrist 0]

Since we are talking about war movies.... is Windtalkers any good? Cause I was thinking going to see it tomorrow.

[Guest]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Ruud van Nistelrooy @ Aug. 01 2002,13:45)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">I think if someone could combine and make a modern film about the russian front it'd kick ass. Brutal fighting (Urban fighting, massive tank battles, civlian brutality) and the insignificance of human life, all on a massive scale with many main characters from both sides it'd be amazing, especially with the special effects of spr for example. I think the russian front was probably thebest example of how terrible war is, so what could be a more effective setting for a WW2 war movie? It could potentially be an epic, and would probably rake in millions if done right<span id='postcolor'>

Enemy at the gates is a modern movie and about the russian front. Unfortunately it was in my opinion very weak and not very convincing.