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CMETO fans! Battle of France '44 on Shootout 1a.m.PST Hist Chan U.S. (Time Warner)


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For those of you not familiar with it, Shootout is a new series which looks at small unit engagements using not just survivor interviews but state-of-the art digital models of the terrain in which the engagement takes place, showing the positions of friendly and enemy forces, movement, etc., supplemented by realistic looking reenacted sequences. The episode here is going to be the battles in France after D-day. Ought to be good!

Regards,

John Kettler

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Just saw it. Really good! Covered Brecourt Manor (the BoB storming the guns episode), Graignes (blocking the reinforcement route to Carentan, against odds of eventually 10:1), Vezon (night recon raid againt "lightly defended" town), and Unnamed Hill (recon by death, followed by coordinated attack). Hope you get to see this!

Regards,

John Kettler

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I like the Shootout shows, lots of details. I think I've seen most that have aired so far.

This France episode was pretty decent. Although the BoB episode of storming the guns is seriously getting old. I mean, how many re-enactments of this firefight do we need to see? Although, in BoB they didn't seem to take as many casualties as in this show. Also no mention of Winters giving orders to finish off the 2 wounded germans.

Also the Graignes part was already done before. The History channel did a hour long show of it. Forgot the name of the series, maybe Battlefield Detectives.

Surely there was many other firefights that could of got a part in the show. Kind of a bummer to see the rehashes.

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MeatEtr,

Concerning Brecourt Manor, what I found useful was the overhead view showing who was where and did what. There was way too much going on in the BoB episode to go into that level of exposition. As usual, too, the History Channel footage people completely blew it on LeFH 18M clips. Even saw a 21cm howitzer!

Saw the same Graignes thing you did, but again, it was useful to see the spatial relationships depicted. Someone was talking about the nasty U.S. 81mm mortars on the VO, but 60mm mortars were shown and frankly, seem more likely to me. Am amazed that guy survived his ammo run.

The Vezon segment was simply amazing and eerie. Can you imagine trying to even approximate in CMAK the results the scouts got? Wouldn't want to try!

The Unknown Hill was fascinating for its depiction of the realities of recon, the importance of careful observation, and for what it showed us about what a typical defensive setup looked like, as well as the difference between effective and ineffective camouflage. What I don't understand, though, is why the carefully prepared assault went in frontally.

Regards,

John Kettler

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John,

Its really worth getting into, especially if you're into documentary. The best uk site (as far as I know) is www.uknova.com. You might have to wait a little for a membership to come up, but when you do you can get access to brilliant BBC docos on WWII, and everything else under the sun.

Latest I've seen is "the last tommie" - interviews with surviving WWI vets, also D-Day to Berlin (3 part examination of allied leadership schisms) and a whole lot of other goodies, as well as all their other material (Power of Nightmares, Mark Thomas Comedy Product etc etc).

I tell you, Bittorrent is making cable TV redundant, and makes living overseas a whole lot better.

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