Band of Brothers, episode 5.

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Eightball
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Band of Brothers, episode 5.

#1

Post by Eightball » 24 May 2003, 17:04

Does this episode bother anyone else? The scene where Winters runs solo up to a whole company of SS, and he with no further trouble stands in an elevated position firing the garand from his hip, hitting kraut after kraut and reloads without trouble.

You see maybe 2 halfhearted attempts from the SS to fire back. After a few seconds, Winters' squad joins him, they go prone on the ledge and joins in. Now, another SS company arrives, but what do they do? They run over a ledge and starts running over the field where the Winters' crew is shooting.

Supposedly this happened, but I mean.. c'mon?? What SS division were these companies attached to?

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KalaVelka
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#2

Post by KalaVelka » 24 May 2003, 17:16

Yep, the "realistic BoB" drives me sometimes crazy and this is the worst thing in hole series. Did americans loose only one or 2 mens?

BS


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Martin Kirkegaard
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#3

Post by Martin Kirkegaard » 24 May 2003, 17:47

Try reading the book. It's more realistic. You can't keep the Hollywood BS out of any American movie. There's a lot of stuff in that movie that Hollywoodized. Like one of the American MG gunners, just grabs the barrel of his .50 cal right after laying covering fire for some of the riflemen. His hand would have gotten severly bunrt by doing that. But give me one war movie, where you don't see unrealistic things occur?

They were 35 Americans against 2 companies. But not all at once. It was one company at a time. It was due to poor German leadership. The German leadership kept their soldiers bottled up into one big mass, while waiting for reinforcements. They were stupid enough to get suppressed by 2 US MGs, while the rest of the Americans stormed the field. Winters wasn't standing there alone for more than 1-2 seconds while he emptied his clip of 8 rounds into the mass. Again, read the book. It gives a more precise description of the attack, and you don't get all the crappy Hollywoodism.

P.S. My guess on where the Germans where from would be the 9th or 10th SS Division.

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Jeff O
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#4

Post by Jeff O » 24 May 2003, 18:14

Why dont you write DickWinters and ask him if he really did that?

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#5

Post by Sgt. Reese » 24 May 2003, 18:14

P.S. My guess on where the Germans where from would be the 9th or 10th SS Division.

were they that bad?





yeah read the book

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Eightball
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#6

Post by Eightball » 24 May 2003, 19:31

Martin Kirkegaard wrote:Try reading the book. It's more realistic. You can't keep the Hollywood BS out of any American movie. There's a lot of stuff in that movie that Hollywoodized. Like one of the American MG gunners, just grabs the barrel of his .50 cal right after laying covering fire for some of the riflemen. His hand would have gotten severly bunrt by doing that. But give me one war movie, where you don't see unrealistic things occur?

They were 35 Americans against 2 companies. But not all at once. It was one company at a time. It was due to poor German leadership. The German leadership kept their soldiers bottled up into one big mass, while waiting for reinforcements. They were stupid enough to get suppressed by 2 US MGs, while the rest of the Americans stormed the field. Winters wasn't standing there alone for more than 1-2 seconds while he emptied his clip of 8 rounds into the mass. Again, read the book. It gives a more precise description of the attack, and you don't get all the crappy Hollywoodism.

P.S. My guess on where the Germans where from would be the 9th or 10th SS Division.
And the SS didn't fire back? Mass or no mass they should've been able to at least try.

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Martin Kirkegaard
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#7

Post by Martin Kirkegaard » 24 May 2003, 19:50

Of course they fired back. But there was a lot of confusion amonst the German troops, not knowing where to go, and what to do. 1 American died and 22 were wounded (including reinforcements from F-company).

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#8

Post by Caldric » 24 May 2003, 20:38

Sounds like Timo is very correct in his idea of quality of the SS.


Winters did run up there, that is real he did fire into the SS that were there that is real. The point in the movie that you people are missing is that this day obviously bothered Winters a great deal, the young soldier he killed evidently followed him for years afterwards, perhaps even now. Don't know.

Anyway they had to slow this scene down so you could grasp that point, obviously many of you still did not grasp it. :D

His part only last a few seconds in the movie, just like in the book, just seems much longer, but I will go watch it again to see.

The SS companies were destroyed and the US only lost a couple of men, so it is real, the problem is perhaps you guys have visions of SS invincibility? I mean it was poor leadership, poor this, they were surprised, simply put they got their ass kicked and handed to them. Excuses are of little point.


As far as silly things like his hand on the .50 Cal MG that is really not some sinister Hollywood conspiracy, it just most likely got past editing. Maybe the guy was too lazy to fix it, or it was too late to do anything about it. I am sure if someone wanted to sit down and count all the bloopers in the movie he could find several. But no one cares but the anal-retentive, the rest of us just watch the movie.

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#9

Post by Martin Kirkegaard » 24 May 2003, 21:56

Hey Caldric,

What I wanted to point out with that example of the .50 cal was they will always exists, and people will always use those small errors to call a movie unrealistic. I find BoB one of the most realistic movies/series out there. What I hate the most is how people say it glorifies the American soldiers, and how the Americans never die. When the company was pulled off the line in late june the company had lost 65 men. Plus the lost a decent amount of men in the Battle of the Bulge. You see them cry, break down, give up - You never see them going rambo-like into a firefight.

You can hear and see in the documentary how many of the men including Winters in bothered about, what they've done during the war, and how it still hunts them.

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#10

Post by Eightball » 25 May 2003, 00:58

Hello Caldric!

I managed to figure out the point of that first, young soldier Winters killed. Though 'twas not my point, neither do I have SS invicibility thoughts. I just thought it was quite extrodinary, if not silly, how one man standing in such an exposed position could do what he did without even getting hurt.

You'd think the natural reaction would be to defend themselves.

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#11

Post by Xnomad » 25 May 2003, 01:21

I find BoB one of the most realistic movies/series out there. What I hate the most is how people say it glorifies the American soldiers, and how the Americans never die.

Yeah but they don't emphasise the point enough that they have lost men. When you see battle scenes you see scores of Germans falling like flies but very few of the US troops. Then later on they tell you that they lost so and so many. Only if you pay attention closely you will notice who gets killed but if your'e just watching the series whilst drinking a beer the amount of casualties suffered won't be picked up on. I'm interested to see what the German body count is in comparison.

Whilst on the subject I hate that bit when they fire with an MG from a window on the Fallschirmjaeger whilst they are retreating across an open swamp land. Did this really happen? They were elite, I am not an elite trooper and I wouldn't run across an open swamp land with a battle going on behind me, I would rather surrender or fight it out in the town.

I also remember reading about BoB a year before it was released. They were interviewing the man who plays Winters. He is a British actor and they asked him if he would make sure that the British would be portrayed in a fair light. Many films make the British look like fools and the Americans the heroes, or the Americans just make a film and change the history like U571, it was the Brits who captured the enigma. Anyway back to the subject, he said he would make sure of this. Well the scene when the Sherman gets attacked by the hidden Tiger springs to mind, Ok the commander had no choice but they did try to make him look like a stubborn fool didn't they, or was this in the book?

Just one more point to add I think that scene near the end where the German General talks to his men makes up for a lot of BS that happend in the previous episodes.

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#12

Post by Gen. Erwin Rommel » 25 May 2003, 02:19

When i saw that scene in the movie i fougth that was very wired maybe 20 Americans figth alone aganst maybe more than 200 Germans, i know the Germans were surprised, and at the time they were demoralized, and several Units were composed by kids, but i still think the Germans could kill the Americans easly.
Surfkorps wrote:Why dont you write DickWinters and ask him if he really did that?
If i wana write him how i could do it i dont have his adress, someone know it? and btw Winter's wrote any book?

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#13

Post by Gen. Erwin Rommel » 25 May 2003, 02:29

Caldric wrote:The SS companies were destroyed and the US only lost a couple of men, so it is real, the problem is perhaps you guys have visions of SS invincibility? I mean it was poor leadership, poor this, they were surprised, simply put they got their ass kicked and handed to them.
I dont think SS were invincible, i never heard abour a invincible unit in all the military history, i no one will ever heard, but SS Units were top quality Elite Soldiers in the first times of the war, but i guess with the time they were unable to replace their best soldiers and the morale was very low aswell.

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#14

Post by Sgt. Reese » 25 May 2003, 02:37

i'll bet Winters has fan letters up the wazoo.

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Jeff O
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#15

Post by Jeff O » 25 May 2003, 03:34

If i had his address i'd write him and tell him how much i appreciated his story. :D

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