So has playing Combat Mission make you now cringe when you watch war movies?

[Sequoia]

I've been trying to think of ANY modern war (WWI and on) movies that shows combat realistically. Perhaps the one scene that's an exception that comes to mind is in Band of Brothers where they attack the artillery emplacement in Normandy. Short ambushes sometimes are portrayed alright, but that's about it. 

Most movies still have attackers line up in some sort of skirmish line and advance upright in the open. Suppression is almost never represented. I suppose real life combat isn't very cinematic as you usually only see the heads of the enemy at best most of the time. 

List your exceptions and let's see if we can dissuade you that they are realistic.

 

[womble]

Saving Private Ryan. Suppression is definitely a thing.

BoB and The Pacific, generally.

Some license is definitely taken in all these, but they largely stay in the grit and mud.

[Sequoia]

I'm not saying the movies are bad for portraying combat cinematically. Movies portray everything inaccurately to a greater or lesser degree.

Band of Brothers other than the scene I mentioned portrayed combat just as described above. I've not seen The Pacific. The opening scene of Private Ryan was great cinematography. It did not accurately portray the landing at Omaha Beach. 

[womble]

3 hours ago, Sequoia said:

I'm not saying the movies are bad for portraying combat cinematically. Movies portray everything inaccurately to a greater or lesser degree.

Band of Brothers other than the scene I mentioned portrayed combat just as described above. I've not seen The Pacific. The opening scene of Private Ryan was great cinematography. It did not accurately portray the landing at Omaha Beach. 

SPR was the first film that really said to me (who's barely been in a bar fight, but played a lot of wargames), "You do not want, ever, to be in a firefight." While the details of how folks got up the beach might be played fast-and-loose, the visceral feeling it got across of the general chaos and cascading horror was like nothing I'd seen before. Anyone who's been in a firefight for real want to tell me it got that wrong? BoB was the next time I saw that, and you need to watch The Pacific if you liked BoB.

[sawomi]

 

[FlemFire]

On 6/1/2022 at 10:18 PM, womble said:

SPR was the first film that really said to me (who's barely been in a bar fight, but played a lot of wargames), "You do not want, ever, to be in a firefight." While the details of how folks got up the beach might be played fast-and-loose, the visceral feeling it got across of the general chaos and cascading horror was like nothing I'd seen before. Anyone who's been in a firefight for real want to tell me it got that wrong? BoB was the next time I saw that, and you need to watch The Pacific if you liked BoB.

 

Yeah, Saving Private Ryan was legitimately shocking. I think a lot of people who grow up with today's media -- much of it being shaped by SPR in fact -- don't really understand how intense that movie was at release. There'd always been tons of war movies and many of them violent and grim, but SPR was the most physical depiction of combat ever seen. War movies to that point still had this sense of cinematic flair to them. SPR just hit you in the face with a celluloid shovel.

[StieliAlpha]

On 6/5/2022 at 7:23 AM, Khalerick said:

 SPR just hit you in the face with a celluloid shovel.

Unfortunately only in the first 15 minutes or so. Compared to the beginning, I was disappointed by the rest.

I remember some harsh discussions back then, when I dared to utter that criticism….

[Vacillator]

55 minutes ago, StieliAlpha said:

Unfortunately only in the first 15 minutes or so. Compared to the beginning, I was disappointed by the rest.

I quite liked the bit where the 'Tigers' turned down the street towards the bridge and a few of the gritty moments like the AA gun (20mm or 37mm can't quite recall) clearing troops off one of them.  Not exactly pleasant viewing though.  A bit like the cuttings from Gladiator involving rubber heads being crushed in the arena, which were presumably perceived to go too far for the rating...

[Artkin]

I'm gonna say ditto, as I remember: SPR sucked. Straight up hollywood fantasy. I grew up on BoB, but admittedly, that probably was nowhere near the grittyness of real firefights. Especially considering half the experience was focused on memoir. 

 

[-SIBERIANWOLF-]

wuhu we play a mild realistic game with alot of bug and performance like a ultra 4k raytrace game which has performance issues... sometimes i wish i would be a good coh2 player atleast arty makes damage in that game and it runs smooth

but yes most movies suck mostly coz propaganda

and save the privat such a stupide movie like that what war for the US is about, saveing soldiers lol the beginning was good still why would 4 troopers standing on a tiger tank and chill there until a hand rolled aa is ready to shot them was like suuuurreee would have been much easier to shoot them with any infantry gun

good movies:

the beast abit hollywood but not that bad but the evil russkis grrr

 

afghan breakdown very good movie

 

recomended for good looking movie but russian hollywood as hell

 

 

frence idochina war movie

 

war fighter also russian hollywood but funny they even use explosive rope i was like waaaw deep but exactly holywood the rushes are there just sometimes they did try irl to rush the russian paras at the hills must have been very close combat in the chechen wooded mountains

there seems to be a 2

 

best war movie ever made:

 

i liked much these tour of duty serie was fun and not too much hollywood

platoon was great just the in fight story sucks

hamburgerhill very good

 

Edited June 15, 2022 by -SIBERIANWOLF-

[Artkin]

Honestly I just bumped up to a gtx 3060ti and im having the best fps ive ever had in my life on this game. Bugs, sure. Performance - that's on you.

[chuckdyke]

Sometimes CM animations make me cringe. Examples pathfinding and ignoring obvious danger zones. You literally have to think of everything, like entering buildings etc. etc. I wouldn't criticize movie makers too much. I can't make better animations myself, and I realize we have a long way to go. Movies like our games are for entertainment. Instead of reading books about it we can experience the weapons and equipment ourselves. 

[StieliAlpha]

16 hours ago, chuckdyke said:

…we can experience the weapons and equipment ourselves. 

Not quite, I am afraid.

But I use this „educational“ argument, too, when I explain why I play war games to others.

Edited June 16, 2022 by StieliAlpha

[Codreanu]

A movie is a movie, I care less about realism and more about authenticity and immersion. If you're craving realism then play CM and turn it into your own little movie where you can pause and replay each and every frame to your heart's desire, or watch a video from some of the great CM YouTubers out there.

[chuckdyke]

1 hour ago, StieliAlpha said:

I explain why I play war games to others.

Reading in the third dimension. 

[Vacillator]

1 hour ago, chuckdyke said:

Reading in the third dimension. 

I'm reading this in the fourth dimension.

[Erwin]

Have found it more that watching real life war tends to make me cringe when playing wargames as one sees how unrealistic they are.  Hollywood movies are about putting paying butts in seats and realism always takes 2nd place and one is naive to expect anything else.  That's why movies are called "entertainment".

[chuckdyke]

2 hours ago, Erwin said:

That's why movies are called "entertainment".

With a good dose of propaganda. The Green Berets with John Wayne was such an example. The Greeks gave us two words, 'Tragedy' and 'Comedy' which gave us movies like Kelly's Heroes, and we have tragedy in Schindler's List.

[Erwin]

Well... one could argue that all movies these days are propagandist.  It's hard to recall what movies were like some decades ago before the 60's and 70's.  But in terms of war movies one have Platoon, Apocalypse Now etc.  Not sure what propaganda they were pushing other than being anti-war I suppose.  

Incidentally to correct my error "...realism always takes 2nd place..." - it's selling food and drink that is 2nd place.  After that comes the mandate to not offend the Chinese.  Realism is way further down the list of priorities.

To return to the original topic, personally I have no issues with playing CM2 and watching movies.  Computer wargames have very unrealistic aspects as well.

Edited June 17, 2022 by Erwin

[StieliAlpha]

On 6/16/2022 at 8:08 PM, chuckdyke said:

Reading in the third dimension. 

Three dimensions? Like length, width and height? Does not sound too spectacular. I do that each time, when I look at a map with contour lines.

Edited June 19, 2022 by StieliAlpha

[chuckdyke]

5 minutes ago, StieliAlpha said:

Like length, width and height?

Playing the game, we read in three dimensions and the reader is included. It is what makes gaming unique a media in which the customer can participate. 

Edited June 19, 2022 by chuckdyke