Watch-man

Yes, exactly, and I obviously agree with regards to the Normandy Invasion providing a useful backdrop or even the main story. Obviously, the way the story is told, and the investment you make in the characters. What was interesting about any movie, if you sum it down into one sentence? Shakespeare in Love - what was interesting about a poet who couldn't get laid? Apollo 13 - What was interesting about 3 guys who rode around the moon but didn't land on it? Saving Private Ryan - What's interesting about roaming around the countryside and throwing men against lead? &tc.

Don't think of me as the thread police, ordering you to do things, as I'm clearly not in a position to do that, nor is it my intent. Think of me more as Emily Post, advising you when you're acting like a heinously ill-mannered host and treating your guests shabbily. The point wasn't to champion a movie about DD tanks - cartoon or otherwise. My point was - and is - to counter Sergei's ignorant comment that the Normandy invasion has been covered in detail on film, when in fact, almost none of it has, and what has been put on film has been done so inaccurately and in an uncompelling manner. If you want to start a discussion on "there are plenty of Normandy Invasion movies in the can already, why make another one" that's an entirely separate issue. But the answer to the question would still be the same. The question being "why will people want to pay to see it?" And the answer, as gunnergoz replied, tongue-in-cheek, is simple: Story, character, possibly the attraction of stars and who you've casted. Sometimes it is timing; release it a month after the Marines make an amphibious landing in Syria and all of a sudden, you've got allegory. Release it on June 6, 2044 and you've got commemmoration. Release it opposite someone else's D-Day movie and you've got a, well, typical Hollywood thinking. Like the summer of the asteroid movies, or having two competing OK Corral films. Why another movie on the Normandy Invasion? Let me put it to you another way. Sergei says there is no reason to do so. He says it is impossible because the stories are all used up. I am simply saying that is ridiculous. Given a good enough screenwriter, there is more than enough material to draw on, be it a kitchen-sink drama, a black comedy, or a romantic epic. If you think the last is unlikely, Charlton Comics did an entire issue in one of their pulp war comics - unusual for them with their anthologies, which usually had 2 or 3 stories per comic - about the landings; one POV was the GIs coming ashore while another was a German officer in charge of one of the Widerstandnesten, who was concerned about his French girlfriend behind the coast (another departure for a comic book aimed at 12 year old boys, who were likely not to care much about the female who was crapping up a good story with lots of shooting in it). The story was well written and the stories all merged at the end with the character of the German officer being especially morally ambiguous, ordering his men to die in defence of his bunker despite having so much, apparently, to live for. Thought provoking and poignant. But Sergei would have you believe it's been done before. Did the German officer in the bunker die for the same reason a US Marine dies in Fallujah? Timeless questions. Far more interesting than technical details about the canvas float screens of a DD tank, though I would love to see one in a movie, too. Didn't we all think there were "enough Vietnam movies" until Tropic Thunder came along?

We had discussed letting other people speak for themselves earlier in this thread. If JonS wants to introduce his resume into evidence, he's free to do so. I'd be very leery of using 2009 era experience as an artilleryman to claim expertise in 1944 era infantry tactics, but if he wants to go down that road, that's his call, not yours. If you wanted to post something more relevant to the thread topic, though, and avoid simply stoking the embers of a flame war, I'd be interested to read it. Do you have an opinion on, say, films about the Normandy invasion? Because that's what I was hoping to discuss.

And if you were some sort of acknowledged expert on tactics, perhaps your reluctance to grade the film based on their portrayal of same might mean something. Hearing that an African bushman refused to judge "The Natural" on the accuracy of its baseball scenes wouldn't impress me much either. Anyway, let's get back to the subject at hand: I stand by my statement that The films to date are a unique bunch * D-Day The Sixth of June * Saving Private Ryan * The Longest Day * The Big Red One (vignette only) * Band of Brothers (television episode) but mostly older now and certainly don't cover the entire experience of the landings. Movies are about character and story; the suggestion that suitable film ideas can't be found with the Normandy invasion as a background seems silly, especially given all the facets of the landings that have been covered so superficially and many, "even from the American perspective" that haven't been covered at all. Beyond that, how many have been told from the German point of view? From the French? I can think of one - The Blockhouse (1973, starring Peter Sellers), about French labourers trapped inside a coastal defence bunker for six years after Allied shelling sealed them underground.

I appreciate the advice, bro. In return, I think it would help if a) you let other people speak for themselves if they feel their view has been misrepresented read their entire posts before presuming to speak for them c) engaged in conversations about the topic at hand instead of acting like a pretentious prig and and picking apart other people's posts instead of just talking about the subject at hand. But if you really want to broaden the scope, sure; has the average movie goer read dozens of books about Normandy? I'm willing to bet Joe Q. Public never read a single one of those Normandy books, played a single Normandy video game, or caught a single episode of The World at War before going to see "that Tom Hanks war movie" when SPR came out. So what was your point again?

With the unfortunate exception of every single part of them. gunnergoz is exactly right and all your pontificating won't change any of that, nor the complaining about Hollywood's past indiscretions, digressions and any other "essions"... How many films have there been which featured or even depicted one of the Duplex Drive tanks, or showed what life was like for an M4 (or any other kind of tank) crew? Zero. Don't recall any first hand accounts by American tankers off-hand that would make decent fodder - not on the order of Tout's book or Wilson's FLAMETHROWER but surely there is fodder for same. After the popularity of THE BEAST about the Soviet tank crew in Afghanistan, one has to believe a movie from the POV of an American tank would be of interest. These guys were suicides every morning, rolling into action in tinder boxes. And they knew it. Fascinating stuff for a movie, just like World War I flying aces. Not a single film. And you're telling us it's been done to death? Point-du-Hoc. Other than the mix of kitchen-sink retelling in The Longest Day with a bit of Fabian star power and "whaddus budda-budda mean" camp thrown in, never been a movie about Army Rangers on D-Day. Never been a decent film that really showed Omaha as it really was - hours of milling in the surf; would make a lousy film, of course, but the SPR boys - the first wave - launched across the shingle in all of 12 minutes. Fuller's boys did it in about the same, under sunny Israeli skies. You can go beyond the landings to all of Normandy, of course. Never seen a film actually depict the bocage. Big Red One took part on a Middle Eastern steppe. Never seen a Culin Cutter in a film or any reason for anyone to use one. Bloody Gulch, the Causeway, XYZ, a thousand little battles all worthy of telling, but there are major elements of the story that have never even been hinted at on film - the camouflage uniforms of the 2nd Armored, the casualty rates of the infantry, the short bombing during 'Cobra' that killed Lesley McNair. Maybe you can tell us which movie all of that has been done to death in because I've never seen it. These details have nothing to do with making dramatic, engaging movies because that's character and dialogue and story, and tanks and ballistics are beside the point. Something Michael Bay doesn't seem to understand. But you find a Lee Marvin or whatever equivalent you can find today, and please tell me it isn't Ben Affleck, and put him in a movie about DD tanks on June 6, and give him significant things to say about loss and sacrifice, and hell, even make it an allegory for Iraq in some way, I think you'll get people to pay for it.

Those look nothing like the transport tracks to me. Note the overhang of the track and the width from the edge of the drive sprocket. Compare to this photo: http://www.alanhamby.com/Gallery/latewheels2.jpg On this page: http://www.alanhamby.com/suspension.shtml Also note: In short - there is nothing "wrong" with the tracks or suspension in these screenshots. Correct combat tracks, correct wheels. So nice that the misinformed pissing and moaning has started early, though. Bet they can't wait to release the next screenshots...

He didn't "win" anything. He earned it, and it was awarded to him at an investiture.

If you are close enough to individual riflemen to marvel at the type of ammunition pouches on their cartridge belts, you obviously have little idea how to play a game that is based on infantry squads at the level of the company and I would submit you probably have not much idea how to prioritize the task list for creating one either. I will not be reading game reviews by 10 year old amateur historians in any event so their opinions will tend not to hold much water with me. Your mileage may vary.

Everyone keeps talking about soldiers "training for the desert" without really having any understanding of what it means. Several posters - the ones with military experience - have hit the nail on the head when they accurately identify the fact that military drills remain the same regardless of the environment they are conducted in. Running, shooting, and performing tactical movements don't change because of the temperature or the weather. Training to fight in particular environments is something you do in a classroom, largely. Winter or desert or tropical indoctrination is a relatively brief period done at the end of trade or combat training. You don't need special classes in "how to be cold" or "how to sweat" but you do need classes in hydration, dressing in layers, treating heat casualties, frostbite, etc. What you don't need is to "practice" running up hills in 110 degree heat just because it is hot outside and you want to get used to the desert. You climatize once you are on the ground, or in the pre-deployment phase. You don't do it a year before you even go because you simply want to know what it "feels like."

The U.S. Army already has access to extremely sophisticated electronic trainers for artillery observers and tank crews, so there is no need to purchase such things from a software company run by two civilians with no military experience. And it is hard to imagine the necessity for having a software package in which soldiers interact with civilians when the easiest thing in the world is to run those kinds of drills on an exercise field with no special equipment necessary, with Iraq and Afghanistan veterans on hand to provide counsel and interaction. C'Rogers makes an excellent point about providing more 'stuff' than is necessary if one wants a valuable training aid, if only to provide candidates with the ability to do things the wrong way. With the emphasis on real time in CM:ShF and the need for a pared down command menu, that can't be a reality, unless you start making multiple function commands i.e. your fire command turns into a Ladder command when you're within 1 metre of a wall or something.

This assumes the modeling is done to people's satisfaction and that the units aren't revealed on map too quickly as a balancing mechanism by the game engine. How often do you think mech infantry actually got to rehearse or train with increasingly scarce tanks by 1944? Basic training was something like 8 weeks long before their replacements (16 years old by then) were thrown into action. How much 'tank-infantry' coop did they really demonstrate in 1944-45, especially on the defence, and how do you model that in a game in which command and control issues are largely simplified for playability?