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world war series on history channel / wrong rifles shown sometimes

3K views 28 replies 14 participants last post by  soundguy 
#1 ·
have been watching the history channel world war 3 part series... I'm 2 hours into it on the DVR.

I notice that whoever filmed it had a BUNCH of enfield rifles. Occasionally you see something else like a 03?a3 or m1917 but a ton of brit rifles. they will be doing a cut scene of germans fighting then show them loading an enfield box magizine to a gun.. and then they will show closeups of fireing and you see the back of an enfield safety or cocking piece.. etc. what's with that?
 
#3 ·
occasionally you saw a mosin.. and many times you saw close up shooting scenes with a prop gun of unknown make. then you'd see a german soldier carrying a rifle and see the metal of the wrist of an enfield.

though i did see some mausers k98's just 9 times more enfields. Scene of MacArthur and a bunch of guys with #1mk3's walking around seemed odd...
 
#4 ·
I noticed the same thing soundguy. I swear in one scene there was a German using an -03
 
#7 ·
Heck---in a couple of clips they had Germans shooting LEFT HANDED SMLE's!!! Somehow
the footage was flipped---bolt handle on the left, safety on the right. Any idea what the tank was
that Patton was riding? "Big field full of tanks" were Renaults---but the one he was on looks kind of
like a post WWI Vickers?
 
#8 ·
Bill, you're way ahead of me on tanks!!!! I know the Sherman and the T-34, beyond that I'm hopeless. And I thought I saw that "left handed SMLE"!! I am not imagining things!
 
#9 ·
last night i watched about 45mins of part 2, i for sure saw german troops holding smle's WTF!?!?

don't the filmers at least know a german rifle from a brit rifle from a russian rifle. don't matter if they are exact period. at least get them correct for origin or use anyway!!!!
 
#10 ·
Was watching "The Sting" the other night and there is a scene where the actor is screwing a silencer onto a revolver, which is worthless on a wheel gun (unless you have Nagant). Also noticed a scene in "Dances With Wolves" where a soldier swims through the water carrying a Remington only to emerge holding a Colt. And somewhere out there is a CW movie where the yanks are shooting trapdoor springfields...
 
#15 ·
The movie people have to use film footage where they can get it. .
Since it was a H channel production.. they were doing the filming.. and they could have simply had the propmaster hand the correct rifles over. I HAVE seen correct examples of at least 3 they could have used. IE. mauser, enfield and 1917... So they DO have them available.

I have come to the conclusion that their researchers are not historians.
well.. as researchers.. they should know who held what. at least the correct country / rifle!!!
 
#13 ·
It is the History channel; what do you expect?

I have watched shows on that channel before, and have been dumbfounded at how far from reality they drift.

Maybe they should change the name to Historical Fiction, or Revisionist History.
 
#17 ·
since they were doing trench warfare.. i doubt any of the germans got up out of their trench.. ran thru no mans land, jumped into the allied trenches, searched out ONLY lee enfield rifles,.. then hoofed it back to their trench :)
 
#18 ·
Reference the History Channel, what was the series a few years ago about the US from Jamestown and the Pilgrims through to today? At any rate, during the Mountain Man era they showed a fella setting a modern coil spring trap instead of the period correct double longspring. They also showed some professor with a Brown Bess who couldn't hit a 4 X 8 sheet of plywood at 50 yards. Yea...they are rife with historical errors.
 
#21 ·
Both my dad and father in law went thru WWII but neither one of them would speak about it. My mother in law only found out about her hubby if some one who came back told her or if it was in the newspaper or when notified by the dept of the army. He was an excellent tracker since he hunted all his life so they made him (forget the term) the scout out in front. He was wounded on 3 separate occasions. Once in the hand but still had to go out (they told him to shoot with the other hand). Once in the shoulder (he got light duty for a couple of weeks then back to the field). He got hit with a mortar round explosion (that slowed him down for about 3 months in the hospital/recovery). His next trip on a beach landing sent him to a pow camp. He told his wife that he was treated ok but the food was terrible (but that the guards ate just as bad). He lost a lot of weight. I never got a peep put of my dad so have no idea what he was doing.
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The only time he complained was a few years before he died of colon cancer, he got a letter that they wanted to reduce his disability from $27 a month to $18. He had to go to his legislature. They then wanted to raise his disability but he said no. He just wants his $27. It was a just a personal reminder of some sort to him but he wouldn't speak about it.
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I think of how many stories out there from all wars and police actions that will never be told.
 
#23 ·
drymag, I have noticed the same thing with many WWII vets.
It seems to me that the guys who go around bragging about their exploits during the war simply were not in the thick of it.
My father in law Chuck would, on rare occasion, relate an incident or two when he was well lubricated.

One he did tell was about a particularly cruel guard who rode around the camp on his bicycle. Chuck was walking along with his friend, who was a Judo instructor, when they saw this guy peddling toward them. His buddy looked around, and no other guards were looking their direction, so when the bicycle raced right toward them to make them jump out of the way, he just stepped aside and chopped the guy in the throat. He hit the ground dead. He and chuck continued walking, as if they had seen nothing.
 
#26 ·
I'm not sure if we are talking about the same program on the History Channel, but maybe so. I also noticed the re-inactors useing the wrong rifles and the wrong tanks being used in scenes - although they were painted up with German markings and such. I noticed a lot of the scenes where they were talking about the Germans bombing some place or another - yet the bombers shown were clearly B-17s. In yet other scenes about the Blitz on England, the narrator was talking about the German air attack and a lot of the planes shown were P-51 Mustangs.

Guess you have to just chaulk it up to 'Hollywood'. In Hollywood, a gun is a gun and an airplane is an airplane.
 
#27 ·
Guess you have to just chaulk it up to 'Hollywood'. In Hollywood, a gun is a gun and an airplane is an airplane.
Sort of like the 1938 film "Dawn Patrol", in which Errol Flynn and David Niven are pictured seated in the cockpits of French Nieuport 28s in ground shots, with aerial sequences often as not using Speedwing Travelairs decked out in RFC markings, and I believe the scene in which Niven crash lands was carried out with a Thomas Morse Scout. Chances are the studio types figured "What the heck, all the planes have two wings, one cockpit, wheels, and a blade thingie that goes 'round and 'round, nobody'll notice".
 
#28 ·
It's all fiction, guys.
It's not history. It's hokey, extra actor recreations, hokey melodrama.
It's entertainment, not history.
They spend their money on costumes, which may or may not be right, extra actors, lunch for all, and not on historical research.
Anyone what tries to get an education from it will come out wrong.
dc
 
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