OT: Masters of the Air

[Chickenboy]

Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks will be Executive Producers of a miniseries about the 8th Air Force in WWII. They had originally pitched this to HBO, but the deal fell through. It looks like Apple TV is picking this up now:


https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/11/entertai ... index.html

[Big B]

I had just heard of this two days ago, I'm gonna' watch it.

If any of you had or have the opportunity to watch The Cold Blue - Do So!

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks will be Executive Producers of a miniseries about the 8th Air Force in WWII. They had originally pitched this to HBO, but the deal fell through. It looks like Apple TV is picking this up now:


https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/11/entertai ... index.html

[decaro]

I read the book -- it was very informative and revealing, e.g., the 8th had more causalities than all the Marines in the Pacific during WW II.

[Yaab]

I wish there was a mini-series about less-known battles like Hurtgen Forest or Chosin.

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: Yaab

I wish there was a mini-series about less-known battles like Hurtgen Forest or Chosin.

Hurtgen Forest was covered fairly well in the Smithsonian or History Channel series about "Nazi Megastructures" - the fortifications in the forest being the megastructure. It mentioned a few of the assaults the US troops made but was not an exhaustive recounting of the battle. It did not take more than a few minutes for the viewer to understand what a deadly and difficult ground the forest was and how it fell to the poor infantryman to crawl every inch of the way through.

It was fortunate that many of the German troops were raw recruits and the too young/old replacements the Nazis threw into the line. Experienced and hardened troops would have made the battle even bloodier.

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: Big B

If any of you had or have the opportunity to watch The Cold Blue - Do So!

I had a couple days with HBO Go associated with an Amazon Prime trial, so I watched this. It was good.

[fcooke]

Hurtgen was an American nightmare. No need to really do it. The attack/offensive that is. And thankfully the Germans were stretched thin and did not put more resources into it. It joins the list of Dieppe, Peleliu, and Arnhem as 'what were you thinking' moments.....

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: fcooke

Hurtgen was an American nightmare. No need to really do it. The attack/offensive that is. And thankfully the Germans were stretched thin and did not put more resources into it. It joins the list of Dieppe, Peleliu, and Arnhem as 'what were you thinking' moments.....

I found myself wondering why the US did not evacuate their troops from the forest and then carpet bomb/napalm the forest away. The bunkers might survive but at least the troops would be able to see them and call in artillery.

[Yaab]

Does napalm even work in wet/snow conditions and low temperatures? I sawn pictures of napalm expolsions during the Chosin battle, but that was low temperature and low humidity ( Siberian air). Do not remember naplam being uses in ETO.

[spence]

Apparently it was used against bunkers/caves and was used in the ETO. It burns at something like 5000 degrees (F) and produces carbon monoxide AND uses most of the oxygen when it burns so it can burn the target directly and suffocate troops in the vicinity of its ignition. Relatively speaking. it is a point target weapon though. Hurtgen Forest encompassed too large an area (real roughly, a triangle with a base of 10 mile and a height of 10 miles, so about 50 sq miles [~250 km2)(by comparison the OP COBRA carpet bombing area was about 5 square miles or 1/10th the size).

(my conversion of English units to metric units, might be off some)

https://science.howstuffworks.com/napalm.htm