War movies

[Dr Strangelove]

Was I the only one who noticed the paralell between Braveheart and Alexander ? The Macedonians seemed to have been deliberately portrayed as having Scottish accents. I must have missed the day in Antiquities studies when the Macedonians were identified as the Scots of the ancient Mediterranean world. Also, I could have sworn that Collin Ferret boasted to his troops before the big battle: "Ochhh. The Persians may take our wives, but they canna take our boyfriends!"

[Colonâ„¢]

To whom it concerns, here are a couple of articles related to Band Of Brothers, including lists of inaccuracies. I'd recommend reading them.

About the 1st episode: http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1536518

About the 2nd episode: http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1537061

About Captain Sobel: http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1535308

[Pekka]

edit: WOW!

That was completely unnecessary LONG rant about my own service

[Colonâ„¢]

Hey, I wouldn't have mind reading that.

[Arrian]

Originally posted by Colonâ„¢
To whom it concerns, here are a couple of articles related to Band Of Brothers, including lists of inaccuracies. I'd recommend reading them.

About the 1st episode: http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1536518

About the 2nd episode: http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1537061

About Captain Sobel: http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1535308

Good reading (I'm partway through the second one). The inaccuracies (at least so far) are pretty minor, all things considered.

-Arrian

[Nickiow]

Originally posted by Chemical Ollie
Most war movies rather show things that look cool on screen than depict realistic tactics and methods.

Some WW2 clitches that you only see in movies:

- When you fire a submachine gun, you raise it to your shoulder and aim, at least in distances larger than 10 meters to target. You don't fire from the hip, like in the movies.

- Slitting someone's throath is not a quick and silent way to kill him. He will struggle in desperate agony and make horrible gurgling sounds until his brain runs out of oxygen about a minute later. So sneaking up on sentries with a bayonet, as in the movies, is not a good idea if you want to stay undetected.

- When you mow down a bunch of gunfodder, not all of them will die instantly. Quite many will lay wounded and scream, and some might even fire at you. But in the movies, only the main characters die slowly.

Just a few examples. This list could go on forever...

Nice list...disagree though...


Audie Murphy won a gallantry decoration by firing from hip a MG and killing scores of Germans, so did Roger Young in the Pacific, rubbing out two MG nest by firing from the hip. Sometimes what works in practice is not what your trained to do as a matter of course.

Throat cutting is done by having the head pushed down intop the chest to relase the muscles and push the main artery forward, when cut, the only noise is a a faint hissing of escapping air, no different from a chest wound to the lungs, so while the victim does thrash, which he would do in any death wound, he produces less or no more more noise than other death dealling methods.

If you live near an abbotoir you can vist to watch the animals being slaughterd, you can watch pigs getting a nail gun to to the head, Kopsh killing is also intresting to observe and so on.

Its best to remeber that films are for entertainment, not education, and that artistic licence covers a mutltude of innacuricies for plot purposes.

[Nickiow]

Originally posted by Colonâ„¢
To whom it concerns, here are a couple of articles related to Band Of Brothers, including lists of inaccuracies. I'd recommend reading them.

About the 1st episode: http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1536518

About the 2nd episode: http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1537061

About Captain Sobel: http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1535308

Excellent info, thanks.

One nit, http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/wwii/utah/utah.htm list D day objectives for the US Airborne, they show Carentan and associated bridges, high ground etc to indeed be day one objectives.

[Pekka]

I think what CO means is that you fire your gun from your shoulder. Period. Of course some people fire it from the hip for some reason at some point, and some will succeed. Stop promoting shooting from the hip.

Instead of explaining a silent 'theoretical' way to cut throat is all nice and dandy, if you are able to do it like that and the opponent doesn't fight you back. You prolly know few good controlling techniques so they can't even move the tip of their fingers and control their minds too. But at the end it's just like saying 'don't make any sounds' when you move and '****, I made a sound'.

CO is just saying what he said, real life.

Real life > Hollywood > theoritcal situations

[Nickiow]

Originally posted by Pekka
I think what CO means is that you fire your gun from your shoulder. Period. Of course some people fire it from the hip for some reason at some point, and some will succeed. Stop promoting shooting from the hip.

Odd use of period.

UK WW2 training manuals require the sten MG to be fired from the hip, it tends to fire high after the initial rounds leave the chamber, by bracing against the hip it allows more accurate fire to be deliverd.

Larger MG (Bren etc) require other forms or bracing to deliver accurate fire on target, either from the hip or from the shoulder will not deliver accurate fire over distance. german MG, shmisser were also trained to fire from the hip, with additionl strapping over the shoulder, larger MGs require tripod or static bracing.

Modern Mgs are lighter with less recoil and so modern training manuals advocate firing from the shoulder to achieve accuracy that other wise was achieved through tripod, or bracing to resrict recoil that simply does not exist is modern weapon systems to the same degree.

Im promoting facts, and what they mean.

WW2 films show firing from the hip by MGs because thats how they were operated then, Richard Todd of the RM Commandos became a film star and is show in the Longest Day firing his sten from the hip in the film, and he was re enacting what he actually did on day in the film.

Originally posted by Pekka
Instead of explaining a silent 'theoretical' way to cut throat is all nice and dandy, if you are able to do it like that and the opponent doesn't fight you back. You prolly know few good controlling techniques so they can't even move the tip of their fingers and control their minds too. But at the end it's just like saying 'don't make any sounds' when you move and '****, I made a sound'.

its not theory, but practicial aplication, its one method of silent killing, its how we train you to kill silently, noise cannot exist from below the voice box, you cut the main artery below the voice box you push the head forward not back as often shown in films to facil;tate this cut, no noise except escapping air from the artery can exist in this method, the victim cannot articulate anything louder than a rasping escping escape of air, no louder than you find from a chest wound that alkso expells air from the lungs through the entry wound.

[Pekka]

yeah, those are all theory. Happens sometimes, rarely.

[Colonâ„¢]

Originally posted by Nickiow

its not theory, but practicial aplication, its one method of silent killing, its how we train you to kill silently, noise cannot exist from below the voice box, you cut the main artery below the voice box you push the head forward not back as often shown in films to facil;tate this cut, no noise except escapping air from the artery can exist in this method, the victim cannot articulate anything louder than a rasping escping escape of air, no louder than you find from a chest wound that alkso expells air from the lungs through the entry wound.

You learn something new at poly every day.

[Lord Avalon]

Originally posted by Nickiow
its not theory, but practicial aplication, its one method of silent killing, its how we train you to kill silently, noise cannot exist from below the voice box, you cut the main artery below the voice box you push the head forward not back as often shown in films to facil;tate this cut, no noise except escapping air from the artery can exist in this method, the victim cannot articulate anything louder than a rasping escping escape of air, no louder than you find from a chest wound that alkso expells air from the lungs through the entry wound.

You need to cut the windpipe, too, severing the artery is not enough. I read somewhere that it's better to stab the knife into the neck and cut outward - you don't run into the problem of failing to cut through (from outside going in) the tough cartilage of the voicebox, and blood fills the windpipe cutting off any sound.

In a movie you see soldiers close together - so they can be in the shot. IRL infantry moving, say on patrol, would be spread out, so one well-placed grenade won't take them all out.

As far as one shot, one kill - that's for snipers.

[Pekka]

It's like teaching 'you just have to make the world record first'. Like I said, in theory it's ok, and sometimes pros can do it, but yeah, if you want a doctrine for figure skating moves, then you have figure skaters.

[Chemical Ollie]

The "SMG SHOULD fired from the hip" comment might be correct. I only have training on the Swedish SMG, which was introduced in 1945, and that is best fired from the shoulder. But the slightly older models used in the war might be different.

But the throat cutting method you describe is NOT what you see in the movies.

[Nickiow]

Originally posted by Lord Avalon

You need to cut the windpipe, too, severing the artery is not enough. I read somewhere that it's better to stab the knife into the neck and cut outward - you don't run into the problem of failing to cut through (from outside going in) the tough cartilage of the voicebox, and blood fills the windpipe cutting off any sound.

In a movie you see soldiers close together - so they can be in the shot. IRL infantry moving, say on patrol, would be spread out, so one well-placed grenade won't take them all out.

As far as one shot, one kill - that's for snipers.

My bad, should have made that clear. The purpose of the head pushed forward is to relax the muscle and tendons making it easier to sever, of course it makes it less easy to insert and cut outwards after haveing done so, so its a catch 22, but hey if your knifes that dull you should stay at distance.

Have you read Marshal`s acount of combat mechanics through post combat interviews?, or Grossmans "On Killing" http://www.killology.com/
soldiers have always tended to bunch up despite the point it makes them an acctractive target by doing so, there is some instictive drive to do this deep in human pysh that despite actual observation of the combat veterens and all the training to prvent it still fails in large measure to prevent.