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Posted: 10/21/2001 5:47:56 PM EDT
1) Cross Of Iron, very accurate, plus you have to love a movie that uses real T-34's and Soviet SMG's.
2) Go Tell The Spartans, great film about early 1960's Vietnam
3) Das Boot, in a 300 seat theatre, I got claustraphobic.

It also seem to me that films have gotten more accurate the later they were made.
My only regret is no John Milius movie made the list.
Link Posted: 10/21/2001 5:52:44 PM EDT
[#1]
Recently
Ride With The Devil

Will think of more
Link Posted: 10/21/2001 5:57:50 PM EDT
[#2]
12 O'clock high.  When it came out in 1947 or so, one of the famous WW2 airforce generals said he would point out the inaccuracies - he could not find any.

The one inaccuracy I heard of was that in the film you could hear German fighters buzz nearby - yeah, right!

That was the time to make a movie about WW2.  Just after the war before memories began to dull and collective amnesia sets in.  I've read stuff in those postwar books that never seemed to find its way in modern history books.

Regarding The Iron Cross, I recall a German vet was asked about the impossibly high Russian body count.  He replied the movie was understating the Russian casualties!

Link Posted: 10/21/2001 6:14:01 PM EDT
[#3]
Any idea where I can pick up a copy of Cross of Iron- been a long time since I have seen that.
Thanks
Link Posted: 10/21/2001 6:26:48 PM EDT
[#4]
Quoted:
12 O'clock high.  When it came out in 1947 or so, one of the famous WW2 airforce generals said he would point out the inaccuracies - he could not find any.

The one inaccuracy I heard of was that in the film you could hear German fighters buzz nearby - yeah, right!

That was the time to make a movie about WW2.  Just after the war before memories began to dull and collective amnesia sets in.  I've read stuff in those postwar books that never seemed to find its way in modern history books.

Regarding The Iron Cross, I recall a German vet was asked about the impossibly high Russian body count.  He replied the movie was understating the Russian casualties!

View Quote


12 O'clock high.  My all time favorite.
Link Posted: 10/21/2001 6:29:04 PM EDT
[#5]
Cross of Iron had one big flaw.  All the Germans speak English!!!!!!
The same guy who made Das Boot made a movie about and Engineer company in Stailingrad.  It was pretty good
Cheers
John
Link Posted: 10/21/2001 6:34:36 PM EDT
[#6]
Enemy at the Gates. Liked it.
Link Posted: 10/21/2001 11:10:09 PM EDT
[#7]
Dittos on [b]Ride with the Devil, Cross of Iron,[/b] and [b]Das Boot[/b].

I very much liked the Finnish war movie [b]The Winter War[/b].
Link Posted: 10/22/2001 7:15:54 PM EDT
[#8]
About German vets speaking about incredibly high Russian body counts- remember this is the Great Legend ex-Wehrmacht generals made up after WW2 to make themselves look less pathetic. (Thanks to them every woman in eastern Germany became a rape victim in 1945)Only in 1941 was the kill ratio incredibly high German vs. Soviet. By the end of the war the ratio was equal and the Red Army had far surpassed the Germans in "Blitzkrieg" techniques. They had an actual mechanized army (thanks in part to us) unlike the Germans who used 800,000 to 1,000,000 million horses for transport. The vaunted Wehrmacht was basically a nineteenth century army in many ways. The Soviets kicked their Heinie asses and saved us a lot of casualties by bearing the brunt of the ground war. 80% of German casualties occurred on the Eastern Front.
Link Posted: 10/22/2001 7:25:24 PM EDT
[#9]
As far as war movies go, one of the best and grimmest is "Come and See" a Byelorussian film made in the 80's. It is about partisan warfare in White Russia during WW2. I think actual artillery was used in some scenes and live bullets too. This film also shows how the Germans (despite their collective amnesia)actually got their high body counts which was by killing civilians during anti-partisan warfare.
Link Posted: 10/22/2001 7:37:32 PM EDT
[#10]
I think I disagree with unclejoe, even in 1945 before the Battle of Berlin, the Soviets still took tremendous casualties in their mad rush to get to Berlin before Ike & Monty.

I think the most accurate part of "Enemy At The Gate" was the massed human attacks, the Soviets hoping the Germans would run out of ammo before they ran out of men.
In retreats, the Germans took incredible losses, but often when they stood and fought they took out large quantities of presonnel and vehicles.
Link Posted: 10/22/2001 9:48:56 PM EDT
[#11]
Quoted:
About German vets speaking about incredibly high Russian body counts- remember this is the Great Legend ex-Wehrmacht generals made up after WW2 to make themselves look less pathetic. (Thanks to them every woman in eastern Germany became a rape victim in 1945)Only in 1941 was the kill ratio incredibly high German vs. Soviet. By the end of the war the ratio was equal and the Red Army had far surpassed the Germans in "Blitzkrieg" techniques. They had an actual mechanized army (thanks in part to us) unlike the Germans who used 800,000 to 1,000,000 million horses for transport. The vaunted Wehrmacht was basically a nineteenth century army in many ways. The Soviets kicked their Heinie asses and saved us a lot of casualties by bearing the brunt of the ground war. 80% of German casualties occurred on the Eastern Front.
View Quote


In fact, the Germans maintained a high kill ratio against the Russians up to the very end. This despite the Soviet advantage in manpower and materal. The simple fact is that the Russians have never been up to advanced combat tactics for various reasons, including their culture and Communist policy, which prevented them from developing the decentralized command and control that made the Germans so effective.

It is true that the Germans relied upon horse transport up to the very end, while the Soviets were fully motorized by the end of the war. This is entirely due to the US production capacity, and despite this advantage the Germans still killed off Russians by the truck load.
Link Posted: 10/23/2001 9:45:02 AM EDT
[#12]
" Cross of Iron" is a get movie, who cares if they speak english, it was made for an english speaking audience.
" Das Boot" is in German,,,,,,,you were reading subtitles.
 Most american movies have a little to much heroics and generalized lies.  Example: the scope swapping left handed sniper who shoots the German thru the eye ,in Private Ryan
2. The Russian who shoots the german thru the eye in "enemy at the Gates"
3. The marine who shoots the VC sniper thru the eye in the book "Marine Sniper"
4. The sniper played by Tom Berenger who once again shoots the drug lords mercenary sniper in the eye in the movie "Sniper"
Link Posted: 10/23/2001 10:09:22 AM EDT
[#13]
Quoted:
" Cross of Iron" is a get movie, who cares if they speak english, it was made for an english speaking audience.
" Das Boot" is in German,,,,,,,you were reading subtitles.
 Most american movies have a little to much heroics and generalized lies.  Example: the scope swapping left handed sniper who shoots the German thru the eye ,in Private Ryan
2. The Russian who shoots the german thru the eye in "enemy at the Gates"
3. The marine who shoots the VC sniper thru the eye in the book "Marine Sniper"
4. The sniper played by Tom Berenger who once again shoots the drug lords mercenary sniper in the eye in the movie "Sniper"
View Quote


lonegunman!

Gunnery Sergeant Carlos Hathcock II infact DID shoot a VC sniper thru the scope of the Mosin Nagant rifle, the Hollywood just used his feat in the movie "Sniper".
Link Posted: 10/23/2001 11:28:04 AM EDT
[#14]
Hi,

The other film from the "Das Boot" director about the fate of a german unit in Stalingrad was called "Stalingrad" and is way, way better than the pos "Enemy at the Gates". What a deception that was, while in potential it could have been a monumental film!

"Private Ryan" was good imho but I liked "The Thin Red Line" better (...the duality of man blah, blah).

Anyone seen the latest release of "Apocalypse Now" redux already? I wonder how that is (although not very accurate, still a good flick).

One film I saw recently again and is still one of the best warmovies in my book is "The Beast" about a Soviet tankcrew in Afghanistan.

Cheers,
RG.nl
Link Posted: 10/23/2001 11:43:05 AM EDT
[#15]
Lonegunman: Enemy at the Gate is based on true life. The commie did shoot the Kraut through the scope. Read it in the book. Granted the victors write the history. Saw an interview on the history channel with the famous sniper from Vietnam, Carlos ?. He stated he did the same thing to a VC sniper sent to get him.
Link Posted: 10/23/2001 1:30:24 PM EDT
[#16]
Mr Dale007,

I don't know which book you refer to but the whole film is based on the duel between Zaitsev and Koenig, but there is no evidence of such a duel in historic archives, neither german or russian sources have any documentation on it.

I suggest the recent book "Stalingrad" by Antony Beevor.

Cheers,
RG.nl

Link Posted: 10/23/2001 5:15:59 PM EDT
[#17]
"Enemy at the Gates" was very inaccurate on many levels but the scenes showing the NKVD setting up machine guns to "encourage" soldiers did happen occasionally. Remember Stalingrad was relatively early in the Red Army's resurgence; there was no question of losing it for the Soviets. The Soviets sacrificed a whole division in a couple of days (Rodimstrev's 13th Guards) to stop the Germans gaining the last 10% of the city. Later in the war the casualties of Germans and Soviets were much more equal, and often it was the Germans who paid the butcher's bill as at Cherkassy in 1944 when 20,000 Germans were slaughtered in a day. There is a lot of new material on the Red Army in WW2 which contradicts the old Cold War version where it was said Generals Winter, Populus and Hitler won the war for the Russians. In fact the Red Army at the end of WW2 was the best in the world at tank warfare and encirclement operations (in other words- Blitzkrieg) As far as the Battle of Berlin- the Western Allies were never realistically going to fight  battle like Berlin- they had an easy time in Germany because most of the Wehrmacht and Waffen SS was in the East fighting what was for them the real war- comparing Monty's and Ike's little cakewalk in the west with the Eastern Front is totally absurd- Ike acknowledged the Russian's right to win Berlin.
Link Posted: 10/23/2001 5:33:40 PM EDT
[#18]
"When Titans Clashed"- the best book on the German-Russian war (written by a retired US Army colonel who teaches at the University of Kansas) gives 458,000 as the number of Germans killed during the Berlin Operation to a figure of 361,000 Soviets killed- pretty even numbers (although the Soviets did have a significant numerical advantage). Both figures are larger than the total US killed in the whole war- the Eastern Front was a whole different league.
Link Posted: 10/23/2001 5:39:56 PM EDT
[#19]
Have to agree with Beast and Stalingrad. What about Catch-22?
Link Posted: 10/23/2001 6:08:13 PM EDT
[#20]
Quoted:
About German vets speaking about incredibly high Russian body counts- remember this is the Great Legend ex-Wehrmacht generals made up after WW2 to make themselves look less pathetic. (Thanks to them every woman in eastern Germany became a rape victim in 1945)Only in 1941 was the kill ratio incredibly high German vs. Soviet. By the end of the war the ratio was equal and the Red Army had far surpassed the Germans in "Blitzkrieg" techniques. They had an actual mechanized army (thanks in part to us) unlike the Germans who used 800,000 to 1,000,000 million horses for transport. The vaunted Wehrmacht was basically a nineteenth century army in many ways. The Soviets kicked their Heinie asses and saved us a lot of casualties by bearing the brunt of the ground war. 80% of German casualties occurred on the Eastern Front.
View Quote


In the book "Stalingrad" by Antony Beevor, he mentioned that the German occupation was bad, it was not as bad as the Soviets made it out to be.  Let's not forget that Stalin wasn't exactly nice to his own people and was starving people in the Ukraine to death before the German invasion.   In fact, in one instance in the book, a soviet soldier who had received a letter from his sister in the occupied Ukraine was shot on the spot for telling others that the Germans were not doing what they were being told.  The Soviet propaganda machine created monsters out of the soldiers.  They were told it was okay for the rape and pilage as they did.  I'm not saying what the Germans did wasn't as bad at times, but it was nowhere near the Soviets made it out to be, and what the Soviets did to the German people.

Facism, or Communism, I would not like to be prisoner of either one.  But there is still no excuse for the Soviet treatment of not only their own people, but the civilians of Germany.

Link Posted: 10/24/2001 3:09:46 PM EDT
[#21]
I read the Beevor book and don't recall him downplaying the German occupation. In fact the German plans for the USSR called for the extermination of 30 million Soviets (they succeeded in killing around 10 million Soviet civilians) and this was written down in war plans, unlike plans for the Holocaust. How bad is bad to you? As far as the 1930's famine in the Ukraine- this is a Cold War legend made up by a Brit propagandist named Robert Conquest. In reality there were famines throughout the Soviet Union because of various factors (including collectivization)but there was no ad hoc state-generated famine in the Ukraine. In my humble opinion the Germans got exactly what they deserved at the end of the war- a small taste of what they had so freely dished out to those in the occupied East. Most Soviets supported the Stalin regime and willingly fought for their country- there was no moral parity between communism and fascism for them- German fascism was FAR worse.
Link Posted: 10/24/2001 11:03:43 PM EDT
[#22]
Quoted:
As far as the 1930's famine in the Ukraine- this is a Cold War legend made up by a Brit propagandist named Robert Conquest.
View Quote


Sure thing comrade, Conquest made it all up in his 1986 book.

Link Posted: 10/26/2001 6:29:08 AM EDT
[#23]
I read the Beevor book and don't recall him downplaying the German occupation. In fact the German plans for the USSR called for the extermination of 30 million Soviets (they succeeded in killing around 10 million Soviet civilians) and this was written down in war plans, unlike plans for the Holocaust. How bad is bad to you? As far as the 1930's famine in the Ukraine- this is a Cold War legend made up by a Brit propagandist named Robert Conquest. In reality there were famines throughout the Soviet Union because of various factors (including collectivization)but there was no ad hoc state-generated famine in the Ukraine. In my humble opinion the Germans got exactly what they deserved at the end of the war- a small taste of what they had so freely dished out to those in the occupied East. Most Soviets supported the Stalin regime and willingly fought for their country- there was no moral parity between communism and fascism for them- German fascism was FAR worse.
View Quote



Amen!
Link Posted: 10/26/2001 7:55:26 AM EDT
[#24]
Quoted:
Quoted:
As far as the 1930's famine in the Ukraine- this is a Cold War legend made up by a Brit propagandist named Robert Conquest.
View Quote


Sure thing comrade, Conquest made it all up in his 1986 book.

View Quote

Who are we to argue with the "Progressive Labor Party"? [rolleyes]

[url]http://www.plp.org/[/url]

[url]http://www.plp.org/cd_sup/ukfam1.html[/url]
Link Posted: 10/26/2001 1:23:44 PM EDT
[#25]
Link Posted: 10/31/2001 10:38:39 PM EDT
[#26]
Noone remembers the movie "Zulu?" Dig through the tapes, fellas, damn.........
Link Posted: 11/1/2001 3:16:11 PM EDT
[#27]
Hands down Stalingrad...the sewer scenes were great!
Link Posted: 11/1/2001 3:30:56 PM EDT
[#28]
Without a doubt Kon Ichikowa's (SP?) 'The Harp of Burma' (Japanese, with English subtitle's)it dropped me to my knees...next favorite is 'The Best days of our lives', made in 1947, I believe...about the hardest part of war, coming home....  
         'De Frenchman'
       RVN, Class of 66-68
Link Posted: 11/1/2001 5:28:30 PM EDT
[#29]
Another fav of mine is "The Longest Day" even if in black & white.

The Great Escape was good too.
Link Posted: 11/7/2001 8:25:34 AM EDT
[#30]
few not mentioned yet

A real oldie, "Alls Quiet on the Western Front", the original, not the jon-boy remake.

Battle of Britian

Gallipoli




Link Posted: 11/15/2001 6:33:36 PM EDT
[#31]
Quoted:
Noone remembers the movie "Zulu?" Dig through the tapes, fellas, damn.........
View Quote


Yeah, Zulu rules. It's on AMC, and ENCORE sometimes.
Link Posted: 11/17/2001 9:56:43 PM EDT
[#32]
I second "all's quiet" the battle sceanes appeared accurate to me.

A big second on Zulu,

Also the bridge to far, love it when it first came out, still love it.

TMA
Link Posted: 11/19/2001 2:54:43 PM EDT
[#33]
I forget who mentioned "The Thin Red Line".

I have to say that the depiction of GuadalCanal was way off base.

Check out any book/literature about the island. It was not pretty with pristine grasses blowing in the breeze. IT WAS HELLHOLE>

Sorry.

I wonder when someone is going to make a decent film about the Pacific theatre. My father was wounded at Manila, got 4 bronze stars from Leyte, Lingyan gulf, Manila, Luzon, Corregidor and the Japan victory medal among many others...and it seems that the European theatre is the Spielberg/Hanks group's ONLY war theatre...

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