Best Osfront clip 1944

[Jorge MC]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9tQKOIQ1vQ

[PanzerMike]

Thanks for sharing

[Aragorn2002]

Thank you, Jorge MC. Now that's what I call a warmovie!

[PanzerMike]

They are Dutch SS (SS Nederland). You can tell at 0:08 by the insignia on the arm.

[Aragorn2002]

I see also an Estonian SS insignia and an Estonian SS collar patch. It is an Estonian movie, isn't it? Anyhow, well made. Not perfect, but a lot more realistic than the usual rubbish.

Edited June 13, 2015 by Aragorn2002

[kuri]

Yeah, clip from the estonian movie "1944".

[Aragorn2002]

Well, units of the Dutch 4th SS Panzergrenadier Brigade 'Nederland' fought alongside the 20th Estonian SS Grenadier Division at the Tannenberg Line. Both as part of the III. SS Panzer Korps, so hence the Dutch and Estonian insignia. Looking forward to the whole movie.

Edited June 13, 2015 by Aragorn2002

[kuri]

Danes also make an appearance.

[JasonC]

The usual ridiculous over exposure of infantry for the sake of the camera.  Not impressed.

[kipanderson]

Hi,

I agree with JasonC in that the filming techniques are fine, but it’s shame that all these films always play to the myth of the human wave. Fine no doubt on some occasions in first period of the war, but not by ’44.

Films can be every bit as exciting if all is done historically.. they only have ask any real historian of the period. In fact I bet more exciting in that even those who don’t know would sense it all looked more real world.

No matter..

All the best,

Kip.

PS with Band of Brothers then Pacific plus in third place Generation War we have had better war films, series in this case, than I ever expected so no real complaints... didn’t expect much from 1944 anyway..

[kuri]

What human wave? It is a frontal assault with tank support something which was very common in the mentioned battle. If you compare the german and soviet casualties and read the memoirs of people who fought there, all of them pretty much describe the same thing - a massive preparatory artillery barrage followed by a combined frontal assault. The soviets did not manage to break through so they tried until they bled out. There was an decent amount of military personell involved in the production of the film including the guy who wrote it, so i wouldn't write off all the things you deem inapropriate for a "tactically superior 1944 red army" as ignorance.

[JasonC]

kuri - we know what actual frontal assaults with armor support consist in and involve, and this isn't anything what they are like.

 

The only thing they get right is the equipment.  The rest is choreographed Hollywood stuff designed to line up with a few human interest dramatic bits, put together with complete unreality.

 

Tanks don't attack by rolling forward in the open just to get close enough to be killed by Panzerfausts.  They only move to get LOS to a new target.

Frontal infantry attack does not consist in everyone exposing themselves to walk upright mixed in with the tanks begging the enemy to open fire and maximizing losses the moment they do.

Frontal infantry attack also does not consist in just jogging forward until within grenade range.

 

When defenders reveal themselves by firing their weapons, infantry doesn't expose itself continually to give them as much as possible to shoot at while the tanks ignore them.

Instead the infantry goes to ground and the tanks fire at the defending machineguns.  The defenders have to relocate because every IDed and stationary firing point is dead in less than a minute.

 

Attacking infantry exposes only a few men at a time with the others down - "packet movement".

Attacking infantry fires back to suppress defenders, with its LMGs and with its rifles, from cover.

A frontal attack is not about movement or trying to cross an area of open ground as rapidly as possible.

It is about fire dominance and relentlessness, not speed.  (In that respect it differs fundamentally from flanking or turning movement attacking tactics).

 

Attackers don't close to the point of all getting themselves killed to the last man, suicides.  

Instead the last sub-element of roughly the same size as the defenders on the frontage grabs whatever terrain it can and holds the ground gained, as a ratchet.

Only the leading elements representing the numerical superiority of the attackers presses; when the numbers have gone equal they stop pressing.

 

Plenty of attackers also drift off rearward rather than staying in the fight.  As many leave the whole area of the fight - on both sides - as are hit on it.

The clip also has an incoherent "account" of the armor war, with limited PAK shown as knocked out, reducing the defense to close range infantry AT.

But it also shows all attacking tanks knocked out.  Um, if the ranged AT defense is smashed, tanks will survive out of range of infantry AT and remain "intimidating" the defenders until ammo-dry.

 

The defenders actually have to separate the attackers from back to front using reverse slope effects, to avoid attacker's superior firepower.

They cannot all keep LOS to the whole field the attackers move across the whole time.  They would simply all be shot down if they tried, entrenched or not.

 

The actual suppression dynamic of a frontal assault works by LOS-separation of attackers and defenders, and of trailing parts of the attack from leading parts of the attack.

This is what forces the attacker overwatch to move forward - it is also what protects the defenders from attacker firepower, shortens ranges (presented instead as a defender ammo issue as though the fight moves to grenade range because there aren't any bullets left, which is nonsense), brings infantry AT weapons into play, and the like.

 

The whole reason for the transition to grenade range fighting is falsified if the defenders are not shown deliberately going "heads down" in their holes to create such reverse slope effects, shying away from attacker firepower.  The clip shows men reloading or on ammo runs below ground, that is all.  The fight is presented as continuous in time, continuous in mutual vision, continuous in mutual exposure - all utter rot.  Just not the way it happens.

Edited June 16, 2015 by JasonC

[BLSTK]

Good stuff, Jason. 

 

War is fought not only temporally but linearIy as well. I guess we're so used to "fighting the clock" that we forget to see the battlefield in three dimensions.

[PanzerMike]

I like this better: 

 

[sburke]

I just like the fact that the MG team stored their extra ammo about as far as possible as they could from their position.  They should have used Amazon prime to deliver it.  They fired for a minute or two and ran totally dry.  great planning!  That was enough for me to stop watching the action and just check out the equipment.