World War II Historian Rates 8 WWII Battles In Movies And TV | How Real Is It? | Insider

A historian who is clearly unfamiliar with Stalin's 'Order No.227' - "Not one step back". They absolutely did send waves of soldiers (often unarmed except for a few bullets under the rhetoric "The gun doesn't die, the man does") to their almost certain death. They placed "blocking units" which were essentially machine gun nests behind their own front line units in order to mow down any Soviet soldiers perceived to be falling back or retreating, regardless of what they were facing. They would also line Soviet trenches with mines meaning that they would be blown up if they attempted to move from their trench to another that was taking less gunfire or bombs. Unit commanders would follow orders to adjust the front line, from people above who had no idea what that would mean for them. There were times when they would be required to cross a choppy river (the people giving the order had no idea about) with no equipment to do so, even if their unit was comprised entirely of people who could not swim. They would order their troops into the water or be shot as traitors. They would obviously drown immediately. The commander would make them complete the order, knowing that this would almost certainly be the case AND that they were better placed on the side of the river they were currently on.. because failure to carry out these orders would result in them being placed in "Penal Battalions" for insubordination. These battalions were required to complete any suicide missions required.. ranging from storming machine gun controlled German strongholds.. to clearing a minefield by running through it to set off all of the mines. Or they would just be shot there and then of course. Commanders were known to have shot themselves upon learning that one of their troops had deserted while on sentry duty in the night because they knew the blame would fall on them and they would be subjected to one of the same fates above. If your own best mate got spooked and tried to leave a trench under heavy fire and you didn't shoot him.. YOU would be shot instead. If you surrendered or were captured then your family would be put in the Gulag.. Stalin even put his own daughter-in-law in one because his son was captured as a prisoner of war. Sometimes they would simply line the soldiers up in rows and shoot every tenth man in the face.. in a way to demonstrate how ruthlessly they would deal with anybody not following orders or showing any signs of cowardice. Stalin forbid any civilians from leaving Stalingrad even when it was obvious a horrific battle there was imminent.. the idea being that the panic of them fleeing could spread to his soldiers and that those soldiers would fight harder knowing there were civilians to protect. The Wehrmacht heavily bombed the area before the ground squads moved in.. 40,000 civilians were killed in those 48 hours of bombing.. women and children. The Soviet Union were brutal.. sending a few soldiers off to a battle without a gun would be a fart in a hurricane for them.

Fury was so underrated

Dick Winters had some issues with the depiction of the assault on Carentan. He thought it was portrayed as too chaotic, not at all the methodical and well-planned assault that is was in reality.

Spielberg's Ryan will age quickly with it's inaccuracies.

The comments on "Fury" were ... odd. No, there's not an "L-shaped" ambush in order to hit the flanks of the Americans, because it wasn't an ambush against the Americans in that particular battle. The dug-in German machine-guns were flawlessly arranged to flank _the ROAD_ ... which they _HAD_ been doing. The tanks were sent there _SPECIFICALLY_ to deal with the machine-gun ambush site. That's why it was arranged the way that it was in that movie. Also, the tanks knew there was no other armor there, so they were going in a side-by-side configuration in order to provide mobile armor for the infantry that was behind them, but that was also stuck laying down in the field, unable to move because of the machine-guns. I'm not a historian by any stretch of the imagination, I'm not an internet-expert either. _BUT_ I did watch the movie, and within the context of the movie, what they're doing makes sense. If one were to watch this scene out of context, then it would look like the tanks were just kind of traveling across the country in a side-by-side configuration with random troops walking behind them... yeah, that wouldn't make sense. *But that's not what happened in this movie.* I always feel faintly irked whenever an expert - who probably is an actual historian and expert - gets something wrong, not because they don't know their stuff, but because they don't bother to understand the context of the situation _BEFORE_ they comment on it. It's like the host of this video went and found an expert who looked expert enough to be good for YouTube, and then showed them a TikTok length video clip and asked them to expound on it. I'm sure his opinion is valid based on the truncated clip he saw... but that doesn't make it contextually accurate.

Every movie review 'expert' points out the backward obstacles in Saving Private Ryan. Find something new to whine about.

I’m glad he pointed out that Omaha beach wasn’t narrow like that. It was a running fight for your life just to get across the sand. Huge open land to make it across and the whole beach was measured and zeroed in by the Germans. And there weren’t really pillboxes like that. They were entrenched machine gun nests high on the hill shooting down from all angles.

What is "war war two"?

Sorry but a lowly captain would absolutely call in if there’s no apparent senior ranking officer on the ground. Secondly, my grandfather fought all over the place in WWII. We took him to see Saving Private Ryan. He walked out 2 minutes into the movie. He said it was too realistic.

This guy seems like he has no idea what hes talking agout half the time

ngl i thought the guy on the thumbnail was Tom Hanks

Why do historians rate battle scenes when combat veterans don’t rate historians?

1:29 that’s just not true. The cyclic rate of the MG42 was so high that it sort of balanced itself and was fairly controllable once the gunner compensated for the initial jolt of recoil. That’s why it was the best light machine gun of the war. Gunners could go cyclic on the MG42s and then have a barrel change done within 10 seconds if it overheated. The weapon was designed to have quick barrel changes. And the movie showed guys storming the beach like 100-150 yards from the MG positions. That’s nothing. You’re not using 2 second bursts in that scenario. You’re going cyclic on that landing craft until they’re all dead or you’re out of ammo.

"This idea that they would send troops without a weapon is absurd". Yes, it is absurd, but it actually happened. My wife's grandfather was a Red Army officer in WW2, and he participated in such assaults.

Nice to see him maneuver the propaganda about the soviets just being dumb numbnuts who won bc they had more man power. I mean it mostly became common after the war to not give the soviets their credit after the war was won and some of it was obviously especially in western sources bc of cold war hysteria and some is due to the causalities that soviets suffered during the war which i mean is pretty bad to suggest was due of their negligence bc most of them died in pow camps and other were civilians who were killed by an insanely genocidal Wehrmacht and waffern ss who wanted to kill everyone there bc of their weird fantasies. Its just a stain on the memory of people who became the victims of war crimes and the Hitlerian doctrine.

My grandfather witnessed machinegun teams shooting down retreating troops. It absolute truth

It's interesting to hear that Russia didn't shoot it's own people for retreating. I may be mistaken but this seems to conflict with other information I've heard on this issue in WW2.

Saving Private Ryan is still a Brilliant Film!

about "The Enemy at the Gates" - before his comments Mr Curatola should have read "Stalingrad" by Anthony Beevor

I feel like sometimes they cut some scenes from the movies…like how he was saying “I wish they showed how they were able to get up on top there”… THEY DID LIKE 3 MINUTES BEFORE THAT SCENE!!! They legit used bangalores to blow the wire and wood walls on top…if you’re gonna have someone rate a scene on accuracy then give them EVERYTHING FROM THE SCENE. OT BITS AND PIECES!!!

Where is Come and See?

So, asking thebopinion of a guy who wasn't there, to rate how close to being there these movies got it? Makes total sense.

Seems as if you are not familiar with the air bursts from a 105 howitzer Mr. Curatola...

Weither fury was accurate of not its my favorite ww2 movie

Well it's not JUST the pincer movement at Stalingrad the 62nd holding their ground on the river bank is the thing that allowed that pincer to happen in the first place.

Saving Private Ryan and band of brothers also not technically a war fighting movie but the pianist was really good

The red & green tracers in the "Fury" battle scene looked like Star Wars.

M48 Patton tanks in german hands in Patton movie, it just dind't happen.

I think first of all is for the "professor" to get some information about the experts that advise in special SPR and Band of Brothers.

I'd love an Insider on old war movies like Bridge over The River Kwai, 55 Days at Peking, Zulu.

He said nilly willy and its upsetting

The Ukrainian video of the tank cannon and the dudes makes me think the first clip is elementary

It doesn't look like a Panzer IV because it's a Panzer III

Those puffs in Patton are air burst munitions and are and were used on infantry

3:00 to 3:05 It's basically What vietnam and Iraq War veterans were scared and forced to deal with, it also Gave them Massive PTSD.

I hate this guy when he is talking about saving private ryan because he pretty much disagreeing with vets that were actually there and these vets sayed that tye movie got it perfect hmmmmmm

The Saving Private Ryan scene where bullets fly through the water always annoyed me. Bullets don’t fly through water at all. It doesn’t matter the size of the bullet, they stop immediately upon contact with the water which is the same as hitting a brick wall.

Actually the depiction in the hedgerows in Band of Brothers is accurate. Easy company held their ground while Dog and Fox company fell back as armored came out of cover. The bazooka scene actually happened. Easy company held their ground until about 2 PM at which time 2nd armor showed up. German armor did not overrun easy co. because they were not trained and panicked when the first armored vehicle was taken out by the bazooka. Had they not panicked they could have seriously compromised easy company.

“You wouldn’t use a main gun to shoot at people” HE frag rounds: am I a joke to you?

Shaving Ryan's privates

I guess since you're not supposed to hold full auto on an mg the movie doesn't work because there's no way a scared young kid wouldn't do things by the book

The Dunkirk movie is a disgrace as it doesn't even mention the french forces who held the germans heroically and fought to death so that many allied ( including a part of the french army ) could retreat to england. The way the germans commanders praised french soldiers after Dunkirk, and the amount of soldiers/materials this resistance coasted them... I don't know how those hollywood directors can disrespet history and real life heros so much !

I agree BOB is the best

From this perspective, those filmmakers seem dumb and illiterate - relying on an audience's ignorance abt the battlefield to jazz up macho action when the real thing is already as jazzed up as you could imagine! I would hone every scene down to the detail. (BTW, even Spielberg's otherwise trivial liberty in Saving Private Ryan, with the way bullets behave under water as he shows soldiers sinking beneath the waves still getting hit by gunfire; not the way the physics works. It's ok to exaggerate stuff like that in a fantasy but not depiction of a real war. Show everything like it really is!)

1:43 guy claims captain would not have been talking to commander but if he would have watched the movie he would know that captain was the highes ranking men alive.

1:25 his wrong you can shoot the mg42 as fast as you want the barrel gets changed when hot that how German made that gun

7/10 for Dunkirk haha this movie barely desserves 5

In Saving private Ryan the obstacles arnt backwards..they would have a mine at the end that would go off when a landing craft hit it

In "Saving Private Ryan" One of the most Unrealistic and Impossible scenes of the movie,is when Tom Hanks Character jumps into the Tiger and Start firing is gun through the Driver vision port,wich is not possible because the Germans Tanks had Bullet Proof Glass to protect the Driver vision port. And if that glass was "damaged" the Driver had the Periscopes as an option.

The russians are doing exactly what this guy says werent doing back then but right now in Ukraine. Meat asaults etc. Am i wrong? Why hasnt this guy mentioned it.