They had no panzer tanks for production as they had all been destroyed for the most part in 45 . Plus you cant do a swing maneuver like 8:24 in a Tiger Tank . Too heavy , Too Slow .
@Umanflyumanfly Totally understand how difficult it would have been to get actual WW2 German tanks, if not impossible. I think they did a great job with what they had.
@@josiah5776 If this a great job one of two words needs redefinition. Most Vets who saw this picture when it came out panned the hell out of it, and with good reason.
@@rocistone6570I'm a veteran tanker too, who saw combat in tanks. I know there are so many things wrong with the movie ... but I still find it entertaining to this day. I don't consider it a documentary ... just entertainment.
I hate to be a spoilsport, but it's bad enough that M47 Pattons for Tigers, but M24s for M4 Shermans. I would have thought there were still enough M4s around. Don't crucify me. Just my 2 cents.
What they wanted to do there is show a visual difference in size which would be noticeable if a Tiger 2 and a Sherman stood next to each other in battle.
No, there weren't. Since the Army had to go to Korea with the Sherman, they were quick to dump them once the M46s and M47s were developed. That is why Kelley's Heroes had to be filmed in Yugoslavia. That country accepted the Marshall Plan deal 20 years earlier and still had hundreds of Shermans and Halftracks.
I also wanted to add that Patton (1970) was filmed just a few years later. Some of the scenes were also shot in Spain. It is virtually the same phenomenon. Many M24 Chaffees and M47 and M48 Pattons are driving around. However, the battle scenes were supposed to be in North Africa, so it looks better. The M24 was in service with the US Army during WWII, so it is not that bad. Although, I would argue that Patton does a more credible job despite a lot of fiction being worked into that story as well. Both films miss certain historical details, but I still think it is forgivable.
@@mikeoyler2983 Actually in 1965 there were lots of Shermans still around, some even in service. As I recall the Israelis were still using Shermans decades after WW2. Also, since the REAL Bulge never had any massive tank battle like this they could have still filmed the movie using fewer tanks
Indeed - destroys the credibility of the picture. Shot near Madrid - one of the many sweetheart deals which Franco's regime did with Hollywood during the 1960s. It was a better landscape for David Lean's Zhivago, as it resembles the steppe, but Lean used industrial quantities of foam to create 'snow'.
@fatcat3211 Yep, thanks for pointing this out. The bulk of the "German Wehrmacht" tanks are the *M 47* edition of the Patton tank - over half were supplied to the movie by Franco's Spanish Army. The "Americans" are fighting in the M 24 Chaffee light tank - the producers thought this would show the size difference between the American and German tanks at the Battle of the Bulge". But it really just looks weird, especially without the forest...
I've loved this movie since I was a child and used to watch war movies with my Dad. Only now, decades later and after serving in the U.S. Marine Corps as a machine gunner do I actually realize how utterly outrageous this movie is. Aside from the fact it's supposed to be about The Battle of The Bulge the battle scene in the movie takes place in the Sierra De Guadarrama Mountain Range outside Madrid, Spain instead of the snow covered Ardennes forest in Belgium and France where it actually occurred. Also, the Germans are shown using post WW2 US M47 tanks and U.S. Deuce and a half trucks while the U.S. is shown with Chafee tanks that weren't even developed until several years after WW2 ended.
The Chaffee tank was actually used in the latter part of WW2. But was a light tank used for reconaissance and infanty-support. In a direct conftrontation with panzers they were very vulnerable indeed.
Dude, the same happened to me. I watched this movie when I was a kid and went Marine as well. Being the history buff I am, I read where there was no massed tank battle in the Ardennes. The ones who can be credited for running the Germans out of gas were the combat engineers. People who have never worn a uniform or read history don't know about Hollywoods practice of 'embellishment'. 'Band of Brothers' was another example.
British were fighting in the battle of the bulge, some British landed at Omaha beach, many landing craft were manned by royal navy personnel, most war films are incorrect , winter 1944 low cloud and snow,
Well the tanks aren't really wrong because after the Cold War the US donated dozens of M47 and M48 Pattons to germany. Yes the era of the tank maybe wrong and they couldn't do anything about it because literally all of the German tanks were destroyed by the Germans before allies could capture them.
@daveid6244 no, in fact, it is not. By almost all accounts its horrible and according to the verterans it is depicting, there hasnt been a worst war movie made. Its kind of 5hw point of thwse comments.
Anyone else here remember the B&W TV show "Combat" with Vic Morrow? Being from California myself I recognized that the trees were frequently eucalyptus....never knew those grew in such profusion across Europe
I remember going to the cinema with my big brother to watch this movie. It must have been the winter of 77/78. He died a few months later in a motor accident. I still remember what he looked like that night. Still miss him.
Actually, the Germans would have been instantly overwhelmed and destroyed in an open battle like this. That's why they attacked through the forest and in overcast weather (something the film makers decided to forget about in this scene).
@@kenharvey8161 It depends, as they hoped the Ardennes would be guarded the same as it was at the opening of World War 2. If it was an open front, the initial attack would have been far more successful (taking into note, that the allied airpower would not intervene) against the lightly armed troops that were present at the time. If this situation presented itself and they would attack with the panzer regiments/battalions they could have made many gains - in the Ardennes the roads were often clogged and lead to fuel and time being wasted - which were the keys to make it to Antwerp. And if you ask me personally, they should have used half the tanks (there were already too many assigned for the small roads in the Ardennes, at the start of the war the panzers were light and mobile - not so much towards the end).
@@kenharvey8161 nope. They didn't wait for bad weather because they were "overwhelmed"... it was just about the allied airforce being grounded. In an open tank battle with no air support on neither side chances usually were in high favour for the germans, regardless if eastern or western or southern front. Artillery and air superiority, that's what the US excelled in. Tank / infantry employment was something they had no idea about. Other than the Brits.
@@void1968able First, I didn't say that the Germans were 'overwhelmed', I said they would have been overwhelmed if they attacked in the open due to Allied air superiority - and also Allied superiority in numbers and quality armor, especially at this point in the war. I think you are wrong about tank deployment - the US did quite well in that area, and the Russians actually won many of their tank battles with the Germans. The myth of the greatness of the Panther and Tiger tanks has been known to be just that, a myth, for decades now. But since we agree that the Germans would have been 'overwhelmed' if they had attacked in good weather, there is no point in arguing those other points.
*If ever a movie was screaming for a proper remake, this has to be at the top. When i was a little kid I asked my mom why my uncle Louis walked 'funny'. I later came to understand he lost the front of both his feet to frostbite during the winter of the campaign in the Arden. He was a humble, sweet guy who made it home and raised 3 kids.*
8:05 : Artillery commander shouting that the Allies had 5,000 ships during The Longest Day, retreated to become a fuel handler in The Battle of the Bulge, then walked back to Germany to become the local security commander at The Bridge at Remagen. Spoiler alert : he will surrender.
Well that American Tank commander, would later be court-martialed, and pardoned to join a 12 man commando unit with poor hygiene. Then he became a New York cop and lated the head os SPECTRE.
The actor who played him, Hans Christian Blech, was in real life a Panzer Grenadier who fought on the Eastern Front. He was captured in Hungary and survived four years of Soviet captivity -I don't know what he thought about having to re-live that part of his youth over and over again in cinema...
This is almost criminally fatuous and stupid Hollywood recreation of history. An insult. A REAL movie with attention to detail like The Pacific needs to be made of this battle.
They should have included Colin Rand Kaepernick an American civil rights activist tank driver in a fur covered chrome plated Leopard 2A5 tank! Jus sayin! Shizzle the Nizzle.
The Ardennes (where the battle of the bulge was fought) is an area of extensive forests, rough terrain, rolling hills and ridges and lots of snow in December/January.
@@flitsertheo I know... I am Spanish... The film was recorded in a military training ground. Fun fact: The Spanish military personnel LOVED to film this picture, as they were assigned more ammo to practice than in a whole regular year...
Just as ridiculous as using contemporary 1960's tanks to "simulate" the Battle of the Bulge. Same with the picture perfect clear sky. If the German Wehrmacht had attacked without bad weather, Allied Air Forces would have decimated the Wehrmacht - that was the whole point of the timing of their attack... "winter weather"
I saw this as a child and didnt think a great deal about the California desert and American tanks used in place of panzers. More challenging to enjoy as an adult given the quality of many films made more recently.
3:29 what the hell are the Chaffees even aiming and shooting at? There are "Tigers" to their direct front and their guns are up in the air and pointed at nothing. Oh and Winter in the Ardennes sure looks strange. Finally great tactics taking the low ground!
I was at Ft. Billis when Bradley lived there! We would often see his car drive around on base. My boyfriend says that they had to practice everyday for his funeral. Funny how that works out. He was Active duty Army and I was in Jr. High!
I have to say, I love this film. It's fairly upfront with its intentions, it's excellently shot, acted, and the action scenes are stunning. The soundtrack is rousing, complementing the combat sequences. As an accurate depiction of history, it falters at every hurdle, but so does every great historical film, often to more ridiculous extents than Bulge. As an example of 1960s roadshow cinema, it's excellent. Criticisms of the M47s and M24s simply aren't legitimate, as it was impossible even immediately after the war to find enough accurate armoured vehicles for big-scale war films. If you want history on film, watch The World at War.
Okay, acknowledging the facts that this is strictly a Hollywood script with a whole lot of inaccuracies, this was still a fun movie to watch as a much younger man, and it's still pretty good.
Peiper was still alive when it was made however another Ex panzer commander was A technical adviser but they didnt heed his knowledge Of the actual battle fought in Winter conditions!
I'm glad that war criminal and general Nazi promoter Joachim Peiper was not involved in this film. SS - Standartenfüher Joachim Peiper had been in command of the 1st SS Panzer Division during the earlier Boves massacre and at the Malmedy Massacre at The Battle of the Bulge - where his unit rounded up American P. O. W.'s and shot them in cold blood, leaving the corpses laying in the snow. Peiper was supposed to have a death sentence by the Dachau Military Tribunal, but after much lying about mistreatment by American "Jewish" investigators, this was commuted to "life imprisonment", that was reduced to only 35 year in jail, which turned into 8 years in jail for leading a massacre. He was active with the Nazi apologist and Waffen - SS promotion HIAG group, till things ended badly for him in 1976.. Another Nazi scumbag took his place as "advisor" to this movie.
The "Germans" are in the bigger M 47 Patton tank. The "Americans" are in the smaller M 24 Chaffee light tanks (a few of which did actually serve in reconnaissance roles during WWII).
It's absolutely hilarious how movies always depict tank interiors as spacious with room to sit by your buddy and look him in the face...not so tight that if you move 4 inches in ANY direction anywhere inside ANY tank you will bang your head,body or both into controls and bulkheads.😂
Anytime this channel posts war movies, people instantly complain about the historical inaccuracies. Just be thankful a movie at all was made about the incidents, with mutiple cast members who served in the war. No remake with today's "stars" could equal that, no matter how many CGI Tanks you purists want so badly. If you want historical accuracy, read a book or go to a museum. If any film has inspired you to do that, it's succeeded, which was probably the point in the first place. This is just my humble opinion.
I agree with you concerning the tanks and I really love this movie, but come on, this is supposed to be the Ardennes in one of the coldest winters 1944-45 and they are riding over dusty plains
Robert Shaw made a perfect German commander, had a terrific career and went on to star in the Jaws movie. I agree with my wife when she said Robert Shaw was so handsome on that movie and even when he was older.
I love this movie, I forgive the fact they’re having the battle on a Spanish plain and Guffy’s whole crew would have been immolated by that blast. Telly. This and Big Joe from Kelly’s Heroes. Best portrayal of an nco.
A moment of silence please for all the 75m shells that ricocheted, even though they blew a wood and canvas turret clean apart, or blew a 10' wide crater in the ground.
The Germans looked like they'd just come from their regimental tailors to parade in pristine uniforms !!! The only good thing about this film was some top rate actors, especially the late great Robert Shaw.
Gee, I had no idea the Battle of the Bulge was Kursk II. Also, no narrow streets, no alpine geography, no trees. BUT!! In 1965 there is no CGI, use what you can get for production, filming on location impossible. I give the movie maker an ovation for effort.
Como en toda película hay un mensaje y una moraleja, este film no es la representación exacta de la Batalla de las Árdenas, pero eso no le quita el mérito de reflejar episodios relacionados donde existe interacción de los personajes de ambos bandos, y sobre todo el desempeño que tienen los blindados en escenarios de combate, lo que hace que sea una película excepcional, uno de los mejores productos que ha dado la industria del cine en éste género.
I realize I'm being too critical, but I want this movie to be realistic as far as movies go, but when I see the Germans using American tanks with German markings, I can't do it.
It’s kind of funny to see a squadron of M24 Chaffee light tanks that were limited in numbers at the end of the war go head to head with American M47 Patton I Medium tanks that were developed in the early 50’s being passed off as Tigers.
In 1944 the ardennes was a desert. Ongoing from 1950 some trees was growing there. And it was so sunny and hot there. And of course germans used only M47 Patton, and US-Army used not M4 Sherman tanks, but only light tanks M 24 Chaffee, made for reconnaissance and not as main battle tanks. No airforce was there, and no infantry. This was the real battle of the bulge. And this is a joke.
American tanks fighting vs. american tanks? I finally got it! This must be the famous civil war our teacher told us about. 1860ies or 1960ies, something like that, I guess 😊
Hey wh what happened to the Snow??? Op Wacht Am Rhein happened in Winter of 1944! Anyways I love this Movie as a Kid and part of My WW2 movie Collections.
I was never bothered by the M47/48's and M24's being used. It's what was readily available in Spain when they filmed this plus it basically showed a difference in size to give the audience some sense of scale. Besides... M47/48's battling M24's in real life would probably closely resemble the same outcome of real Tigers vs Shermans all things considered.
Ok ok, let me ask you a question, what hair spray makes the best flamethrower to melt your soldiers from the big ass game of battlefield. Admit it you've done it
The US were lucky because in a real tank battle like at Kursk, the Germans would have driven them back to Normandy. A two-front war was really Hitler's worst idea.
Interesting documentary about NATO tank crews training in 1960's. They were anticipating to be deployed somwhere in the Middle East, therefore they train hard in the desert. Small inacuracy - some of them are wearing German WW2 uniforms.
hey, they did the best they could. no cgi. its not like shermans were free and ready to roll. imagine what it cost them to get all those tanks together. and of course you can't damage one. Makes you really appreciate what they can do with CGI
There is a real one still standing (about) where its crew left it, in La Gleize, Belgium. A lucky shot destroyed its gun barrel. That's about all the damage Allied tanks could do to this monster, except scratching the paint. There is also a running one in the Saumur museum in France.
I saw this film when I was in Secudaris and I was fascinated, but when I saw the scenes and knew that the Battle of the Bulge was in winter in a completely snowy forest, it struck me that they had filmed it in a desert.
Although this is proposterously historically inaccurate, I really like this scene - it's an exciting battle, and the undergunned American tanks sacrificing themselves to slow the German column is appropriately heroic. A battle similar to this one actually DID happen in Tunisia in 1943 after the Battle of Kasserine Pass, when a regiment of American light tanks under BG Robinett took on Rommel's heavier tanks. The American tanks were mostly destroyed but Rommel's advance was stopped. When Robinnett's superior, stunned by the losses, told Robinett "you have ruined me!", Robinett replied, "no, sir, I have saved you." And so it was. Ironically, Tunisia looks a lot more like Spain, where the BOTB was filmed, than Belgium. You could insert this sequence into a film version of Rick Atkinson's "An Army at Dawn" and it would probably work.
There is already a better version of the story of The Battle of the Bulge - _Battleground_ (1949!) or the parts of _Band of Brothers_ that cover this time.
I think the producers were thinking of the Tank Battle that happened in Prokhorovka as part of the 1943 Battle of Kursk when they filmed this scene. Sure the movie is historically inaccurate, but there will never be another film involving 65+ real tanks shooting at each other, all modern movies use cheap CGI.
The infamous Ardenne's desert
lol -- first of the movie was in cold and snow --- I don't understand it unless they went woke lol
@@gordonhall9871 Climate change you know. ;)
@@gordonhall9871 how does a poor movie filming location in 1965 mean woke?
Bravo sir
As a kid…like 50 years ago…great movie…now…meh
Wrong tanks. Wrong terrain. Wrong tactics. But man, I still LOVE this movie! 😃
They had no panzer tanks for production as they had all been destroyed for the most part in 45 .
Plus you cant do a swing maneuver like 8:24 in a Tiger Tank . Too heavy , Too Slow .
@Umanflyumanfly Totally understand how difficult it would have been to get actual WW2 German tanks, if not impossible. I think they did a great job with what they had.
Wrong ammo too. No "Hyper-shot."
@@josiah5776 If this a great job one of two words needs redefinition. Most Vets who saw this picture when it came out panned the hell out of it, and with good reason.
@@rocistone6570I'm a veteran tanker too, who saw combat in tanks. I know there are so many things wrong with the movie ... but I still find it entertaining to this day. I don't consider it a documentary ... just entertainment.
I hate to be a spoilsport, but it's bad enough that M47 Pattons for Tigers, but M24s for M4 Shermans. I would have thought there were still enough M4s around. Don't crucify me. Just my 2 cents.
What they wanted to do there is show a visual difference in size which would be noticeable if a Tiger 2 and a Sherman stood next to each other in battle.
No, there weren't. Since the Army had to go to Korea with the Sherman, they were quick to dump them once the M46s and M47s were developed. That is why Kelley's Heroes had to be filmed in Yugoslavia. That country accepted the Marshall Plan deal 20 years earlier and still had hundreds of Shermans and Halftracks.
I also wanted to add that Patton (1970) was filmed just a few years later. Some of the scenes were also shot in Spain. It is virtually the same phenomenon. Many M24 Chaffees and M47 and M48 Pattons are driving around. However, the battle scenes were supposed to be in North Africa, so it looks better. The M24 was in service with the US Army during WWII, so it is not that bad. Although, I would argue that Patton does a more credible job despite a lot of fiction being worked into that story as well. Both films miss certain historical details, but I still think it is forgivable.
@@mikeoyler2983 Actually in 1965 there were lots of Shermans still around, some even in service. As I recall the Israelis were still using Shermans decades after WW2. Also, since the REAL Bulge never had any massive tank battle like this they could have still filmed the movie using fewer tanks
@@mikeoyler2983Both films are almost entirely fiction. It was fun cinema, but terrible history and lazy fillmaking
Ah the Ardennes in winter, where the Chaffees and M48s bloom. A good classic film though, despite various inaccuracies.
Indeed - destroys the credibility of the picture. Shot near Madrid - one of the many sweetheart deals which Franco's regime did with Hollywood during the 1960s. It was a better landscape for David Lean's Zhivago, as it resembles the steppe, but Lean used industrial quantities of foam to create 'snow'.
Despite the glaring historical mistakes, this is a competently made film.
General: Come In!
m47s
@fatcat3211 Yep, thanks for pointing this out. The bulk of the "German Wehrmacht" tanks are the *M 47* edition of the Patton tank - over half were supplied to the movie by Franco's Spanish Army. The "Americans" are fighting in the M 24 Chaffee light tank - the producers thought this would show the size difference between the American and German tanks at the Battle of the Bulge". But it really just looks weird, especially without the forest...
The tanks look like M-47 Pattons and M-24 Chaffies. I never noticed as a kid when I saw the movie for the first time. Also the desert terrain.
Very hard to find a Tiger tank for cinematic purposes in 1965. At least the story this movie put out was really good!
Neither me.
My brother, however, could't say... he was asleep
My God! That WW2 must been terrifying!
I'm just glad no one got hurt.
I was thinking the same. Just lots of explosions and dramatic scenes…
Google "Eisenhower Came Out of Retirement to Denounce the Movie “Battle of the Bulge”"
Only Hollywood could have your whole turret blown off, in a desert in Belgium, and you are still on the radio with one wounded.
😂 Wow is in the army and europe and never realized how big the desert was there! 😅😅😅
Exactly! My brother and I, even as kids, got a big kick out that one.
Meanwhile we go into a restaurant and lose our cell connection
Alles Lügen....
I've loved this movie since I was a child and used to watch war movies with my Dad. Only now, decades later and after serving in the U.S. Marine Corps as a machine gunner do I actually realize how utterly outrageous this movie is. Aside from the fact it's supposed to be about The Battle of The Bulge the battle scene in the movie takes place in the Sierra De Guadarrama Mountain Range outside Madrid, Spain instead of the snow covered Ardennes forest in Belgium and France where it actually occurred. Also, the Germans are shown using post WW2 US M47 tanks and U.S. Deuce and a half trucks while the U.S. is shown with Chafee tanks that weren't even developed until several years after WW2 ended.
The Chaffee tank was actually used in the latter part of WW2. But was a light tank used for reconaissance and infanty-support. In a direct conftrontation with panzers they were very vulnerable indeed.
Dude, the same happened to me. I watched this movie when I was a kid and went Marine as well. Being the history buff I am, I read where there was no massed tank battle in the Ardennes. The ones who can be credited for running the Germans out of gas were the combat engineers. People who have never worn a uniform or read history don't know about Hollywoods practice of 'embellishment'. 'Band of Brothers' was another example.
@patrickbrinkmeier2691 where did you expect them to dig up a hundred functioning panzers from?
@@pato2200. Well, they could have at least used the Leopard tank which was the tank of West Germany when this movie was filmed in 1965.
@patrickbrinkmeier2691 it was illegal on germany to deploy firces or materiel outside germany according to the then postear german constitution.
Since the Battle of the Bulge was in December, where is all the snow? Pretty barren part of Belgium, didn't know they had desert there.
global warming...
Even Dwight D. Eisenhower was disgusted over this highly inaccurate film.
back in the 60s, there was no internet, so people couldn't know the difference between snow and sand..
In those days they had books.
There is literally nothing correct about this. Wrong location, tanks, weather... they were lucky to have it americans vs. germans.
British were fighting in the battle of the bulge, some British landed at Omaha beach, many landing craft were manned by royal navy personnel, most war films are incorrect , winter 1944 low cloud and snow,
Well the tanks aren't really wrong because after the Cold War the US donated dozens of M47 and M48 Pattons to germany. Yes the era of the tank maybe wrong and they couldn't do anything about it because literally all of the German tanks were destroyed by the Germans before allies could capture them.
Who cares it's a bloody good well done. Movie
@daveid6244 no, in fact, it is not. By almost all accounts its horrible and according to the verterans it is depicting, there hasnt been a worst war movie made. Its kind of 5hw point of thwse comments.
Anyone else here remember the B&W TV show "Combat" with Vic Morrow? Being from California myself I recognized that the trees were frequently eucalyptus....never knew those grew in such profusion across Europe
I still watch it that and Rat Patrol
And occasionally on some distant planets. If anyone wants to see a eucalyptus they're the ones that stick up above the upper rim of the Rose Bowl.
I remember going to the cinema with my big brother to watch this movie. It must have been the winter of 77/78. He died a few months later in a motor accident. I still remember what he looked like that night. Still miss him.
I am very sorry for your loss. May God comforts you, give you grace, peace and strength to move on with life.
@@gabriellam9849 🙏
Sorry for the loss of your brother, I can only imagine how hard it was for you.
@@guslakis thank you for your kind words 🙏
The Germans were hampered by only having a half dozen roads available.They could only wish for an open battle like this.
Actually, the Germans would have been instantly overwhelmed and destroyed in an open battle like this. That's why they attacked through the forest and in overcast weather (something the film makers decided to forget about in this scene).
@@kenharvey8161 It depends, as they hoped the Ardennes would be guarded the same as it was at the opening of World War 2. If it was an open front, the initial attack would have been far more successful (taking into note, that the allied airpower would not intervene) against the lightly armed troops that were present at the time. If this situation presented itself and they would attack with the panzer regiments/battalions they could have made many gains - in the Ardennes the roads were often clogged and lead to fuel and time being wasted - which were the keys to make it to Antwerp. And if you ask me personally, they should have used half the tanks (there were already too many assigned for the small roads in the Ardennes, at the start of the war the panzers were light and mobile - not so much towards the end).
@@DutchGuyMike
No, the Germans lost
Calm down
@@kenharvey8161 nope. They didn't wait for bad weather because they were "overwhelmed"... it was just about the allied airforce being grounded. In an open tank battle with no air support on neither side chances usually were in high favour for the germans, regardless if eastern or western or southern front. Artillery and air superiority, that's what the US excelled in. Tank / infantry employment was something they had no idea about. Other than the Brits.
@@void1968able First, I didn't say that the Germans were 'overwhelmed', I said they would have been overwhelmed if they attacked in the open due to Allied air superiority - and also Allied superiority in numbers and quality armor, especially at this point in the war. I think you are wrong about tank deployment - the US did quite well in that area, and the Russians actually won many of their tank battles with the Germans. The myth of the greatness of the Panther and Tiger tanks has been known to be just that, a myth, for decades now. But since we agree that the Germans would have been 'overwhelmed' if they had attacked in good weather, there is no point in arguing those other points.
*If ever a movie was screaming for a proper remake, this has to be at the top. When i was a little kid I asked my mom why my uncle Louis walked 'funny'. I later came to understand he lost the front of both his feet to frostbite during the winter of the campaign in the Arden. He was a humble, sweet guy who made it home and raised 3 kids.*
Ardennes.
E X A C T L Y (Nice Spielberg project)
I´d be content with a little AI treatment like replacing the Tanks with actually used models and the real landscape
8:05 : Artillery commander shouting that the Allies had 5,000 ships during The Longest Day, retreated to become a fuel handler in The Battle of the Bulge, then walked back to Germany to become the local security commander at The Bridge at Remagen.
Spoiler alert : he will surrender.
😂
Jerry got around 😊
Well that American Tank commander, would later be court-martialed, and pardoned to join a 12 man commando unit with poor hygiene. Then he became a New York cop and lated the head os SPECTRE.
The actor who played him, Hans Christian Blech, was in real life a Panzer Grenadier who fought on the Eastern Front. He was captured in Hungary and survived four years of Soviet captivity -I don't know what he thought about having to re-live that part of his youth over and over again in cinema...
This is almost criminally fatuous and stupid Hollywood recreation of history. An insult. A REAL movie with attention to detail like The Pacific needs to be made of this battle.
The Ardennes was warmer and dustier than I envisioned for the dead of winter.
Global warming apparently....
You can see why they got the jump on the French and Americans.
God, this REALLY needs a remake...
Yes I think someone needed to tell the producers of this film, the battle of the bulge did not occur in Tunisia. Maybe have a remake in Belgium.
They already made a far better movie _Battleground_ (1949)
They should have included Colin Rand Kaepernick an American civil rights activist tank driver in a fur covered chrome plated Leopard 2A5 tank! Jus sayin! Shizzle the Nizzle.
Yes that would be cool and maybe the tanks could actually be WW2 Tanks and the fighting will be in the forest of Belgium not the California Desert.
@@StuartRyan-yi5ok There are plenty of real and running German WW 2 vehicles available in Europe. Even if they can't ship Tiger 131 from the UK.
The Ardennes (where the battle of the bulge was fought) is an area of extensive forests, rough terrain, rolling hills and ridges and lots of snow in December/January.
You see, climate change was a thing even in 1944, LOL
@melvinjohnson2074. Agree . Exactly . 😎🇮🇹🇺🇸
Problems of filming in Spain with spanish army tanks...😂
@@juanpastrana1217 Even in Spain they have woods.
@@flitsertheo I know... I am Spanish... The film was recorded in a military training ground. Fun fact: The Spanish military personnel LOVED to film this picture, as they were assigned more ammo to practice than in a whole regular year...
Ardennes battle in the spanish desert! Ridiculous.
Agree
Franco's Spain
Just as ridiculous as using contemporary 1960's tanks to "simulate" the Battle of the Bulge. Same with the picture perfect clear sky. If the German Wehrmacht had attacked without bad weather, Allied Air Forces would have decimated the Wehrmacht - that was the whole point of the timing of their attack... "winter weather"
I saw this as a child and didnt think a great deal about the California desert and American tanks used in place of panzers. More challenging to enjoy as an adult given the quality of many films made more recently.
Movie was so bad but a guilty pleasure to watch.
Absolutely, my favorite WWII movie! Ty Harden deserved an oscar.
3:29 what the hell are the Chaffees even aiming and shooting at? There are "Tigers" to their direct front and their guns are up in the air and pointed at nothing. Oh and Winter in the Ardennes sure looks strange. Finally great tactics taking the low ground!
I love how Robert Shaw brings his RV into battle.
While some of the scenes have several discrepancies in them, the action and the actors are excellent to watch.
I love this film. I watch it all the time. It's my favourite war movie. Please bring it out on 4k blu-ray! It's such a great war film.
@@davidarmstrong7549 Agree
4K Blu Ray has declined almost entirely, in favor of just standard Blu Rays
Wrong weather, wrong terrain, wrong tanks… this movie is full of blunders BUT I LOVE WATCHIN’ IT!! 😂
Retired General Omar Bradley was unhappy with the lack of historical acumen of this movie.
So was SHAEF and General of the Army Eisenhower. So much so there is an article of "Eisenhower walks out of _The Battle of the Bulge_ screening"...
I was at Ft. Billis when Bradley lived there! We would often see his car drive around on base. My boyfriend says that they had to practice everyday for his funeral. Funny how that works out. He was Active duty Army and I was in Jr. High!
So odd, that as a kid watching this movie 100 times, I never noticed the JUNE IN CALIFORNIA setting of this tank battle scene.
I have to say, I love this film. It's fairly upfront with its intentions, it's excellently shot, acted, and the action scenes are stunning. The soundtrack is rousing, complementing the combat sequences. As an accurate depiction of history, it falters at every hurdle, but so does every great historical film, often to more ridiculous extents than Bulge. As an example of 1960s roadshow cinema, it's excellent. Criticisms of the M47s and M24s simply aren't legitimate, as it was impossible even immediately after the war to find enough accurate armoured vehicles for big-scale war films. If you want history on film, watch The World at War.
Okay, acknowledging the facts that this is strictly a Hollywood script with a whole lot of inaccuracies, this was still a fun movie to watch as a much younger man, and it's still pretty good.
Looks more like the fkn Six-Day War than the Ardennes Offensive! I would think nowadays they could do a fantastic & very worthy remake.
I remember watching this as a kid. My grandfather was in BOtB. He said the same thing. I don’t recall desert. I recall FEET of snow.
Or, "how Henry Fonda single handedly won The Battle of the Bulge. " 😂
Peiper was still alive when it was made however another
Ex panzer commander was
A technical adviser but they didnt heed his knowledge
Of the actual battle fought in
Winter conditions!
I'm glad that war criminal and general Nazi promoter Joachim Peiper was not involved in this film.
SS - Standartenfüher Joachim Peiper had been in command of the 1st SS Panzer Division during the earlier Boves massacre and at the Malmedy Massacre at The Battle of the Bulge - where his unit rounded up American P. O. W.'s and shot them in cold blood, leaving the corpses laying in the snow. Peiper was supposed to have a death sentence by the Dachau Military Tribunal, but after much lying about mistreatment by American "Jewish" investigators, this was commuted to "life imprisonment", that was reduced to only 35 year in jail, which turned into 8 years in jail for leading a massacre. He was active with the Nazi apologist and Waffen - SS promotion HIAG group, till things ended badly for him in 1976..
Another Nazi scumbag took his place as "advisor" to this movie.
great movie, but hate that the German tanks are so unrealistic. hard to tell who the hell is who.
The "Germans" are in the bigger M 47 Patton tank. The "Americans" are in the smaller M 24 Chaffee light tanks (a few of which did actually serve in reconnaissance roles during WWII).
It's absolutely hilarious how movies always depict tank interiors as spacious with room to sit by your buddy and look him in the face...not so tight that if you move 4 inches in ANY direction anywhere inside ANY tank you will bang your head,body or both into controls and bulkheads.😂
Great music great acting great scenes very good affects.
I didn’t realize the m24 turrets were so roomy 😊
and the gunner seems to have no sights.
Well, there is one accurate fact about this battle. The North and South rarely used their bayonets on tank barrels.
Well........Hollywood is still "taking artistic liberty" with war movies, just not as bad as this one.
I'm still looking for the "artistic" in this movie.
Historical accuracy has left the chat...
The inside shots of those turrets look really roomy. Like you could stretch out and relax a bit.
Anytime this channel posts war movies, people instantly complain about the historical inaccuracies. Just be thankful a movie at all was made about the incidents, with mutiple cast members who served in the war. No remake with today's "stars" could equal that, no matter how many CGI Tanks you purists want so badly. If you want historical accuracy, read a book or go to a museum. If any film has inspired you to do that, it's succeeded, which was probably the point in the first place. This is just my humble opinion.
Hold on a second....the Germans are speaking English. They were the master race. I wonder if Hitler was able to talk English or French?
Colonel: Roger!
This is Uncle Sam. Stand down, over@@sammywestenberger9303
I agree with you concerning the tanks and I really love this movie, but come on, this is supposed to be the Ardennes in one of the coldest winters 1944-45 and they are riding over dusty plains
Yeah but they were real tanks not CGi. Maybe they weren’t period but they sure were real.
When they slowly crept in the singing as the tanks were mired down...perfect movie making there.
The only thing this movie was missing is Col. Klink and Sgt. Schultz.
Robert Shaw made a perfect German commander, had a terrific career and went on to star in the Jaws movie. I agree with my wife when she said Robert Shaw was so handsome on that movie and even when he was older.
I love this movie, I forgive the fact they’re having the battle on a Spanish plain and Guffy’s whole crew would have been immolated by that blast. Telly. This and Big Joe from Kelly’s Heroes. Best portrayal of an nco.
For ww2 movies yeah but nobody beats Gunnery Sargent Hartman FMJ
If the Ardennes was really like the terrain in this movie, The Panzers would've gone all the way to North Africa.
I love the Film too one of my Favourites.
Are you freaking kidding me? This is as bad as Pearl Harbor
Vachement désertique les Ardennes !!! surtout en hiver, on voit bien la neige ;-) Premier film comique sur la seconde guerre mondial
Still liked the movie when I first watched it but the clear sky’s kind of ruins it.
A moment of silence please for all the 75m shells that ricocheted, even though they blew a wood and canvas turret clean apart, or blew a 10' wide crater in the ground.
Excellent weather in the middle of winter. Clear skies and no sign of allied aircraft. Hmm
The Germans looked like they'd just come from their regimental tailors to parade in pristine uniforms !!!
The only good thing about this film was some top rate actors, especially the late great Robert Shaw.
"wait till they get close - make every shot count".....
Love this film
Gee, I had no idea the Battle of the Bulge was Kursk II. Also, no narrow streets, no alpine geography, no trees.
BUT!! In 1965 there is no CGI, use what you can get for production, filming on location impossible. I give the movie maker an ovation for effort.
The desert in the Ardennes.
Como en toda película hay un mensaje y una moraleja, este film no es la representación exacta de la Batalla de las Árdenas, pero eso no le quita el mérito de reflejar episodios relacionados donde existe interacción de los personajes de ambos bandos, y sobre todo el desempeño que tienen los blindados en escenarios de combate, lo que hace que sea una película excepcional, uno de los mejores productos que ha dado la industria del cine en éste género.
I have family near the Ardennes and I have been there at Christmas. I have also lived in Sonora, Mexico. This looks like it was filmed in the later
Quin, later stalked sharks in his spare time 🎉
Germany had managed to convert Ardenne forest into a beautiful desert in 3 years!
- your damage raport?
- tower was blown up, but we are alive and broadcasting! 😂
Good by the pyro team
Need to remake it with CGI. It has not passed the test of time this film
I didn't like the new CGI Midway movie compared to the original
😂
Fire!
I realize I'm being too critical, but I want this movie to be realistic as far as movies go, but when I see the Germans using American tanks with German markings, I can't do it.
Whow its summer time :)
It’s kind of funny to see a squadron of M24 Chaffee light tanks that were limited in numbers at the end of the war go head to head with American M47 Patton I Medium tanks that were developed in the early 50’s being passed off as Tigers.
Gotta get that Sherman. In name only
@@DavidBale-vn4op Agree
It just bounced off!
In 1944 the ardennes was a desert. Ongoing from 1950 some trees was growing there. And it was so sunny and hot there. And of course germans used only M47 Patton, and US-Army used not M4 Sherman tanks, but only light tanks M 24 Chaffee, made for reconnaissance and not as main battle tanks. No airforce was there, and no infantry. This was the real battle of the bulge. And this is a joke.
Robert Shaw is superb in this film.
Yes wrong tanks and wrong terrain but given that this movie was 20 years after the war it can be somewhat forgiven since the movie is still decent.
American tanks fighting vs. american tanks? I finally got it!
This must be the famous civil war our teacher told us about. 1860ies or 1960ies, something like that, I guess 😊
Hey wh what happened to the Snow??? Op Wacht Am Rhein happened in Winter of 1944! Anyways I love this Movie as a Kid and part of My WW2 movie Collections.
global warming...
Great Tank Battle.
I know we have a wholesome war movie when Karl-Otto Alberty makes an appearance
I was never bothered by the M47/48's and M24's being used. It's what was readily available in Spain when they filmed this plus it basically showed a difference in size to give the audience some sense of scale. Besides... M47/48's battling M24's in real life would probably closely resemble the same outcome of real Tigers vs Shermans all things considered.
Ok ok, let me ask you a question, what hair spray makes the best flamethrower to melt your soldiers from the big ass game of battlefield. Admit it you've done it
The battle got so hot that it melted all the snow.
The US were lucky because in a real tank battle like at Kursk, the Germans would have driven them back to Normandy. A two-front war was really Hitler's worst idea.
Interesting documentary about NATO tank crews training in 1960's. They were anticipating to be deployed somwhere in the Middle East, therefore they train hard in the desert. Small inacuracy - some of them are wearing German WW2 uniforms.
hey, they did the best they could. no cgi. its not like shermans were free and ready to roll. imagine what it cost them to get all those tanks together.
and of course you can't damage one. Makes you really appreciate what they can do with CGI
Yeah, I know not historically accurate, but still a pretty good tank battle
So King Tiger tanks didn’t look anything like this?
There is a real one still standing (about) where its crew left it, in La Gleize, Belgium. A lucky shot destroyed its gun barrel. That's about all the damage Allied tanks could do to this monster, except scratching the paint.
There is also a running one in the Saumur museum in France.
Love this movie yes I know about the flaws but don’t care.
I saw this film when I was in Secudaris and I was fascinated, but when I saw the scenes and knew that the Battle of the Bulge was in winter in a completely snowy forest, it struck me that they had filmed it in a desert.
Les Ardennes sont pleines de forêts pas désertique 😂😊
Great Battle scene shame the terrain is all wrong, its supposed to be in the Ardennes Forest heavily wooded.
All these Patton tanks on the German side, I am so confused 😊
What happened to the Ardennes forest?
Although this is proposterously historically inaccurate, I really like this scene - it's an exciting battle, and the undergunned American tanks sacrificing themselves to slow the German column is appropriately heroic. A battle similar to this one actually DID happen in Tunisia in 1943 after the Battle of Kasserine Pass, when a regiment of American light tanks under BG Robinett took on Rommel's heavier tanks. The American tanks were mostly destroyed but Rommel's advance was stopped. When Robinnett's superior, stunned by the losses, told Robinett "you have ruined me!", Robinett replied, "no, sir, I have saved you." And so it was. Ironically, Tunisia looks a lot more like Spain, where the BOTB was filmed, than Belgium. You could insert this sequence into a film version of Rick Atkinson's "An Army at Dawn" and it would probably work.
I love this scene too.
@@kenharvey8161 I love this Tank Battle and the acting the lines.
There is already a better version of the story of The Battle of the Bulge - _Battleground_ (1949!) or the parts of _Band of Brothers_ that cover this time.
Those Tiger 2s look awfully familiar 😂
Where have the trees gone ????
They went into hiding, seeing all those tanks.
I think the producers were thinking of the Tank Battle that happened in Prokhorovka as part of the 1943 Battle of Kursk when they filmed this scene. Sure the movie is historically inaccurate, but there will never be another film involving 65+ real tanks shooting at each other, all modern movies use cheap CGI.