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skooma512 posted:The POW camp liberation scene was pretty dumb. First, typically the guards would either just walk away once it was clear the Allied army was coming, surrender to the army, or even surrender to their own prisoners. The writing was on the wall in April 1945 and the attitude was much closer to the guys in Holland standing around at their flak guns doing nothing. Secondly, they weren't doing mass executions of western allied POWs which thirdly, they got into the machine gun tower and then didn't kill the guy there? Yeah in real life the Germans just surrendered the camp and the Allied prisoners didn't have to storm MG towers with rocks because the war was over and neither side really wanted to die for nothing in that instance.
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Mar 19, 2024 11:10
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Orange Devil posted:It was probably the worst scene in the entire show. The only thing that made sense about it was an idiot American (I repeat myself) director wanting their heroic flag raising scene set to bombastic music after kicking rear end and snarling while chewing cigars or whatever dumb bullshit morons think is cool. The show is dumb, for sure. But, it wasn't really attempting to show any sort of major famous engagement with the Red Army, it appeared they were mopping up after a victorious battle and simply murdering wounded and surrendered men? That pretty much is a bunch of walking forward and just shooting people. It looks like Bomber Boy missed the big show and landed at the tail end of a fight. I don't think it did the Red Army dirty at all - they were pretty war-crimey in real life, and when Bomber Boy was trucking around with them they seemed polite and professional and not a bunch of ragged conscripts shouting commie propaganda. The dumbest thing about it was that they just happened to stop in front of the death camp and the guy asked to stretch his legs and not a single person there told him "Uhh, maybe don't walk into the camp full of 10,000 corpses for your little stroll".
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Mar 19, 2024 12:44
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All in all, I did generally enjoy watching the show, but I wonder how much of that was based on thinking the bomber sequences were cool and then we never really got to see them again. If I could remake this show again, in my own fantasy world, I would have had the show set entirely in the bombers. They could have still saved a lot of money by having a lot of dialogue scenes set in the interior of the plane without needing to show 500 CGI planes fighting outside the window. It could have been intense, like Das Boot. They could open each episode with maybe a briefing, or even just a map, date, and red line on the map showing the target or something and then zoom all the way into the bombers. Each episode could be a different operation, with the first one involving training missions. The final one could still be the food-drop to Holland where we get the denouement. In between we can have a lot of actual combat missions showing how they did indeed become the Masters of the Air, instead of having it happen off-screen in between episodes where "The Luftwaffe is kicking our rear end" and "The Luftwaffe doesn't exist" occurred on the way to Poochie's home planet. Each episode could even focus on a different crew with some different characters and highlight some of the less glamorous jobs, or different difficulties they face in different weather or target sites or with inexperienced crews or 1000 other things. Bombers are interesting. Maybe put bombers in your show about bombers. I have the same problem with the Das Boot TV show. It is ostensibly about submarine warfare but they quickly lose the loving thread of that and turn it into yet another espionage show where we now have Nazi spies learning about racism by dating black girls in New York City and all sorts of other nonsense that has little to do with the naval war. I gave up on the show when early in the season the boat gets blown up and it looks like it is just going to be about the survivors doing cloak and dagger poo poo instead of launching torpedoes and dodging depth charges. I have little hope in a future show from the same production company. Sure, maybe they'll make a show about the Eastern Front, and then waste half the screen time covering some American war correspondent trying to gently caress Russian bar girls in Moscow.
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Mar 19, 2024 12:51
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joepinetree posted:So the question remains: February of 1945 , which was the most effective and organized fighting force in ww2? The arguments are always a little pointless because the Allies depended on each other in so many ways. But, they are interesting to think about. On the ground, probably the Soviets, but wars aren't just fought on the ground. It's fun to talk about, but there really is no objective way to measure which army is 'better' even among opponents because everyone had other commitments or assistance from allies and so on. They were interdependent. The Soviets were very strong in 1945, but they were really feeling the loving hurt after taking astronomical losses and having their country devastated. They would not be able to replace manpower so effectively in a hot war, while the Americans barely suffered in comparison and had a lot more loyal allies than the Soviets with their forced puppet-states. The Soviet war machine was dependent on Western Allied supplies, while the Western Allies did not need stuff from the Soviets. The US shipped the Soviets over 400,000 trucks and jeeps. This is more than the Germans even produced in the entire war for themselves. Half the Soviet aviation fuel came from the US. So, right away, without that, we just cancel half the Red Air sorties. The Soviets made their big endgame advances with American supplies while being only intermittently harried by a diminished Luftwaffe that was largely deployed/destroyed against the West. In some sort of fantasy slap fight all this supply instantly stops. Soviets could probably push back Western Allied ground forces to an extent, then run out of steam completely as their supply lines get absolutely massacred by the Allies. The Soviet Navy maybe can hide in their ports but any serious fleet is gonna be scrap metal if it tries to do anything. In a serious WW3 apocalypse situation the Germans, millions of trained troops whom are sitting in Allied PoW camps, are gonna get armed up and sent against the Soviets, and the USSR is gonna be dealing with a massive partisan problem as all of their conquered territory resistance groups get supplied by the Allies, and their lovely puppet government 'allies' look for an exit route because Romania does not want to lose WW2 twice. It all becomes moot when Moscow goes radioactive. Mr. Grapes! fucked around with this message at 09:38 on Mar 20, 2024 |
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Mar 20, 2024 09:28
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joepinetree posted:But the statement that started this whole thing wasn't "who'd win in a war," "who'd win ww3" or "how important was lend lease." A goon complained that they made Rosie land in the middle of rando russian soldiers walking around and shooting people because the red army was actually a massive and efficient force at that point, certainly the most efficient one. And said goon is right. Is that goon right? This is Masters of the Air. The sole image we saw of the American army was a bunch of tanks throwing high explosives at a camp full of their own guys. What, exactly, could Rosie have seen that shows the fearsome strategy of the Red Army? He is a single guy who landed in a single field and saw some guys running around shooting. He was shell shocked and exhausted and basically collapsed in a shell hole until some troops stumbled on him. Even in the largest battles of the war the actual experience of most participants is limited to a bunch of smoky confusion in their limited visual and auditory range. Was he supposed to walk into a tent where Zhukov is planning a major offensive on a big map and nod knowingly at the masterful Stavka strategy? Were we supposed to get treated to an image of hundreds of tanks packed with infantry riders thundering across a field while Katyushas fire overhead? The show didn't bother spending the cash to make air battles, they aren't going to blow their wad on a high budget recreation of the battle of Seelow Heights. I think the show is dumb too but this is such an odd complaint. Why didn't the budget-struggling bomber TV show give us a massively expensive scene to illustrate the prowess of the Red Army? Hmm, I wonder. Must be American jingoism! I think showing yet more stuff not related to the bombers is a mistake, but by Episode 9 I was so checked out of this show that I would have welcomed some gratuitous tank battles so in a way I agree with you there. Also the idea that the Red Army was the most 'efficient' is a laughable one, at least for the way I define efficiency. To me efficient doesn't involve wasting your own human lives so casually as to lose 350,000 men taking Berlin, but maybe that's just me. I would absolutely adore some big budget Eastern Front show but I feel like it is never gonna happen. Russian movies tend to be of even more unrealistic jingoistic Ra-ra-ra flavor than even Hollywood stuff. The burning Soviet soldiers charging German lines in their Stalingrad movie is kind of the perfectly dumb Russian counterpoint to the stupid scene from Enemy at the Gates, as a goon showed with posted clips earlier. So this is productive: If anyone is looking for some decent Eastern Front action without too much Hollywood dumbassery, the Finnish movie Unknown Soldier from a few years back is worth a look: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unknown_Soldier_(2017_film) Mr. Grapes! fucked around with this message at 10:18 on Mar 21, 2024 |
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Mar 21, 2024 09:58
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Jerusalem posted:Oh yeah, that dude taking shots at the probably fatally wounded but still living German soldier was incredibly hosed up. I have no idea how true the incident in Band of Brothers is, but it could very well have happened. A large number of "German" troops were not quite German. It is estimated that something like 1.4 million Soviet citizens alone served with the Germans. Add to that every other occupied country plus prisoners and various militias and racist dirtbag local thugs from every country and there is a very good chance that the Nazi troops you're facing are not Germans. Ostruppen were very prevalent in Normandy because they were often given lesser jobs like garrison duty in sectors that were otherwise going to be considered quiet. If anything, by the later parts of the war, the SS was even less German by percentage than the Heer (regular German army). This was because of manpower pissing-match issues at the top where it became difficult for the SS to get priority in access to German men, but they were allowed to recruit outside Germany. A lot of the 'elite' reputation of the SS is because of the low-numbered (1st SS, 2nd SS) divisions that were lavishly equipped with top gear and enthusiastic volunteers from Germany or hard core right wing guys from Netherlands, Denmark, etc, while the later SS units would be ill equipped conscripts from conquered territory. Despite the reputation of the 'elite' units, the majority of SS units in the late half were foreign conscripts who didn't always want to be there. Most of them were used for warcrimey stuff or antipartisan warfare or garrison duty (often all three at once!) but fared poorly against well equipped regular Allied troops. My grandfather was in the German army and he said eventually about 1/2 of his anti-tank unit were actually 'Russians' but more accurately people from all over the Soviet Union. The guys who looked after the horses were Mongolian dudes they nicknamed Genghis and Kublai Khan. Mr. Grapes! fucked around with this message at 06:15 on Mar 25, 2024 |
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Mar 25, 2024 06:09
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^ Right. The scene in the movie Fury is laughable because Brad Pitt and his friends all decide to stay and defend their stricken Sherman because the old girl has been with them so long. No loving way it was. Even without the pedantic nerdery of knowing their specific Sherman was a later war model, and that the US just abandoned its tanks in Africa rather than bring them to Europe, there's no way tank crews were getting that romantic about a vehicle that they can ditch and just get a replacement, especially when they know the war is almost over. Veteran tank crews were considered far more valuable than their actual tank, which was gonna break down or get smashed up pretty quickly in an active campaign.
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Mar 26, 2024 13:12
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McNally posted:I'm pretty sure they explicitly say "we're the only thing between the division's rear lines and a battalion of SS so we need to stay and fight." My bad, I haven't seen it since it was new. I seem to remember them mentioning having been in the same tank through all their campaigns. Edit: I did just watch the clip on Youtube and Brad Pitt's boys react with shock and disbelief that he wants to stay and play defense. Brad Pitt thumps the tank and says "It's home", which is where it seemed to me that he was staying because of sentimental attachment to the tank. This is an odd thing to say about a tank that you only received a few months before, and has not in fact actually been 'home' for years as it seems to imply in the movie. Presumably they have left multiple tanks behind before if they have been serving together since Operation Torch. They are in a late war Easy 8. In any case, still stupid: If you're worried about your rear echelon troops getting surprise attacked by a battalion of enemies then the proper response is to go warn them instead of relying on Plot Armor to assume you'd stand a chance of beating that many guys. The proper US Army solution to a bunch of Nazis marching in column in broad daylight in April 1945 is to plaster them with fire support from far away. No one would ever assume that these guys follow the stormtrooper school of accuracy. Mr. Grapes! fucked around with this message at 11:09 on Mar 27, 2024 |
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Mar 27, 2024 10:41
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M_Gargantua posted:Did you even watch that movie? Did you forget to finish your post? If I'm wrong about the historical stuff I would actually prefer to be corrected rather than unintentionally spread misinformation.
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Mar 27, 2024 11:10
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Vampire Panties posted:Their radio was destroyed, and none of them had any illusions about surviving. They just wanted to slow the advance. Yeah, a handful of guys on foot running for their lives are gonna be faster. Even with a busted radio, they just have to run into any sort of friendlies who have a radio or motor vehicle to sort things out. Yes, I know it is fun to watch explosions and stuff so we get the scene we got. I can still enjoy some classic Nazis getting blown up. But, previously the movie actually seemed a bit more intelligent than that so it was more of a disappointment that it had to end that way because of Hollywood convention that all patriotic war movies must conclude with the heroes outnumbered and outgunned against overwhelming odds. Previously in the movie I thought it was trying to somewhat subvert all that stuff and show Fury's crew as cynical survivalists who didn't really care about being True American Heroes and would in fact loot, rape, murder prisoners, torture people, and shoot children in their quest to survive this maniacal war. Then at the end they just commit suicide.
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Mar 27, 2024 11:17
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