Movies to watch to get in the mood for WPO.

[Tankerace]

With War Plan Orange getting closer as every day passes, I am pretty psyched up. As such, I have been watching a lot of movies (mainly older ones) to get in the feel for the era. A good number I would reccomend are:

Hell Below (1933)
Stars Robert Montgomery and Jimmy Durant. This is definately one of my favorite submarine movies, yet I didn't know about it until last year. It takes place in the Meditteranean in 1918, aboard the Submarine USS AL-14 (In real life the L class was renamed AL to avoid confusion with British boats.). While it does involve a love story, it is nicely interspersed so that at heart, it is a submarine movie. Hardware included in the movie is an L (or possibly an H) class US Submarine, stock footage of an Italian Dreadnought, several US flush deck destroyers, and Curtiss F6C-4s standing in as German biplanes. Very good look at early submarine warfare, and fairly realistic to boot.

Court Martial of Billy Mitchell (1955)
Color Movie, stars Gary Cooper. Not one of my favorites to watch as a movie, but it does have nice shots of de Havilland DH-4s, and other early Biplanes of the 1920s. Be warned though, the sinking of the Ostfriesland is a little cheesy, its clearly a small model. Still, very cool.

Task Force (1949)
Also stars Gary Cooper. This movie is awsome to watch, both for the hardware as well as a movie. Showcases old footage of the Langley, Enterprise, Yorktown, Franklin, and Saratoga, as well as various types of early aircraft (many scenes with the Vought VE-7). It shows the transition from the Langley (As being "not worth sinking compared to battleships") to the final days of WW2 with US carriers beating off Kamikaze attacks.

Blue Max (1966)
Starys James Mason, George Peppard. Not really related to War Plan Orange, but the biplane combat is pretty cool, with many of the aircraft in the movie being direct predecessors to the planes in War Plan Orange.

Shout at the Devil (1976)
Stars Lee Marvin, Karl Michael-Vogler. Not a great movie, most if it is dull and bland. However, the last half is pretty cool, with Africans trying to sabotage and sink the German Armored cruiser Blucher. While they do succeed, it is a downer considering this is not what happened in real life. Still, the ship is pretty convincing, and it is good to watch for that aspect alone.

Gallipoli (1981)
Stars Mel Gibson. A good look at the first seaborne invasion of history. Also a good watch, as it will demonstrate how WPO's landings would have been done, considering that even by the 1920's, there wasn't much amphibious training.

[Brady]

I love old movies for many reasions, non the least of which is the hardware in them[:)]

[Capt. Harlock]

A good look at the first seaborne invasion of history.

Actually, there have been seaborne invasions for almost as long as there has been warfare. (E.g. the Norman invasion of 1066.) Perhaps you meant the first invasion supported by dreadnoughts?

[Tankerace]

Perhaps I should rephrase. The First modern coordinated seaborne invasion.

[DrewMatrix]

Perhaps I should rephrase. The First modern coordinated seaborne invasion.

Yeah. As I recall there was a "seaborne invasion" right across the channel from Gallipoli, but a few years earlier. Took a while (10 years) for the invading force to prevail but they finally did. Sacked the city, brought Helen back and everything [G]

The amazing thing is, you can see Troy (or its site) from Gallipoli.

[Tankerace]

Well, by Seaborne invasion I meant like combined with a larger purpose than 10,000 guys saying Lets go sak the city, then piss off the Gods and get killed. [:D]

[DrewMatrix]

Lets go sak the city, then piss off the Gods and get killed

Yeah, the trouble with that other game on the other side of the Dardanelles was there was a pathfinding error in the AutoConvoyHome routine. It took one guy ten years just to sail back to Greece!

[Tankerace]

hahahaha. Damned Ancient Greek programmers.

[Capt. Harlock]

Well, by Seaborne invasion I meant like combined with a larger purpose than 10,000 guys saying Lets go sak the city, then piss off the Gods and get killed.

You might be interested in researching the combined Anglo-French expedition to Pekin (now Beijing) in 1860. The Allied force, numbering only 15,000 men, bested the Imperial Army in three separate battles and took the city. They didn't sack the city proper, but they did loot and burn the Summer Palace, which at that time was perhaps the greatest treasure-house in the world. (It was deliberately ordered by the the expedition commander as a retaliation for the torturing to death of several allied prisoners.) The quarrel? The Chinese were refusing to honor a treaty to allow British and French ambassadors to be installed in Pekin. For details, I highly recommend George MacDonald Fraser's "Flashman and the Dragon". (Be aware that Flashman himself is a fictional character lifted from "Tom Brown's Schooldays", but the background events are entirely accurate.)

[Oliver Heindorf]

only the last two I remember seeing on european TV. ....time for a relocation....[X(]