favorite screw ups/

I'm watching Guns of Navarone, for about the 2nd time in as many months and still love to see the VSTOL Lancaster hovering over the airfield near the beginning of the movie...what are some other movie screw ups you have seen?

 

How about the horrible model train carrying the cannons on a flatbed car in Battle of the Bulge just before it is destroyed by a German tank on the tracks. Even the scale speed that it was moving was way off.

 

The classic M47 tanks in the movie Patton.

 

Ive heard of a Storch (Stork) doing that in North Africa...big sand storm, jumped in to get out and clear the storm...only to be caught...revved up the V8 and tried to fly off...only to hover...and even fly backwards a way...first plane to do so! Gotta luv the Storch.

 

The Germans had a helicopter in "Where Eagles Dare".

 

They did have some experimentals...

 

The one they used looked operational, more like the one used in US Army in the Korean War. The place where they were was a training facility, not a proving ground.

I lifted this from imdb:

The helicopter seen landing in the castle courtyard is a Bell model 47G, not built until well after the war. While the Germans had a small number of working helicopters during the war (none of which would have been readily available to the filmmakers), the Bell does not make a convincing stand-in for any of them.

 

The Bell 47G doesn't look anything like a German wartime helicopter but the presence of a helicopter was not totally wrong and fitted the script,
Many people liked the HA-1112 Bouchon standing for Luftwaffe Me 109 in The Battle of Britain while that Merlin grated on my nerves, on the other hand the modified Texan standing for Zeros in the Black Sheep TV series were nice, (A6 for A6M was close enough in looks ), very much a matter of taste.

Plenty of working state M4 around, though you would probably have to pay a lot to get a couple of platoon's worth of them in the same place, on the other hand there is just a handful of working German WW2 vehicles so M47 as stand ins foe "cats" I can live with.

Planes need airspeed to stay up, a the Fi 156 with it's very low stall speed may well end up with negative ground speed against a strong wind.

 

I always love it as AA guns are translated to air rifles. Now that´s the way to shoot a plane down....

 

In the movie "McArthur" starring Gregory Peck in the title role, during one of the bombing scenes, a USAF Phantom jet can be seen dropping napalm. They used a lot of combat footage in the movie.

 

all very enjoyable and good to read...much thanks....Dave and KJ, now that you mention it, that sounds very funny,..I didn't ever want to watch that again, but I think I will for the laughs
CAC, I'm sure the Lysander could do same....they stay in the air just as long as the physical laws are met<>'hovering' also...the Lysander was built for STOL, I don't know about the Stork....I would think that is very possible with those aircraft..

 

Similar aircraft...but the Storks weight is less than half the Lysanders...making it a different beast...

 

good info there, I didn't know......I know they used the Lysanders for covert STOL landings<>I read a book on those ops, and it covered the Lysander also....still the Stork looks light, compared to a Lanc ''''

 

In "Yanks" there is a Nuclear Power plant in the back ground

 

Yeah...no STOL Lancs...they were super powered though. Not only could she fly on one engine, but overtake a B-17 while doing it... : )
And to remain relevant, I would say just about all the hairstyles in every movie...plus either the American or Englisg accents on Germans...

 

good point on the hairstyles!...Harrison Ford comes to mind, on that.....I think it is a disservice to servicemen to put in ridiculous and inaccurate scenes

 

That is true. Most movies set during the war having ridiculous versions of grooming. Generally they get the outfits correct and women's hairstyles accurate.

 

If I recall correctly, Germany did use a early Helicopter design in the east, sometimes to collect downed Pilots. Also there were a few American designs tested in the CBI region.

 

I wouldn't consider something like that an error; it's just that historically accurate equipment may not be available, particularly in the numbers required for large-scale battle scenes.

For example, in the movie Pursuit of the Graf Spee, the German ship is portrayed by USS Salem - would we call that a screwup because they didn't use an actual Kriegsmarine panzerschiffe?

Pursuit actually featured two of the real ships, HMS Cumberland and the former HMNZS Achilles, which was then serving in the Indian Navy as Delhi. Of course both had been modified from their 1939 configuration; Cumberland had even lost her 8" turrets for her new role as a gunnery trials ship: