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Thanks for taking the time to comment so constructively. I've never heard of your channel, so I appreciate getting the opportunity to review what you have to offer. I was instantly drawn to your review of German pronunciation in this video czcams.com/video/OKDHOG1BEv4/video.html - you note that it was a redo of an earlier video which received negative attention, and as soon as I heard your "shaky American voice" say LOOOOOOFwahfuh I guess I knew why. Glass houses and all that stuff, eh. Let me know when one of your videos hits 4 million views and I'll do the same - at current rate on my leading vid, I'm hoping it will be sometime this summer. Regards from Canada, I remain yours sincerely, Shaky.

It's possible, though the other nations seem to have had much less "churn." The Red Army famously reintroduced Czarist uniform styling at about the time of Stalingrad as a Hail Mary to build morale, but I believe it was their only major change. Likewise the British Army started the war with many units still wearing Service Dress, made battle dress universal, and only made one major change, with its economy version. The Canadians changed even less, with a single pattern of BD and a few changes of insignia. And the Yanks also started in what the Germans derided as 'golf clothes', with wool shirts and wind-cheater jackets and then went the very smart 1943 combat uniform with double-buckle boots replacing the ankle boots and gaiter. Having said all that, it might be interesting to compare the Allied nations side by side over the course of the war to contrast when all these changes happened. I'll have to think on it, thank you for the suggestion.

I was actually thinking about this the other day. I found some references to them in the operations log of the Hand Grenade Division (65. Infanterie Division) and I would like to do something at some point about "summer dress' in Italy. Thanks for the suggestion - if I can find some decent references - and the time - it's on my short list.

Welcome home, and thanks for the comment.

No quibbles with most of what you say, though worth noting Dale Dye was the senior advisor on SPR. No idea how much of the "terrible tactics" were attributable to him as opposed to the script writer and director, but I've seen at the very least the idea that Hawkins mines could be turned into ad hoc command-detonated claymores laid at his feet. I'd suggest he's as susceptible to conflating modern practice with 1940s practice as anyone commenting here. For what it is worth, I've enjoyed all the films you mention. That doesn't mean discussions of authenticity aren't worth having. In fact, I've always felt that it should be taken for granted that films will get many things wrong in the sake of story-telling, and that audiences should use them as a springboard to books and memoirs to get the "real" story.

@@HandGrenadeDivision Thanks for the response. Dale Dye has stated on more than one occasion that when authenticity bumps against what the director or the screen writer wants, then authenticity loses. His job was to minimize the loss. He also knows better than to put a machine gun in a tower as they did in SPR. Machine guns are most effective when they provide grazing fire and not as a point weapon, a lesson learned in WW1. They also operate in pairs. The bridge in SPR is a choke point, knock out the tank at the entrance, and if you can’t, you blow it. Either way you deny access to the bridge. In addition, whether the bridge remained intact or not was not important as every American, British and Canadian division had Bailey Bridges (a British invention) that could be quickly, hours not days, or constructed by engineers( they are still used). But, I understand that doing it the way it was done in SPR is much more dramatic. In the Battle of the Bulge the engineers blew every bridge they came across, thus slowing down the Germans advance, and earning Pipers disparaging comment “Those damn engineers.” In Normandy, the biggest problem for the allies were not finding a bridge, but the Bocage County, i.e., the hedge rows that made every field a major battle. Instead of resorting to fiction, the film maker could have easily told a true story about actual courage and sacrifice. There were 10 Medal of Honor recipients between June 6 and June 11, 1944. Any one of their stories would have honored all those who served there, for example Walter Ehlers had been with the 1st Infantry Division since North Africa, and his brother was killed on D-Day. Thanks for posting, I enjoy reading your comments and the comments of others. I agree with you that if you really want to know what happened read a history book.

Since we're bashing SPR I'll share my favourite nit. The idiotic MG scene at the radar site. Obviously the plot demanded that someone die. Now, as you state well, MGs are valuable assets and rarely left out in the middle of nowhere alone. The scene as depicted made no sense. But you could have had all the important story elements intact if you had decided to have Miller order them through a suspected minefield to save time. In fact, the story begins with Hanks' character telling Dennis Farina's (too-old) colonel that they lost men to minefields in the fighting right after D-Day. What a great setup. You have all the dramatic elements - Miller orders them to do something risky, someone gets killed, Ed Burns' character freaks out, then the dramatic reveal of Miller's background. And you'd also lose the dumb "Steamboat Willie" subplot which ends with Upham redeeming himself - by committing a war crime against someone just doing his job. Long story short, I have a lot of issues with the movie, but the social impact of the film seems to outweigh all that. It put World War II veterans very firmly back in the public consciousness and did a great deal to promote memory of the war when it was starting to fade out. The online community that built up around the film made me friends I still have 25 years later.

@@HandGrenadeDivision I agree. I couldn’t understand why they took on one MG guarding a bombed radar cite when their order was to find Ryan. The excuse that someone else would have to do it is weak. If a rifle company had come upon it, the company commander (And I was a rifle company commander) would either use his 60mm mortars (a company commander’s hip pocket artillery). or a couple of rifle grenades. It was unnecessary to do a frontal attack, except to get someone killed as you point out. Even with all its flaws, and there are many (it’s Hollywood after all) I also agree with you that I’m glad it was made so the remaining WW2 vets could be honored. I won’t hold my breath for something like that happening for Vietnam vets.

Welcome home.

Haven't removed any comments on this one, at least not yet. Post it again and if it is on topic, informative and/or funny without being profane or attacking other commenters, odds are it will stay.

@@HandGrenadeDivision Nope, I didn't use profanity, Violent terms or ANYTHING RACIST. Just a compliment on the vid and a quick story of mine, inline with the topic. I commented early this morning when the vid dropped.

Honestly, I never saw it. Must be a glitch - please try again.

@@HandGrenadeDivision No problem. See you next vid. 👍

CZcams does this all the time, lol.

I think he ate the fish

Interesting, thank you. Dale Dye, the Marine veteran who was the military advisor on Platoon, apparently got some flak for having the soldiers refer to the helicopters as "Helos" which apparently was also a Navy/USMC term.

I wonder if it didn't happen on set, with actors who have heard the phrase all the time and used it naturally. There may well be a script writer or two cringing in their media room as they see the final product.

@HandGrenadeDivision possibly, another answer may be that it came from Dale Dye, who was an advisor on the film, though I'm assuming it was more with army lingo rather than how to operate a B-17. And since he's a Vietnam vet, he may have picked it up during his service and told it to the actors.

When I did the Canadian tactical dismounted signalers course, I was led to believe in the infantry context you could even just say "Wilco" on its own since it also communicated the fact that you had heard the previous transmission (or else, why would you comply with it?) Very interesting to see all the different perspectives in the comments (army, navy, airforce, commercial airline, private pilot, etc.)

"Roger there!"

One guesses you are not a McArthur fan.... Teddy Roosevelt, Jr., is a fascinating study in leadership. The photos of his funeral in Normandy are also amazing, given the celebrity and rank of his honorary pallbearers.

@@HandGrenadeDivision I’m a big McArthur fan. I also just happen to know that fact. It also helped growing up somewhere where the main street was named after him.

@@HandGrenadeDivision I’m a big McArthur fan. I also just happen to know that fact. It also helped growing up somewhere where the main street was named after him.

It's a topic I'm also interested in, so possibly. Thanks for the suggestion.

I was going to do the math once but never got around to it. I did do a comparison once upon a time on the "supreme awards" given for ground combat in North Africa and Italy. I counted 60 VC, 74 Medals of Honor, and about 90 Knight's Crosses. The problem here is that the Knight's Cross was also given for leadership, not just bravery in combat. The US and British had separate awards for leadership - the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) for the British for example. It makes it difficult to compare directly, and especially because you couldn't get the Knight's Cross without first getting the EK II and EK I though in rare cases concurrent awards were made. Having said all that, at least in the Mediterranean, the Allies gave out 1.5 times as many supreme awards for ground combat than the Germans. Some might say the Germans were defending which made it more difficult, but both the men in this video were rewarded for defensive actions. It's a good question.

7175 Knight's Cross (basic grade) were awarded in WWII. The Victoria Cross was awarded 181 times. Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves: 863 Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords: 143 Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords, and Diamonds: 27 Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Golden Oak Leaves, Swords, and Diamonds: 1 (to Hans-Ulrich Rudel)

@wolfthegreat87 If we exclude the KC awards given to commanders, then probably not. The VC and KC are not exact equivalents, which makes comparison difficult at times, but in terms of their prestige I’d say they’re about the same. The reason so many KCs were given out is simply because Germany had so many more soldiers involved in active combat compared to Britain, and the fighting they were forced to endure was far more brutal.