Well, Thats just Hollywood. The propaganda is the most important thing. If Hitler had as good of hissing NAZIs as Hollywood did, he would have probably won the war.
@KH990j if anything, they at least did get the size mismatch of the battle right. The King Tigers used in the battle were better protected and armed than the Shermans. I heard it took at least 10 Shermans to kill a single Tiger
Depended on the experience and intelligence of the allied commanders. The Sherman was a medium tank, the Tiger a heavy one. A frontal attack was extremely dangerous, but if the allied tank crews outflanked it, using their superior mobility, than even a Tiger was vulnerable.
In the Battle of the Bulge German soldiers - and tank crews - often cursed about the Sherman´s ability to climb easily the hills, while Panthers, Tigers and Royal Tigers were bound to the streets.
The Sherman was delivered to the Soviet army, too. Some of the most successful tank commanders of the Red Army and many tank crews prefered this tank. According to their experiences it offered the crew even a better protection, if it was hit. So the Sherman must have been better than its reputation.
Someone wrote, that the Sherman was not the tank, that won the war, but it was also not the tank, that lost it!
@jorcastify even in the latest movies, they don't, simply because there aren't many left. Saving Private Ryan, i.e., used a soviet (!) T-34 chassis with modified turret and some features added to represent the Tiger tank. Still better looking than a Pershing or a Patton tank, of course! :D
You should try "Kelly's Heroes" for good looking equipment and veichles in an old movie. ;)
KH, it is funny that you mention the M60; much of the design was based off the German MG 42 ( belt fed, etc.) I belived it was designed by Eugene Stoner, the man who would introduce the M16 (which most US assault rifles are variations of). Supposedly, the Germans StG 44 assault rifle was also used by the Russians in the AK-47 (and later, the AK-74 which fired a round lighter than the 5.55 used in the M16.) It was not so much as an American Civil War, but it showed American muscle.
@martinishot Israel was Using Shermans upgraded w/ French 105's and new engines. they were WW2 Surplus. a large number of countries used Surplus shermans, and just as many T-34's went the same way.
@Soundwave3591 So you are agreeing that WWII surplus Shermans were avail. Its just a shame that this movie did not get them for just a few months before some country. How the country modifies them after filming is a different thing.
@martinishot actually, they weren't. the Israelis were using them as frontline tanks at the time. a vast majority of the tanks were not sitting around in junkyards: they were being used as MBT's. the M46's and M24s in this film were acquired from US dumps, as they had been rendered obsolete.
Why couldn't they build fiberglass outer shells on the M47"s and Chaffees that would give them the appearances of Shermans,Panthers,and Tiger II's? They could have even modified M47 wheels and suspensions to look accurate.Only Hesslers tank and only one Sherman and Telly Savalas's with a destroyed turrent have to look perfect.The rest are in background.
It wasn't very accurate at all. Still a bit fun to watch, especially the German parts. Its funny in an interview for the film the guy says all the tanks are original WW2 that they found all over Europe. They look like M60 Patton tanks to me ;)
Even the American tanks were very late war, only a few were probably used in the actual battle.
And yeah i do see how it would be irratating to the participents of the battle but this film does deserve credit were its due , and its way better then many war films , Anzio(1968) D-:
Ok im just gunna make this simple , THIS FILM IS GREAT , acting is good , cinematography is great , action scenes are great and the characters are good. Anyone who thinks its crap because of the inacuracies is a closeminded fool , i love history ww2 and the cold war i love , im a nerd on them , but unlike some idiots i dont watch war films to get information on them for facts , that is not what they are there for. If you want facts read about the subject , if you want a good film watch this.
@burtonreid I don't watch movies for infos (you're an idiot if you think the contrary), they're the least reliable source. But this movie is just a mockery which doesn't desserve its title. It's an insult to those who died here. I like WW2 serious features as well as I like WW2 extravaganzas like Where Eagles Dare or Inglorious Basterds, the latter because they're NOT based on any real event, unlike this utter crap which should have benn called "Chaffees vs Pattons".
@deusirae76 Your only having a go at it because its not accurate , and that's not even a point for an argument to support this as a bad film , it IS a good film , just because it isn't factual does not make it crap , the acting is great , battles are great , its amazingly shot. Why can't you enjoy it for what it is , if what you say is correct then films like A bridge too far and longest day are crap because they aren't accurate enough.
@burtonreid The thing is, The Longest Day and A Bridge too far might not be incredibly accurate (that's impossible you know), but they're reasonably believable when they depict the WW2 era, Battle of the Bulge is not, with the biggest list of goofs that you can find in a war movie about WW2. There are few things to save however, Robert Shaw and Hans Christian Blech most notably (RIP).
@burtonreid Worst of all, the credits : "This picture is dedicated to the one million men who fought in this great battle of World War II""To encompass the whole of the heroic contributions of all the participants, places, names and characters, have been generalized and action has been synthesized in order to convey the spirit and essence of the battle."
Sounds just like an insult to all the men involved in this battle.
@deusirae76 Yeah but it is kind of hard to make a film under three hours about a two month long scuffle. And yeah Robert Shaw great actor , pretty much everyone in the film is great but the m47 is ment to symbolise the superiority of the tiger II, and also most shermans were scrapped by this stage so only chaffees were available. They could have just called them chaffees cos they were present during the end of the bulge. If you had to make this film again what post war tanks would you use ?
@burtonreid The Battle of the Bulge in a "Longest Day" style could have been one of the best war movies ever made, but the 60's people got a sweet technical demonstration of the M47 Patton tank instead.
@Trashcansam123 we were referring to the film because all the vehicles used in it were American, so we made the joke that it looked like the second American civil war.
@KH990j Ah yes. Well the chaffee and m60's size difference does give a good idea on the American tanks and German Panzers. If they filmed this in Yugoslavia like "Kelly's Heroes" they could've gotten some Shermans to make it look more authentic, or t-34s to mock up.
@Trashcansam123 nope, but it's funny you mention Shermans, you'd figure it would be very easy to aquire those. There were only a handful of Chaffees ever made.
techincally the filmmakers could have called the chaffes what they were instead of shermans because they were present towards the end of the bulge , i think the m47 pattons are a good substitute for the king tigers.
@deusirae76 As i said the kingtigers DON'T WORK and they havent or over 60 years now , and to top it off i have more fingers than the world has king tigers left , where are you gunna find a tank that matches the apperence and in great numbers.
@burtonreid I know it was impossible to find an operational king tiger, there is only one operable nowadays, it is displayed in the museum of Saumur in France. But this movie is still ridiculously inaccurate on many other points.
@KH990j And the name of the German officer was Joachim Peiper, not Hessler, and he survived til his murder by French communists in 1976. This movie could've been a masterpiece like The Longest Day, but they turned it into a lazy battle of American tanks.
@deusirae76 Yeah but its a film not a history lesson , its not made for factual purposes , its for entertainment and if you look at it as a film it is very good , but yeah i agree with you on some parts the last battle scene looks more like the desert but the tank battle there is pretty awsome
The 106th Infantry Division was put into the section of the line that the Germans would attack through less than six days before the attack. They were fresh, green troops right off the ship from the States. The unit they replaced was a battle hardened outfit that was sent north for an attack on the Roer River dams. When the the Germans hit them, the 106th folded up like a house of cards.
Someone needs to make a remake of this movie, the original was ok, but it had so many inaccuracies, especially the Tank Battle Scene near the end...in the real Battle of the Bulge, a Large Scale Tank Battle between the Americans and the Germans never existed.
@EvilFingers In all fairness this movie never claims to be showing an acturate account of the battle and is purely for entertainment purposes , films are not sources for history coursework , and this film is brilliant
Its brilliant in some ways, but the producer of the movie claims it to be accurate in all accounts, but the only accuracies about the whole movie is the Country (Belgium) and the Malmedy Massacre, also if you know the German Officer that Robert Shaw was portraying was Joachim Pieper and that the character name of Col. Hessler was totally fictitious.
And if one wants an entertaining and accurate WWII movie, Stalingrad & Das Boot.
@EvilFingers no one in the world could do a totally accurate account of the bulge , if you look at the end credits it said names places and characters have been generalised , and the producer milten sperling was one of three and he did the least amount of work , and it dosen't matter that Hessler is fictional the point of his character was to present the blind ambition of patriotic nazis , none of the inaccuracies spoil it and the people who say it does don't know a thing about films.
@deusirae76 or that Comets were Shermans. There were over 14,000 Sherman tanks made and only like a handful of comets. Surely they could have aquired Shermans for the movie.
@KH990j These were not Comets, they were Chaffees, which were launched on European battlefields around the time of the Battle of the Bulge. But they were designated as Shermans in the movie, that's stupid. There were several varieties of tanks used on both Allied and German side, such as M10 Wolverines, Panthers, Jagdpanthers, Panzers IV or Tigers 1, not only Königstigers and Shermans ...
@deusirae76 my bad, I meant Chaffees, I don't know where Comets came from. Oh yeah and don't forget the German half track that was actually an American M3. I'm sure they could have at least acquired one sdkfz 251 hanomag.
@deusirae76 my bad, I meant Chaffees, I don't know where Comets came from. Oh yeah and don't forget the German half track that was actually an American M3. I'm sure they could have at least acquired one sdkfz 251 hanomag.
@KH990j There are plenty of hanomag in French museums for instance. But there are only 5 remaining Königstigers in the world (and one in Soviet Union at the time of the filming), I guess it was too big of an issue, they had to use those freakin Pattons ...
@deusirae76 Why ? no king tigers worked at that time and there were probably less than 10 left , and thats what filmmakers do today , use t-34s for panzers and m47 and 48 pattons .
Well, Thats just Hollywood. The propaganda is the most important thing. If Hitler had as good of hissing NAZIs as Hollywood did, he would have probably won the war.
neptunisregis11 2 weeks ago
what i've noticed is that they never get the German panzers right in any of these films
jorcastify 2 months ago 2
@jorcastify They can't even get the American tanks right in this film.
KH990j 2 months ago
@KH990j if anything, they at least did get the size mismatch of the battle right. The King Tigers used in the battle were better protected and armed than the Shermans. I heard it took at least 10 Shermans to kill a single Tiger
DASCO2136 1 month ago
@DASCO2136
Depended on the experience and intelligence of the allied commanders. The Sherman was a medium tank, the Tiger a heavy one. A frontal attack was extremely dangerous, but if the allied tank crews outflanked it, using their superior mobility, than even a Tiger was vulnerable.
In the Battle of the Bulge German soldiers - and tank crews - often cursed about the Sherman´s ability to climb easily the hills, while Panthers, Tigers and Royal Tigers were bound to the streets.
TheCliffhanger1970 12 hours ago
@DASCO2136
The Sherman was delivered to the Soviet army, too. Some of the most successful tank commanders of the Red Army and many tank crews prefered this tank. According to their experiences it offered the crew even a better protection, if it was hit. So the Sherman must have been better than its reputation.
Someone wrote, that the Sherman was not the tank, that won the war, but it was also not the tank, that lost it!
TheCliffhanger1970 11 hours ago
@jorcastify nirther exist anymore , except one or two in museums , they have to search and use whats available
Calburtonreid 4 weeks ago
@jorcastify even in the latest movies, they don't, simply because there aren't many left. Saving Private Ryan, i.e., used a soviet (!) T-34 chassis with modified turret and some features added to represent the Tiger tank. Still better looking than a Pershing or a Patton tank, of course! :D
You should try "Kelly's Heroes" for good looking equipment and veichles in an old movie. ;)
fritzVirginSteeler 4 weeks ago
@fritzVirginSteeler What I said!
Trashcansam123 2 weeks ago
good song but A Bridge Too Far is more epic...
Stevezom 3 months ago
KH...my mistake. I got you meant...the M60 was great, but the M1 was even better.
Amobb481 4 months ago
KH, it is funny that you mention the M60; much of the design was based off the German MG 42 ( belt fed, etc.) I belived it was designed by Eugene Stoner, the man who would introduce the M16 (which most US assault rifles are variations of). Supposedly, the Germans StG 44 assault rifle was also used by the Russians in the AK-47 (and later, the AK-74 which fired a round lighter than the 5.55 used in the M16.) It was not so much as an American Civil War, but it showed American muscle.
Amobb481 4 months ago
Also, Israel seemed to find Shermans just fine in the mid 60's.
martinishot 9 months ago
@martinishot Israel was Using Shermans upgraded w/ French 105's and new engines. they were WW2 Surplus. a large number of countries used Surplus shermans, and just as many T-34's went the same way.
Soundwave3591 3 months ago
@Soundwave3591 So you are agreeing that WWII surplus Shermans were avail. Its just a shame that this movie did not get them for just a few months before some country. How the country modifies them after filming is a different thing.
martinishot 3 months ago
@martinishot actually, they weren't. the Israelis were using them as frontline tanks at the time. a vast majority of the tanks were not sitting around in junkyards: they were being used as MBT's. the M46's and M24s in this film were acquired from US dumps, as they had been rendered obsolete.
Soundwave3591 3 months ago
Why couldn't they build fiberglass outer shells on the M47"s and Chaffees that would give them the appearances of Shermans,Panthers,and Tiger II's? They could have even modified M47 wheels and suspensions to look accurate.Only Hesslers tank and only one Sherman and Telly Savalas's with a destroyed turrent have to look perfect.The rest are in background.
martinishot 9 months ago
It wasn't very accurate at all. Still a bit fun to watch, especially the German parts. Its funny in an interview for the film the guy says all the tanks are original WW2 that they found all over Europe. They look like M60 Patton tanks to me ;)
Even the American tanks were very late war, only a few were probably used in the actual battle.
BANZITOMMY 11 months ago
And yeah i do see how it would be irratating to the participents of the battle but this film does deserve credit were its due , and its way better then many war films , Anzio(1968) D-:
burtonreid 1 year ago
Ok im just gunna make this simple , THIS FILM IS GREAT , acting is good , cinematography is great , action scenes are great and the characters are good. Anyone who thinks its crap because of the inacuracies is a closeminded fool , i love history ww2 and the cold war i love , im a nerd on them , but unlike some idiots i dont watch war films to get information on them for facts , that is not what they are there for. If you want facts read about the subject , if you want a good film watch this.
burtonreid 1 year ago
@burtonreid I don't watch movies for infos (you're an idiot if you think the contrary), they're the least reliable source. But this movie is just a mockery which doesn't desserve its title. It's an insult to those who died here. I like WW2 serious features as well as I like WW2 extravaganzas like Where Eagles Dare or Inglorious Basterds, the latter because they're NOT based on any real event, unlike this utter crap which should have benn called "Chaffees vs Pattons".
deusirae76 1 year ago
@deusirae76 Your only having a go at it because its not accurate , and that's not even a point for an argument to support this as a bad film , it IS a good film , just because it isn't factual does not make it crap , the acting is great , battles are great , its amazingly shot. Why can't you enjoy it for what it is , if what you say is correct then films like A bridge too far and longest day are crap because they aren't accurate enough.
burtonreid 1 year ago
@burtonreid The thing is, The Longest Day and A Bridge too far might not be incredibly accurate (that's impossible you know), but they're reasonably believable when they depict the WW2 era, Battle of the Bulge is not, with the biggest list of goofs that you can find in a war movie about WW2. There are few things to save however, Robert Shaw and Hans Christian Blech most notably (RIP).
deusirae76 1 year ago
@burtonreid Worst of all, the credits : "This picture is dedicated to the one million men who fought in this great battle of World War II""To encompass the whole of the heroic contributions of all the participants, places, names and characters, have been generalized and action has been synthesized in order to convey the spirit and essence of the battle."
Sounds just like an insult to all the men involved in this battle.
deusirae76 1 year ago
@deusirae76 Yeah but it is kind of hard to make a film under three hours about a two month long scuffle. And yeah Robert Shaw great actor , pretty much everyone in the film is great but the m47 is ment to symbolise the superiority of the tiger II, and also most shermans were scrapped by this stage so only chaffees were available. They could have just called them chaffees cos they were present during the end of the bulge. If you had to make this film again what post war tanks would you use ?
burtonreid 1 year ago
@burtonreid The Battle of the Bulge in a "Longest Day" style could have been one of the best war movies ever made, but the 60's people got a sweet technical demonstration of the M47 Patton tank instead.
deusirae76 1 year ago
@burtonreid bridge too far is good
jorcastify 5 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@burtonreid bridge too far is good
jorcastify 5 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@burtonreid bridge too far is good
jorcastify 5 months ago
The Second American Civil war, lol. Wait a couple years for the much improved M60 Patton so they could kick some serious butt.
KH990j 1 year ago
@KH990j ???? The m60 is old man, what second civil war wtf are you talking about?
Trashcansam123 3 months ago
@Trashcansam123 we were referring to the film because all the vehicles used in it were American, so we made the joke that it looked like the second American civil war.
KH990j 3 months ago
@KH990j Ah yes. Well the chaffee and m60's size difference does give a good idea on the American tanks and German Panzers. If they filmed this in Yugoslavia like "Kelly's Heroes" they could've gotten some Shermans to make it look more authentic, or t-34s to mock up.
Have you ever seen "Castle keep"?
Trashcansam123 3 months ago
@Trashcansam123 nope, but it's funny you mention Shermans, you'd figure it would be very easy to aquire those. There were only a handful of Chaffees ever made.
KH990j 3 months ago
techincally the filmmakers could have called the chaffes what they were instead of shermans because they were present towards the end of the bulge , i think the m47 pattons are a good substitute for the king tigers.
burtonreid 1 year ago
@burtonreid The turrets are completely different, and the armor-plating is heavier on the king tiger, particularly on the caterpillar tracks.
deusirae76 1 year ago
@deusirae76 As i said the kingtigers DON'T WORK and they havent or over 60 years now , and to top it off i have more fingers than the world has king tigers left , where are you gunna find a tank that matches the apperence and in great numbers.
burtonreid 1 year ago
@burtonreid I know it was impossible to find an operational king tiger, there is only one operable nowadays, it is displayed in the museum of Saumur in France. But this movie is still ridiculously inaccurate on many other points.
deusirae76 1 year ago
@deusirae76 yeah, a battle in an open desertlike area instead of a thick snow covered forest.
KH990j 1 year ago
@KH990j And the name of the German officer was Joachim Peiper, not Hessler, and he survived til his murder by French communists in 1976. This movie could've been a masterpiece like The Longest Day, but they turned it into a lazy battle of American tanks.
deusirae76 1 year ago
@deusirae76 Yeah but its a film not a history lesson , its not made for factual purposes , its for entertainment and if you look at it as a film it is very good , but yeah i agree with you on some parts the last battle scene looks more like the desert but the tank battle there is pretty awsome
burtonreid 1 year ago
@burtonreid I'm studying history, so I'm not particularly entertained ...
deusirae76 1 year ago
@deusirae76 So am i , and your point is ?
burtonreid 1 year ago
Who composed this?
MASR4 1 year ago
@MASR4 Benjamin Frankel
KH990j 1 year ago
Strange that on the sdtrk CD this track is referred to as "The Armaments Train".
ChopstickBrando 1 year ago
Strange that on the sdtrk CD this track is referred to as "The Munitions Train".
ChopstickBrando 1 year ago
we musn't forget, that was a black christmas
mamonycabron 1 year ago
The 106th Infantry Division was put into the section of the line that the Germans would attack through less than six days before the attack. They were fresh, green troops right off the ship from the States. The unit they replaced was a battle hardened outfit that was sent north for an attack on the Roer River dams. When the the Germans hit them, the 106th folded up like a house of cards.
ReinhardtvonMeinhard 1 year ago
Someone needs to make a remake of this movie, the original was ok, but it had so many inaccuracies, especially the Tank Battle Scene near the end...in the real Battle of the Bulge, a Large Scale Tank Battle between the Americans and the Germans never existed.
EvilFingers 1 year ago
@EvilFingers: Yeah, but without a touch of exaggeration, the movie wouldn't be as good as it was.
AceLord49th 1 year ago
@AceLord49th
Thats not true, and I can think of one WWII Movie that closely depicts an Historical WWII Event, does Tora! Tora! Tora! ring a bell?
And nothing in Tora Tora Tora was overly exaggerated, theres even a scene that almost turned into Life Threatening Disaster.
EvilFingers 1 year ago
@EvilFingers In all fairness this movie never claims to be showing an acturate account of the battle and is purely for entertainment purposes , films are not sources for history coursework , and this film is brilliant
burtonreid 1 year ago
@burtonreid
Its brilliant in some ways, but the producer of the movie claims it to be accurate in all accounts, but the only accuracies about the whole movie is the Country (Belgium) and the Malmedy Massacre, also if you know the German Officer that Robert Shaw was portraying was Joachim Pieper and that the character name of Col. Hessler was totally fictitious.
And if one wants an entertaining and accurate WWII movie, Stalingrad & Das Boot.
EvilFingers 1 year ago
@EvilFingers no one in the world could do a totally accurate account of the bulge , if you look at the end credits it said names places and characters have been generalised , and the producer milten sperling was one of three and he did the least amount of work , and it dosen't matter that Hessler is fictional the point of his character was to present the blind ambition of patriotic nazis , none of the inaccuracies spoil it and the people who say it does don't know a thing about films.
burtonreid 1 year ago
@EvilFingers Not only, the way they used M47 Patton tanks mocked up as Panzer VI Königstigers was particularly laughable ...
deusirae76 1 year ago
@deusirae76 or that Comets were Shermans. There were over 14,000 Sherman tanks made and only like a handful of comets. Surely they could have aquired Shermans for the movie.
KH990j 1 year ago
@KH990j These were not Comets, they were Chaffees, which were launched on European battlefields around the time of the Battle of the Bulge. But they were designated as Shermans in the movie, that's stupid. There were several varieties of tanks used on both Allied and German side, such as M10 Wolverines, Panthers, Jagdpanthers, Panzers IV or Tigers 1, not only Königstigers and Shermans ...
deusirae76 1 year ago
@deusirae76 my bad, I meant Chaffees, I don't know where Comets came from. Oh yeah and don't forget the German half track that was actually an American M3. I'm sure they could have at least acquired one sdkfz 251 hanomag.
KH990j 1 year ago
@deusirae76 my bad, I meant Chaffees, I don't know where Comets came from. Oh yeah and don't forget the German half track that was actually an American M3. I'm sure they could have at least acquired one sdkfz 251 hanomag.
KH990j 1 year ago
@KH990j There are plenty of hanomag in French museums for instance. But there are only 5 remaining Königstigers in the world (and one in Soviet Union at the time of the filming), I guess it was too big of an issue, they had to use those freakin Pattons ...
deusirae76 1 year ago
@deusirae76 those Patton tanks were also used in a movie. Guess which one (hint: it's the tank's namesake).
KH990j 1 year ago
@deusirae76 Why ? no king tigers worked at that time and there were probably less than 10 left , and thats what filmmakers do today , use t-34s for panzers and m47 and 48 pattons .
burtonreid 1 year ago
love this film when I was kid. They always used to put it on at xmas time.
manweller1 2 years ago 2
@manweller1 When I was younger I usedto watch this movie all the time.
pepsiCed 2 years ago
I went and brought it saw it going for 3 pounds everyone ignored it. even after all these years it stlll looked great.
manweller1 2 years ago