Jadotville flick: Irish Soldiers vs FFL in 1961

[MG TOW]

So I'm surfing for a movie and catch sight of this "Seige of Jadotville" Flick because there is a soldier pictured holding an FN Fal. And I'm a sucker for a movie with a guy holding an FN on the covershot. So without IMDBing it or anything I dive in. So its about an actual incident in the congo, 1961, A company of Irish UN peacekeepers go into Alamo/Rorke's Drift mode against 3000 French Foreign Legion backed local militia  supported by a mercenary jets and 81mm mortars. Not to mention your typical Dshk support platforms and the like. Its before my time, but I'm wondering why did I never hear of this? This is like...I dunno, Czechoslovakians killing Bulgarians or something, during the cold war, its just an odd political situation for these adversaries.   

Now the movie itself does suffer the odd anachronism. And it does scale the perspective down to a platoon. Even though its about a company, I swear i didn't see more than a platoon doing the defensive fighting in the movie. I did cursory research online and the most of what occurred in the movie did actually happen historically, although to a supported company of 153 men. The movie's perspective is out of sync with history in that respect. But, I'll accept the occasional embellishment and recommend this movie as "worth the watch" simply because it is a well done action movie over a lesser known conflict in history.  

 

[Muzzleflash1990]

The reason you didn't hear about it is most likely because the event was swept under the rug for decades, not something you wanted to talk about. Also, in terms of topic, I think Africa may not be that large on people's radar in terms of conflict. There are so many "larger" conflicts, people focus on, like Korea, Vietnam, Bosnia, etc..

About the number of people. I do not think it suffered anything from it, focusing only on the "platoon"-sized part of the company (although since we only see that, it did look they were getting an awful lot of food). Obviously, the benefits gained from hiring another 100+ people to be in the background is outweighed by the costs. Remember, you didn't see 3000 militia people either :P.

But yes, it is definitely worth the watch, and interesting to see something a bit "different".

Edited October 17, 2016 by Muzzleflash1990