Kursk, D-Day, Bulge

Fallschirmjager · Post by **Fallschirmjager** » Wed Oct 29, 2003 5:08 am

One of the best docmentaries ive seen in "Victory at Sea"

Oriniginaly made in 1952 about the US effort in the Pacific it is one of the finest series I have seen.

They have it on DVD now too for a reasonable price

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/de ... d&n=507846

Frank W. · Post by **Frank W.** » Wed Oct 29, 2003 8:09 pm

tracer wrote: Barbarossa's delay was similar since it was done to accumulate the necessary forces, but it didn't change the outcomes of the early battles. The effect of this delay was that it gave the German forces insufficient time to capture Moscow before winter arrived.

perhaps mussolini is to blame partly.

he wanted to have some "light victories" like the germans in poland
and france so he attacked in the balkans. but his troops were even
driven back from there. so the germans had to come for aiding the
italians with the result of a succedful campaign. but this delayed the
beginning of the war against the SU and so perhaps a victory led
to a loss of op. barbarossa.

while i don´t believe that the taking of moscow had the russians brought
to their knees, they still had enough land + power left, even if moscow
had fallen, but if leningrad had fallen too - perhaps another story..

Frank W. · Post by **Frank W.** » Wed Oct 29, 2003 8:18 pm

Orzel Bialy wrote:I can't say that I disagree with what has been said thus far about the lack of backbone the German generals showed when it came to making career choices over sound military ones.

However, I don't think that can be used as the basis of a blanket statement proposing that they were an over-rated group when it came to leadership abilities.

I think a good deal of German officers had very sound characteristics except one fatal one: the moral courage to stand up to a thug dictator. Then again, who here can honestly say that they would have acted any differently under the circumstances???

When things were going good and estates were being granted for victories I think the human nature of "wanting a piece of the pie" creeped in. After all it looked like they were going to pull it off for a while there in 40-41...and a good deal were probably looking forward to the post war years and a comfortable retirement lifestyle.

Then, when things started going bad, well the chance of ending up dead for protesting too loudly became a very real possibility and that in itself is a very character-altering force.

I know I would not have cherished the possibility of trying to tell Hitler "I'm sorry...I don't agree". As as been stated in other replies it was the corrupting of the real military influence in the execution of the war by the dirty hands of party politics and loyalities that did in the general staff rather than a true lack of leadership qualities.

good posting.

i read somewhere ( perhaps it was manstein "verlorene siege - lost victories" ) that the german general had to fight on 2 fronts: against the enemy and against hitler.

but still it´s the qeusteion why they had not acted more against the crimes which were commited by the regime. some wanted a "clean" wehrmacht, they hated the SS and gestapo and refused to follow orders to shoot POW, but also they closed their eyes.

some where of course nazis themselfes and believed in the mad visions of hitler.

but most not, they just "did their job" sadly this was not the right thing to do.

but as you say already: from behind sight this is easy to say, btu how would one have acted if beeing in their shoes ? closing eyes and concentrating on your work is sometimes a easy solution.

Wild Bill · Post by **Wild Bill** » Sun Nov 02, 2003 6:40 pm

Like the Sarge, I've collected documentaries over the years, literally hundreds of them.

The best I've found is the Battlefield series. Now that series offers a wealth of information and is generally quite accurate.

The Battlefield series has continued with excellent documentaries on a smaller level. I especially enjoyed their 2 hour documentary on Korea.

Time Life published a dozen tapes on Vietnam with the Battlefield title. Those are also excellent!

As in books, visual documentaries sometimes disagree about historical events, dates, units involved, etc. One must weigh all the presentations and go with the author or presenter in whom he has the most confidence.

Victory at Sea! What a series! It evokes strong emotion just from the musical score. I have the music on CD and play it occasionally when involved in one of the very good Pacific scenarios in SPWAW, squad Battles, or any other game of my choosing.

Documentaries are a good source of learning. By the way a great docu-drama, worthy of anyone's eyes is Herman Wouk's "The Winds of War." It also is a classic with many interesting insights into the major personalities and movers in the war.

WB

Wild Bill · Post by **Wild Bill** » Sun Nov 02, 2003 6:48 pm

Oops, meant to mention that I did watch all three of "Hell's Battlefields" on the History channel. SOme of the footage presented I had not seen before and thoroughly enjoyed all three of them.

Some of the better documentary series, at least for me include:

Victory at Sea
Battlefield
World at War
Vietnam, the 10,000 Day War
Battle History of the US Marine Corps
Crusade in Europe
Crusade in the Pacific
Battle for the Pacific
Why We Fight
Masters of War
Weapons of War
Battleline
3 Part Series on D-Day
Century of Warfare

And dozens of one hour and two hour documentaries.

Those interested in the upcoming Mega Campaign Screaming Eagles, be on the lookout for the following documentaries that come on from time to time:

The Screaming Eagles
The 82nd Airborne
History of the Airborne
The Devil's Brigade

Wild Bill

Adamo · Post by **Adamo** » Sun Nov 02, 2003 7:01 pm

The Battlefield series that Tracer spoke of is excellent.

They are each one hour long and they've been showing them recently on PBS.

The titles are:

Airborne
Panzer
Army Group North
Army Group South
The Battle of Kharkov
Destruction of the Luftwaffe
The SS

Last Wednesday, my local PBS affiliate showed one called Operation Market Garden, very good!

etc.

They are very good, if you can find them, grab them!

adamo

tracer · Post by **tracer** » Sun Nov 02, 2003 8:16 pm

Adamo wrote:The Battlefield series that Tracer spoke of is excellent.

They are each one hour long and they've been showing them recently on PBS.

The titles are:

Airborne
Panzer
Army Group North
Army Group South
The Battle of Kharkov
Destruction of the Luftwaffe
The SS

Last Wednesday, my local PBS affiliate showed one called Operation Market Garden, very good!

etc.

They are very good, if you can find them, grab them!

adamo

I checked the PBS site but could only find the Battlefield:Viet Nam programs. While there I spotted another excellent series: the American Experience by Ken Burns. The D-Day and Bulge episodes are among the best I've seen....in-depth and include lots of interviews with veterans who were there.

If anyone knows where I can find more info on the Battlefield series I'd appreciate it. I spent an hour or so doing Google and Yahoo searches and couldn't find anything substantial. Even Amazon and EBay had very little considering how many episodes there were.

tracer · Post by **tracer** » Mon Nov 03, 2003 10:58 pm

After searching for 3 days I've learned those Battlefield tapes are harder to find than a Chinese redhead. If anyone knows of a source, or has a list of all the episodes, I'd appreciate it.

While searching the PBS site I found these if anyone's interested:

tracer · Post by **tracer** » Wed Nov 05, 2003 4:33 am

Adamo wrote:The Battlefield series that Tracer spoke of is excellent.

They are each one hour long and they've been showing them recently on PBS.

The titles are:

Airborne
Panzer
Army Group North
Army Group South
The Battle of Kharkov
Destruction of the Luftwaffe
The SS

Last Wednesday, my local PBS affiliate showed one called Operation Market Garden, very good!

etc.

They are very good, if you can find them, grab them!

adamo

I received a reply from Time-Life, and this is the episode list they provided me:

THE BATTLE OF FRANCE: PRELUDE TO BATTLE
THE BATTLE OF FRANCE: THE BATTLE
THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN: PRELUDE TO BATTLE
THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN: THE BATTLE
THE BATTLE OF MIDWAY: PRELUDE TO BATTLE
THE BATTLE OF MIDWAY: THE BATTLE
THE BATTLE OF STALINGRAD: PRELUDE TO BATTLE
THE BATTLE OF STALINGRAD: THE BATTLE
THE BATTLE OF NORMANDY: PRELUDE TO BATTLE
THE BATTLE OF NORMANDY: THE BATTLE
THE BATTLE OF BERLIN: PRELUDE TO BATTLE
THE BATTLE OF BERLIN: THE BATTLE
BATTLE FOR NORTH AFRICA: PRELUDE TO BATTLE
BATTLE FOR NORTH AFRICA: THE BATTLE
BATTLE OF THE ATLANTICS: PRELUDE TO BATTLE
BATTLE OF THE ATLANTICS: THE BATTLE
BATTLE FOR RUSSIA: PRELUDE TO BATTLE
BATTLE FOR RUSSIA: THE BATTLE
BATTLE FOR ITALY: PRELUDE TO BATTLE
BATTLE FOR ITALY: THE BATTLE
BATTLE OF LEYTE GULF: PRELUDE TO BATTLE
BATTLE OF LEYTE GULF: THE BATTLE
BATTLE OF THE RHINE: PRELUDE TO BATTLE
THE BATTLE OF THE RHINE: THE BATTLE

Can anyone shed some light on this?

The programs Adamo listed sound great; could there be another series of the same name, but published by someone other than Time-Life? I recall a similar series called 'Battleground': could those programs be part of that set?

Any and all help appreciated

Wild Bill · Post by **Wild Bill** » Wed Nov 05, 2003 9:11 am

Those are in my opinion some of the best of the series.

The other, shorter ones that Adamo mentioned can probably be gotten from Video Finders. They've been on PBS-TV. I called in reference to them and they said that was where I could obtain them.

I think it would be videofinders.com. I have an 800 number for them but cannot find it now.

WB