Fucking annoying war film fad

[The Yosemite Bear]

Of course the guy could also ask why Lord Cardigan never died in Charge of the Light Brigade. Simple the guy didn't follow his troops into the valley.

[Subnormal]

I read the book Black Hawk Down and saw the movie. From what I read about the Sammies anyone could stand up and not get shot. The idiots would run and fire into the ground, with no combat training what so ever. They would run out into the middle of the streets and fire and then reload in the middle of a fire fight. They were completely tactically inept. The only way you could get hit is if it was an accident or you were being shot at from close range, or by a large crowd. The hits from the Rpgs in the film is what gets me, in all four helicopters were hit two downed in the city but this was after possibly hundreds of the short range rocket propelled projectiles missed. The lieutenant was hit and supposedly did stand up and bark out orders but not for very long, more of a morale boost of sorts after they lost the inniscitive(SP?) after the first chopper crash. We Were Soldiers is far worse with hundreds of coned Vietnamese soldiers in a massive open field which looked like the midwest. The would have been MG fodder for hundreds of yards, Im amazed we didn't see strafing runs by Helos to pick off the horrible display of tactical delusionision. SPR is far better with the main character buying the farm for walking in the middle of the open. And only having three of the original soldiers surviving the final battle.

[2000AD]

The most annoying war film fad , IMO, is the WW2 films that take accomplishments done by Non-US forces and turn them into victories by US-forces. That just frigs me off!

eg. U-5712 (or whatever number it was)

A film about a group of AMerican commandos capturing the Enigma code machine from a German U-boat. Who did it in real life? A Group of British commandos

[The Yosemite Bear]

Hell that goes back to British Ex-pat, Teen-rapist, Nazi simp, (Erroll Flynn) holding off all of the Japanese Army by himself, in a propaganda film in 1943, which had Flynn leading a group of Americans in a battle that was acutally won my the Anzacs (With very heavy losses)

[weemadando]

The ultimate for war-film invulnerability has got to go to Colonel Kilgore in Apocapypse Now.

I mean, who else just side-steps slightly while still talking to avoid catching a mortar with his hat.

[The Yosemite Bear]

My stepdad who lost his arm. the guy next to him caught it in the crotch.

---edit---
Mind you that is one of those war stories that really creeps me out.

Their at a suposably secure base site, he bums a cig from his big southern buddy (They named him after Stonewall Jackson), and all of a sudden the NVA's open up with a motar attack. The first motar, landed right in the guy's lap and the shrapnel severs my stepdad's arm.

The wierd part was they were able to save and reattach the arm, under battlefield conditions, as far as my stepdad knows he's like one of 25 guys during the entire vietnam war what they were able to save the limb under such conditions.

[SAMAS]

The answer is Poetic Lisence, a.k.a. Plot Induced Stupidity. Or perhaps the better term is Effect Induced Stupidity.

Simply put, an officer standing tall and shouting out orders while bullets are flying everywhere makes him look hella cool to the audience. Kind of like Tom Hank's character in SPR wearing his bars on his helmet, when realistically that would make him sniper bait.

[paladin]

[RANT]I've seen it in two films, so now it's become a fad, and an extremely annoying one at that:

What am I talking about?

Larger than life officers, who happen to have a magical forcefield around them.

I'm talking of course, about Black Hawk Down, where that whatshisface Italian guy who's also in Saving Private Ryan, walks around, standing straight up, in the middle of a free fire zone, barks orders left and right, and doesn't get killed.

I'm also talking of course about We Were Soldiers, where Mel Gibson and his gruff shithead 82nd Airborne 2nd in command, walk around, standing straight up, in the middle of a FAR WORSE free fire zone, barks orders left and right, and doesn't get killed.

Let's get fucking real, shall we? In REAL war, officers who stand up straight and bark orders, point fingers, and all that other stuff are identified by the enemy as what they are- PRIME TARGETS. Any dumbfuck can spot an officer who acts like that and plug him full of holes.

Do we see this in these latest war films? Nope. Instead, we have these cockheads who deserve to get killed striding about the battlefield like titans, immune to the effects of such insignificant things as enemy fire. In fact, it's the smart soldiers who stick close to the dirt who get blown away.

If only EVERY soldier stood up, that way, all the bullets would magically avoid them like they do for these moronic officers.

The worst thing about this trend is that it shows that these fucking moron filmakers, even though they probably have military advisers with them (honestly- in we were soldiers especially what excuse could they possibly have), think that standing up in the middle of a modern battle is a sign of bravery and should be rewarded, instead of letting them be shot and killed in seconds as evidence of their incredible stupidity.[/RANT]

The phenomena of larger then life officers is nothing new to war movies. Most war movies fall in the category especially ones with John Wayne.

[ArmorPierce]

close one for you. I thought that you were going to rant on how you hate war films because they are war films in which case I would had have to flame you. I agree on the stupid officer standing up in the middle of the battlefield barking orders makes him a prime target and Hollywood should get it right. When Real officers goes walking around wearing all their medals and all dressed up in the middle of a battle they get shot.

[Joe Momma]

When Real officers goes walking around wearing all their medals and all dressed up in the middle of a battle they get shot.

My Uncle Ike told me once about a practice he and some friends used in Vietnam against officers they thought were stupid. They'd stand up and blatantly salute the offending officers whenever they walked by out in the field, hoping an enemy sniper would shoot them.

On one hand, I thought that was kinda fucked up. On the other, it seems like having a dipshit in command can get you killed a lot more easily than would otherwise be the case, so I could certainly understand why he did it.

He also mentioned (IIRC) that they could tell who the smarter officers were because those individuals had exchanged the gold rank bars on their uniforms for the much less visible black ones.

-- Joe Momma

[ArmorPierce]

LoL that was wrong, like giving a gun to a kid hoping that he would shoot himself.

[Vympel]

And in REAL war, 19 U.S. Rangers, Delta Force members, and pilots died during that battle. As sheer luck would have it, Lt. Col. McKnight wasn't one of them. He deserved to die? I'd beg to differ, but then again, being a U.S. citizen has me somewhat biased.

And did the real Lt Col McKnight act like the retard in the film? No. Anyone who acts like that deserves to get shot, I'm sorry- it's begging for a Darwin Award.

[Vympel]

The colonel there was beyond the range of the enemy. His platoons were out on the defensive perimeter holding the NVA off. He was in the center directing airstrikes/reinforcements/etc. Even if the NVA could see him, they could never identify him from his NCOs and other soldiers in the vacinity.

You obviously don't remember the film at all. At one point, he's standing up under fire and a bullet blows his flashlight away. He remains standing and fires back. At another point, his gruff cliche 2nd in command defends the command post that has been overrun by standing up in plain sight and picking NVA off with a pistol.

Real? Just what service do you belong to? What is your occupational speciality? What rank have you achieved? Not that your opinion doesn't count or anything, but I'd much prefer someone like jegs2 telling me what is "real."

None. Do you need military service to realize an officer does not put up a sign that says shoot me in a free fire zone?