ORIGINAL: m10bob
ORIGINAL: ShermanM4
Saw it Today!!!
First, there was some silly stuff.
1. All German Fokker Drei planes painted Red.
2. The love interest and Franco's acting.
3. Landing on the front lines.
4. Portraying the Germans as nothing but villanous and evil.
5. Giving Rawlings a medal for stealing a plane for personal use.
6. No mention of Raul Lufbery.
Good Stuff.
1. The planes looked great!
2. The first air battle looked pretty close to the real thing.
3. The infantry looked good. Although, the Germans kind of looked WWIIish. I didn't think they had the helmets until 1918.
4. The Lion mascot! [X(]
Overall, it is not a grognards dream. It was a descent 2 hours, and I applaud them for making a WWI flick.
The Lafayette Escadrille had 2(two) lion mascots, named Whiskey and Soda..
I will avoid this film just for the fact they did NO research whatsoever, or they would have known all of the Richtofen Geschwader had red somewhere on their plane to identify them, but there was of course only one all-red tripe..
The bolt on the side of the German WWI helmet is where the gas mask attached..This was the only serious difference (visually) between the helmets of the 2 wars, (and I believe some were in use in 1916.)
Trivia...After the Red Baron was killed, one of his replacements was Hermann Goering, flying a white Fokker D 7 with small black eliptical markings under the main wingplane ends..
Some say Manfred's younger brother Lothar was a better pilot and ace, having achieved more kills against fighters in a shorter period of time, (based on amount of time in combat).
Some of Manfreds' kills were against RE 8's, etc..
IMHO, the best German ace was Werner Voss, who (in a blue metallic tripe) survived on a solo flight against the elite of the RFC 56 squadron..
His exploits were not as well publicized because he was Jewish, and anti-semitism has existed in Europe for hundreds of years, not just recently, nor has it been just a "German" phenomena.....
I also like Voss, but
he didn't make it out of the fight, he died
but he also did well during it
Voss managed to hit every SE5 in B Flight. Some of the planes received extensive damage as described in Aces & Aeroplanes 1" "McCudden's statement that Voss 'had put some bullets through all our machines' was understating the case. The havoc that Voss had caused had been considerable.
Muspratt force-landed at No. 1 Squadron's aerodrome with a bullet in his radiator; Chidlaw-Roberts' SE was considerably shot about, although he managed to return to St Marie Cappel and Maybery's machine was hit in the upper right hand longeron and badly damaged, necessitating its return to 1AD.
Hamersley managed to land his badly damaged SE at No. 29 Squadron's aerodrome at Poperinghe. In the brief flurry of the first encounter Voss had shot through the machine's bottom left hand engine bearer, two top planes and the centre section, spars, ribs, rudder and kingpost, the water jacket on the right hand side of the engine, radiator, propeller, CC gear, generator and oil pipes, and had put 'numerous holes in the fabric'. The aeroplane was a write-off and was eventually sent to 1AD.
"Cronyn's SE5a had also been considerably damaged, and he was lucky to be able to return to his aerodrome at Estree Blanche. Cronyn later wrote to his father:
'After Mess I went up to the hangar to have a look at my machine. It was a write-off and no mistake. The right lower longeron had a bullet hole through it, while the left lower was nearly cut in two, either by "Archie" or bullets, but there was only about a quarter of an inch thickness left in one place, while about 18 inches further along three bullets had cut right through. The main spars were shot through, and one of the ribs of the tailplane was fractured, by the only bullet he had got into me while on or nearly on my tail. There were also several other bullet holes in wings and fuselage. Besides these few details, the machine was all OK! It was a miracle he didn't hit me in the engine. As a matter of fact he got one in my prop. I went to bed as soon as I had a good look over the machine, but could hardly sleep a wink. I just lay in bed perspiring, though it was quite a cold night.' "
not bad for 1 on 7
and Floating Paratroopers We grew up with Minor, Marginal and Decisive victories why rock the boat with Marginal, Decisive and Legendary?
