Errors on German uniforms in Von Ryan.

I just watched the movie Von Ryans Express again yesterday, and I noticed some errors.

One that I cannot except, was that on Ryans German uniform, he is either a Schutzen or a Gefrieter, and he has Transportation Officers Collar Tabs, instead of the Enlisted/NCO Tabs. The same goes for Trevor Howards uniform.

Another flaw I spotted was, on one of the German Officers at one of the train station scenes, one of the officers had British Ribbon Bars on his tunic instead of German.

Another mistake I noticed was, in various scenes after the train was captured. In the room where the German CO and the Beautiful Italian gal wes held in, you see a closet with a few more Majors tunics in it. The tunic in front, has a completely different ribbon bar on it, it had fewer places.

Something annoying was, in many scenes that have the Waffen SS in them, a junior officer, kept calling his commander by using ARMY ranks, not Waffen SS.

All-in-all, still a good Sinatra vehicle.

 

I was just going to point out those same errors

 

I noticed that the collar squares were not ones I had seen on some for enlisted.

 

Another thing I noticed were all the Italian guards had German MP-40's. I dont think the Germans would have equipped them with all those.

Does anyone know"

 

Yes. The German MP-40 was used - but not widely - by the Italians in WW2. The infamous machine gun was used by the germans thru the 1960s. There are even reports of the Soviets using them in occupied east Germany as well.

 

Dear Erich, thanks for the info. I had not know about what time the MP-40's had been phased out. Come to think about it, I have seen a few photos with Italians equipped with the MP-40. I believe these were Italians who served on the Eastern Front. Also, the Spanish Division, was also equipped with German weapons.

 

Im wondering, were the Italian uniforms realistic?

 

Sorry I dont know much about Italian uniforms, but Otto is correct. I have seen photos of Italians of the same unit with different styles of uniforms

 

I noticed on alot of war movies that the collar squares and things do look pretty good. Do you suppose that they found tons of this stuff after the war and movie makers bought alot of it for their movieS?

 

If you see good looking insignia in old movies, then very good to excellent chance in the insignia being real. In movies from the late 80's to early 90's will be repo. Movies from the last 5 years or less will most likely have repo stuf that is almost or exactly identical to the ww2 insignia.

Reddick enterprises for one, sales new made SS daggers made with the same metals on the original equipment that they were made on in ww2. You cannot tell the difference. And thank god, Reddick sells them as repos.