The Worst 18th C. Battle Scene Ever: TURN's Battle of Monmouth
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- Опубликовано: 14 окт 2024
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TURN: Washington's Spies is a popular television programme about people who turn into Washington's spies. Or, something like that. Honestly I don't much care about the programme because at least up until now, everything (and I do mean everything) that I've seen of it has left me cringing. Not the least of which, this battle scene.
It comes it at the end of Season 2 of the show and is intended to portray the Battle of Monmouth. It does not do this well. In fact, it does so poorly that even The Patriot can genuinely be said to have better battle scenes. Yikes.
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The book I reference in this video: amzn.to/3GLaXS6
Further reading:
If you're interested in the range of muskets, here are some interesting pieces to consider:
kabinettskrieg...
• The Effectiveness of 1...
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Sorry all! Little bit of a delay on my end so the next video is not yet on Recast. I will make a community tab post when it is available, though!
@Rän z That depends on what market you're talking about! If you mean in PA, then I do! Or there was one time in MA too. There are many others that I remember as well. I usually do some Q&A type stuff whenever I livestream on Wednesdays.
@Rän z Congrats on finishing school! And, I wouldn't go so far as to say 'micro celeb' or anything like that. Though it's definitely surreal to be recognised in public like that. A pleasant experience though!
It’s very important to me that you know I totally got your Seinfeld reference.
Brandon! That's so very kind of you to share your mailing address so that we may finally send the valentines and love letters that we have spent hours on day after day, wishing we could send them, wondering what might happen if we did...fearing what could happen if we were able, and feeling a mixture of utter desolation, yet also relief, for we simply could not...but now...Now what will we do? An opportunity never before considered posible, the open window's allure tempered by years of silent toil. What if we take the leap? Perhaps Brandon you will effortlessly break our fall, a Brown Bess in one hand, a glass of crisp Apple juice in the other, a masculine quip escaping your lips as if you were simply unable to not exude a deep historical eroticism. Or will you allow our bodies to crumple to the ground broken, our souls vacant, yet screaming, while leaving us speachless in awe, admiration, and contemplation all the same? Would you be kind enough to drive the last flicker of passion from us at bayonet point, or would you leave us lying on the ground, helpless, with your weapon still sheathed? Will Atun-Shei's monolithic tyranny over your soul and unyeilding claim to your affections be shaken by even one Planck length? These questions plague the soul, for though a grand gate is now open, a small voice nestled in the most remote cravasse of the mind whispers a couplet of doubt which grotesquely echoes in the claustrophobic architecture of conscious thought.
But yeah, PraegerU is going to send goons if they see your address.
TURN is a good show
You are obviously unaware that the law of war in the 18th century required armies to let the main characters to finish their conversation before firing.
Oh man, I'd forgotten about the Conversational Ordnances of 1771! I may need to re-make this video.
@@BrandonF So, filibustering was a thing even in war? 'Sorry guys, this battle is off, that guy on the other side just _had_ to enumerate all his affairs again...'
I think all this stems from that one instance during Fontenoy when the possible not real conversation happed between the French and British about inviting the other to fire first.
Isn't that an anime thing?
Great video. Side Note: My high school showed “Culloden” in a full school assembly (this was 1967 or 68). The realism has remained with me for these 50+ years.
Brandon, I worked as an extra in this scene on the side of the Americans. They filmed this scene in the middle of January, so we were all freezing our butts off while laughing at the fact that we should’ve been sweating our balls off. It was a fun 3 days, even though the accuracy of the final product is extremely lacking.
Also, the technical advisor who trained the extras and managed all the weapons worked on “The Patriot.” If that tells you anything lol
: And they didn't keep a staff of advisors on hand: They'd hire per episode: I did two episodes, and a friend did two others.
Not surprised
Shame, since the weapons in the patriot were handled so much better. Americans armed with charleville muskets and no Brown Besses. the patriots battles are tighter, more realistic and faster paced than this. Despite the movie's other issues
That's up there with the BBC's "Hollow Crown" deciding to film the Battle of Shrewsbury (July 1403) in a field just outside London in January with snow on the ground.
‘The Patriot’? That says it all!
This video felt like watching an Empire total war battle but live action. Good to see they recreated the AI perfectly
No they didn't, because all soldiers in the line didn't run into a massive blob in the center and do nothing but run back and forth until they are exhausted.
@@GeneralJackRipper I mean... did they substantially outperform the blob formation though?
@@GeneralJackRipper dont question my competance
0:26 When you leave Fire at Will switched off
The "My God, they're ready for us" killed me way more than it should have 😂
For some reason I found "it's an inside job hilarious"
Me, every battle in Empire total war because ambush mechanics have not been imbeded in the games yet.
@@Cdre_Satori next total war should be empire but with napoleon dlc available(not at start necessarily) and also maybe a 30 years war dlc. Also they should keep the armies without general thing but make battles able to be more than 20 or 40 units like in newer ones and also update cavalry and firing and stealth and so much. It would be great if they did it and made the weapons and troops more historically accurate.
He reminds me of the guy of UK TV show sharps rifles the episode with william of orange I thank could be wrong
One thing this scene does well is show how very...small a typical battle of the War of Independence was. In "With Zeal and Bayonets Only" Matthew Spring observes the irony of so many decisive battles in America being the size of essentially meeting engagements between scouting parties in Europe. Much better than say The Patriot, which depicted these battles as essentially massive, European sized affairs.
Oh, and Ian Kahn as Washington was great. He essentially walked out of the pages of Ron Chernow's excellent biography.
It makes it so unfortunate that they had an amazing opportunity to portray those sorts of smaller battles, but then attempted to do one of the largest engagements in the war.
Over 30,000 troops engaged in that battle - it wasn't small ---
@@BrandonF I'm remembering what they did on a Spanish historical drama called "¿Dónde vas, triste de ti?", second part of a saga about the reign of king Alphonse XII (ruled Spain between 1874 and 1885): A big part of his reign included stabilising the country, and that involved fighting against rebels in Cuba, Philippines and in the Spanish mainland, but for the most part we only see this through the reaction of the characters (Alphonse and the Spanish PM Cánovas) to the events. There is one single exception, showing an inspection to the frontlines on the mainland during the third Carlist war. It doesn't show your big battle, but it accurately shows the kind of camps that both sides used.
@@zaclang6472 There may have been 30,000, but only a small fraction of these numbers were engaged in fighting at any one time as I understand that the main objective of the British (which they easily achieved) was to reach their transports before the French fleet trapped them.
@@zaclang6472 There was nearly 60000 casualties across the 3 armies at Waterloo. Monmouth was small by the European Standard
Having worked on a number of film projects, INCLUDING "Turn", I can tell you that the reason colors don't match the facings, is that the wardrobe house they got the uniforms from, onlybhad white facings, that the facings are a WEIRD synthetic mateial, and that the coats are SPRAYPAINTED red! Meanwhile, the regimental colors are rented from a prophouse (that I used to work at: that has a green regimental color. ONE green regimental color
This leads me to point 2) Look CAREFULLY at both the three "minibattalions, and ESPECIALLY the weird mini-clumps of Continentals: It becomes clear that at least two-thirds of the men on both sides are comped in copies: Only about one-third of thevguys are ACTUALLY THERE. They kept the various clusters separate so that two guys wouldn't suddenly overlap, to beirfly become one weird merged four-legged monstosity, only the diverge again, into two seoarate men.
TL:DR: most of the troops are "shopped-in" copies of the few guys who were actually there. This is what you get, trying to do "line of battle" on a TV budget.
Also, they didn't maintain a single, cohesive team of military consultants, from one episode to the next.
EDIT: I see I should have held off commenting, to the end of the video: You saw the copypasta!
@Eesti mees eh, where the film industry in Estonia might be limited by size and economy, many American projects simply lack the funding from willing investors. American film industry is the top dog of the world, so conversely many film studios and investors only look for the big stuff, with some celebrities or pre-existing fandoms to back up the potential sales. Why back the historical film lacking a real strong narrative and plot when there are so many safer, more lucrative projects to invest in?
Could you not spray-paint or otherwise color the facings of the uniforms? Or use some color that would allow post-production color changes for individual units, like green? I'm asking purely from ignorance--I appreciate the insider knowledge!
why didn't they just get the uniforms from what was leftover from The Patriot? hated the redcoat uniforms in this show. Looked like Assasin's Creed enemies
This is what a battle in the 18th century would look like if people had the vision and intelligence of Skyrim enemies.
Who's there!
2:04 They were clearly using the famous tactics of general Melchett for "walking very slowly towards the enemy". These tactics were later refined during WW1 into "climbing from the war trenches and walking very slowly towards the enemy".
How could you possibly know that, Blackadder?! It's classified information!
Doing the same thing we've done seventeen times before is precisely the last thing they'll expect us to do this time!
And then WW2, walking _extremely_ slowly at the enemy while the mighty... TIGER 🐯 tank is drifting around the battlefield mopping up everything within a mile with that 8.8cm gun.
Oh I love your comment! I burst out laughing.
Well - at least they conquered 6 square foot of land with General Melchetts brilliant tactics.
23:13 "Don't even get me started on this guy!"
A quote said by many historians when they see the show portraying Simcoe as a war criminal
Simcoe was dang hero. - a Canadian
@@helwrecht1637 based. He abolished slavery in Canada when he became a governor. Im sure he did some reprehensible things during the war, but so did Washington, and many others. its strange to paint him as a bloodthirsty savage in one scene, and a hopeless romantic gentleman in the next.
He was my favorite just because he was so entertaining. Then I read about him(I'm American) and realized how dirty they did him.
Simcoe was close but my favorite was Robert Rodgers. The way he died really left an impression on me.
Simcoe fought hard but wasn't a war criminal, he played by the rules of the time.
I actually found when doing war-movies, specifically, running the extras through a couple weeks of actual (period correct) drill is all it takes to make them look 10 times more convincing.
Hell - chances are you could actually film that drill and include it in some of those movies. It is after all something the soldiers did.
I'm in Sheldon's Horse, I think Brandon you know us from when you were with the 54th. Our officers were asked to advise on the show, but after our captian told them they were wrong too many times, they suddenly didn't need our help anymore. Strange that.
It's a paradox, American mythology tends to portray the British as ruthless professionals, the best army in Europe, but also incompetent amateurs, beaten by the Americans, the underdogs of the war. Unfortunately, American history and mythology leaves out the French and the Spanish, who contributed to American independence, unfortunate still, the Patriot is one of the few stores that acknowledges the French.
hm, yea never once did I hear that the French were left out of it, and I read stuff on the Revolution since I was a kid......The French didn't officially start helping after the Americans had proved several times they could be beat the British on the battlefield, and yea a bit off to say it was the militias who won the war against British regulars but the British were in fact better trained, experienced, and better supplied than the American Army...though what's not typically mentioned the fact the French monarch did fall afterwards because they didn't actually have the financial strength to fight the war, which lead to the French Revolution, which led to the Napoleonic wars.
The French would join anyone to fight the English
The French are quite literally the U.S.A.’s first military ally, but no one seems to remember that today.
@@Specter_1125 yeah ikr, france literally gave the US the statue of liberty and now I find americans dog on french all the time
@@biggrimace6506Mostly because after that they wher trash.. WWI WWII and Vietnam. And now look at France 😂😂😂😂
Wait...Monmouth had like 32,000 men present...how is this Monmouth? There's like 200 guys, if that.
Budget, most likely. Having thousands of extras and/or adding a big (decent looking) CGI army is expensive and these guys clearly don't have a Game of Thrones budget.
@@88porpoise Yeah, but then don't show wide shots which make it painfully obvious just how few men you actually have. Even the Germans understood this. When you look at Nazi propaganda footage, you can pick out details on certain tanks and realize that they made, like, 20 tanks look like 1000+. They understood that concept, why didn't these filmmakers? Also, if they'd maybe cut down on the amount of flags, they might've been able to hire a couple more extras
Reminds me of the Sharpe series where they’d show 4 guys on horses and act like they were 400 😂
@@filmandfirearms I said why it is that way, not that they did it well.
@@carsons5750at least in sharpe they tried to cope with the budget through night shots and hills and forests
Empire Total War taught me that every band of guys no matter how small gets a set of flags
I was also thinking immediately of Total War when I saw the small blocks of men.
Guns are entirely overrated - just add more flags...
This is good old Brandon at his finest. Almost every detail, every matter, every movement and every action observed, scrutinised and analysed.
My god. Imagine shaking his hand?
he did miss on the ad sponsor though ^.^
British soldiers: *Marching briskly*
Rebel soldiers: *Marching briskly*
Both sides: *Don't see eachother despite being insanely close*
What I learned from this is the rebels had no chance to win because of the absolute lack of flags
I do remember years ago hearing that AMC suggested to the people making the walking dead to not show zombies and just show there shadows to save money so I wouldn't be surprised if they didnt let them make this scene bloody.
Let's show the _shadow_ of all the blood!
Artistic integrity, what's that?!
wait! dont tell Brendon Zombies aren't real, he thinks walking dead and turn are documentaries!
It's fun watching videos like this as a medievalist, because I'm just like, hey, at least everyone is wearing what looks like an actual *wool* uniform, the colors are more or less right, and the weapons all look like they're the right size and from the right period! This is golden!
Lol
The film producer shows the director how he wants the Battle of Monmouth to look using screen shots of Empire Total War.
Director to casting advisor: “How many extras do we have?”
21:11 I mentioned it on another video, but I will mention it again: on the Spanish field manual from 1801 it's intended for infantry to train and fire volleys at distances of up to 400m (500 yards), so that is a limit for the range of the musket right there. Here, the distance is about 1/10th of that. The first line would have been completely anihilated by that volley.
Kamikoto knives are a scam, they are made in China of low quality steel, this has been known for a while now, I'm not sure how they keep getting sponsorships.
Same company that does Established Titles
Unscrupulous RUclipsrs, that's why.
Even though it's not in your area of expertise, you should check out Danger Close. It basically hits on all the points you make about how war should be portrayed. It's the Australian perspective of the Battle of Long Tan in Vietnam, and what really sold me on it, what made me decide to sit through the whole thing, was the way they first showed the Vietnamese on screen. It's just a group of men, maybe a squad and a half, walking down the road, chatting, just as the Aussies were doing only a couple minutes earlier. When the Australian Sergeant spots them and shoots, hitting one, two guys grab the wounded guy while the others start running. Given that they were facing an entire platoon that had the drop on them, their decision was perfectly logical. Fighting two to one when you're on the back foot is suicide. I've seen plenty of movies where they'd try to fight it out, maybe do a fighting retreat at least, but if I were in their place, I would've legged it, too. They reacted like normal people, not crazed killing machines. Later on, other things showed that they had cared immensely about what it was really like to be there. Combat is chaotic, dirty, and brutal. There are many times where a guy didn't even notice that his buddy had been killed only a couple inches away. I know soldiers, even Vietnam combat veterans, and they have said that when the bullets are flying, all you see is what's on the other end of your sights. Later, a massively important character is killed, and it isn't done in some ridiculous drawn out melodramatic scene. He's crawling over to a wounded man, sticks his head up a bit too far, a bullet hits him in the head, he falls. That was one of the most impactful death scenes in any movie I've ever watched. One second he was alive and well, the next, he was gone. Ripped away in the blink of an eye. That is war. They screened the movie to the surviving veterans of the actual battle, including Harry Smith himself, the company commander at Long Tan who was anything but timid when it came to speaking his mind regarding the battle, and many of them were apparently in tears. Smith personally complimented the filmmakers for what they had made. Lastly, it also gets the material elements quite right. For example, there's one scene where a squad gets the drop on a group of Vietnamese reserves, and in one shot, before firing, the dust cover on one man's M16 is closed. In the next, while he's firing, it's open. They also went through the trouble of getting some Owen submachine guns, which are not easy to find. There was even one tiny shot, only a few frames, where they show an STG-44. Now, I highly doubt it was an original, most of those are either in museums or sitting in a Syrian army depot these days, it was probably just a replica, but the fact that they bothered at all rather than just giving every Vietnamese soldier an AK and calling it a day. Lastly, in the shots where the weapon was clear enough to tell the difference, I noticed that they were using Chinese AKs, not American Century kit builds. In 1966, Russia was barely supplying anything to Vietnam, China was still doing most of that, so that checks out
As to falling back from a bad situation, that was, perhaps, Washington's greatest talent: Keeping his army together, by getting them out of bad situations, to fight again, in more advantageous conditions.
"We're not retreating! We're advancing...to future victory"
He who fights and runs away lives to fight another day.
Whenever you do ultimately do that musket accuracy video, could you make sure to talk about the difference in how accuracy falls off in a rifle vs a smoothbore? My vague impression is that the accuracy improvement of a rifled gun is negligible in a pretty good chunk of a musket's range, and the real advantage is in the accuracy as a percentage of the bullet's flight time, but I really have no knowledge on the topic.
It's not at all negligible, it quadruples the effective range, or more, depending on the skill of the shooters. However rifles were expensive, and more importantly, much slower to load than a smoothbore, as the rifling needed to tightly grip the ball as you crammed it down the barrel. This can halve your rate of fire, which will become disastrous if a formation with smoothbores gets into that optimal smoothbore range. This got even worse over the course of a battle as the rifle got fouled from firing.
Once technology solved the rate of fire and fouling problems, (victorian/civil war era) that's when you saw every soldier start to be issued with rifles.
@@jarvy251 Yeah. The Minie Ball really changed the ease of rifle use at least on the reload. I don't know of anything that really helped with fouling though.
The accuracy difference is massive. A decent rifled musket like an 1855 Springfield or P53 Enfield could easily hit out to 400 or even 500 yards if you really pushed it. That also meant that, if fired at the same range as a smoothbore might be used, the effectiveness would be significantly greater. Rifled muskets also allowed for effective sharp shooting in skirmishing, as the only thing determining whether or not the round hits would be the skill of the shooter, and not the randomness of a smoothbore. There's a reason the only guns today which are smoothbore are shotguns, replicas of antique firearms, and weapons made to get around regulations, like some of Kalashnikov's Russian civilian rifles, since smoothbores aren't regulated in Russia
@@Jcod_ The Minie ball and Pritchet bullet (the british equivalent) helped with fouling for the same reason why it was easy to load. Because it expanded to fill the barrel upon firing, it would wipe away the previous shot's fouling on it's way out.
Despite much overexaggeration on the part of ignorant folk, muskets weren’t “wildly inaccurate”. I’ve pretty regularly been able to hit a 9” target at ~80 yards.
In comparison to rifles they are not particularly accurate or long ranged, which if you think about it is an absurd comparison, each have their purposes. It’s like comparing a sword to an axe.
nothing better then an unexpected brandon f video.The framing of the device makes the video feel nice and cozy .
On the closeups of the overhead shot you can definitely tell they had only a few extras and copy/pasted to compensate.
The reason the Yanks don't beat a retreat is because Benjamin Tallmadge (the "battalion commander" here, but I think the show specifies that he's a Major in the Conneticut Dragoons) is a classic handsome do-no-wrong Mary Sue-esque vanilla chap with no character flaws whatsoever.
And consequently the most boring character in the show.
The writers are afraid to have him ever be wrong or make a mistake; so he exists as the character with full historical hindsight to question everything and always advocate for the "correct" course (only for devious traitors like Charles Lee to undermine him and thus cost the Yanks their otherwise inevitable victories).
To be fair, the majority of the redcoat characters in Turn are fairly sympathetic. Hewlett, commander of the troops in Setauket, was gentle and honourable. Baker, quartered with the main character's family made every effort to be a good guest. There are more, but I think the point has been made.
This film does what every film about linear warfare does, every single time. Basically, too many flags. None of the people who direct these films know that flags aren't random and there are only two flags per battalion. They think that armies carried flags then just like international football fans do now, to show which side they're on. It's like the depiction of Pickett's Charge in Gettysburg, every fifth rebel is carrying a Battle Flag.
Flag gore is more appropriate in medieval films.
Wooh! New video on thanksgiving, goodbye talking to random cousin.
I think the idea why the person ordering the retreat is the "bad guy" comes from the idea that some people have that only cowards retreat and "true warriors" (tm) would never retreat no matter the situation so if someone calls for a retreat they must be a coward aiding the enemy.
Even though in real life armies retreated for several reasons and the "I fight to the death even though I know I got no hope of winning and there's no other reason for me to stay because I'm no coward" idea was extremely rare, typically if an army fought what they knew was a hopeless battle it was to gain an advantage elsewhere and not to satisfy the egos of the soldiers present large because there was no need to satisfy any egos because generally the people in charge knew it was better to live today to fight again tomorrow then to die to today accomplishing nothing.
Exactly - if your last stand accomplishes something, like allowing the man body of your army to escape, then it's heroic. If your last stand accomplishes nothing and is just the result of the commander's pride, it's stupidity.
@@philipsalama8083 Like the Alamo. It held up Santa Anna's army to give Sam Houston time.
@@JJfromPhilly67 the alamo achieved nothing. It had no strategic value, nor did it cause any significant delays
@@geoffhughes225 I mean, it did definitely inspire the Texans to fight harder, but yeah the actual stand itself didn't really do much in terms of time/delays
you know its good when you see that Brandon has uploaded
BROMHEAD! Shirking your duties yet again to indulge yourself in fantasies about licking those rebellious creoles of 100 years past I see...well, You and those other men with whom you fought at Rorke's Drift will soon find yourself in a far greater emergency if your duties are not attended to at once!
Soldiers these days...thinking they deserve time off simply because they happened to discharge their weapon at a few Zulus...the state of the British Army I say, abysmal. Bloody abysmal.
@@Zogerpogger y e s
Oh no! Kamikoto! The lowest grade steel knife at premium prices.
27:58 Thanks for the shout-out! 🎉
"A thousand soldiers die in a hundred degree heat
As we snatch a stalemate from the jaws of defeat" lyrics from Hamilton
When you said war movies shouldn't feel like adventure, they should feel like horror it really got to the heart of what I dislike about most modern depictions of combat in a lot of films and TV.
Something I particularly want to avoid in the TV show I want to make.
Film makers can't show soldiers being blasted into splatters of hamburger.
@@kevinbyrne4538 They absolutely can. @BrandonF does a really good video on this very subject
@@jamesfaulkner9968 -- I didn't know that BrandonF discussed such crass and gory subjects.
@@kevinbyrne4538 There is nothing crass about honest depictions of the reality of war
@@jamesfaulkner9968 -- Seeing men's arms and legs being blown off or seeing men being blasted into hamburger doesn't usually appeal to refined tastes -- at least not since the days of the Roman amphitheaters.
It's like the director was trying to do live action version of those old American Heritage book series battle maps. For those who haven't encountered these books they were written in the '50s for young adults and have these fabulously illustrated maps showing the progress of the battle.
I loved those books and their maps! They helped spur my interest in history after my family vacation to Williamsburg when I was six (1973).
Brendan shadiversity has made a very good video on the kamikoto knives. You might want to take a look at it before you continue them as a sponsor.
I did not expect a Seinfeld reference in this video..but I'm glad it occurred.
I was afraid nobody would notice it!
I feel like most movies and TV shows just go for the classic “line up and just shoot at each other” because it’s what most people believe happened.
Same with medieval based stuff just having two sides run and awkwardly crash into each other and start hacking away with not tactics or order.
It “looks cool” and that’s what’s most important in their minds.
I mean I’m sure at some point in history a battle has happened that matches the stereotype perfectly. But you are correct.
Many medieval battles had clashes like that, of course it wasn't always an undisciplined mass charge and violent agglomeration of melee fighting, but the ability to execute tactics and manuevers on pre-gunpowder battlefields was much more limited then most people are aware. Many RUclips channels don't really show just how difficult it was to control an army after the fighting had begun, or even how difficult it was to move an army into position. In medieval Europe with smaller armies and often many trained nobles and men-at-arms armies could be more flexible than in ancient times, but overall generalship looked a lot different than it is often portrayed or understood. This isn't to say your comment was bad, just wanted to share my two cents.
If you want to learn more, I highly recommend A Collection Of Unmitigated Pedantry by Brett Deveraux (acoup.blog). He has several series on pre-gunpower warfare including logistics and generalship.
Ah, yes, the enemy is following you and there's nothing you do. I am sure Wellignton would heed their advice during his manoeuvre spar during the Peninsular War. 'Often at times, right in sight of each other' as EH TV put it.
Engorged Hernia Telekenesis Videos have nothing to do with History! What does it matter if the hernias, engorged as they are, are within sight of one another! My god sir you've made a mockery of this establishment and I'll see you out if it's the last thing I do!
The good old art of just standing there... MENACINGLY.
20:42 Here you can see that the regular Continental regiments are intermingled with the militia. I'd hardly think they'd be mixed together like that. Sharing a battlefield? Sure, but here there is no unit cohesion.
ive watched this clip from turn several times and im so glad because a while ago i started to wonder why tf the rebels were marching like that
Then being clumped together so close would also make them far easier to kill as well.
Directors are idiots and don't have a clue what an 18th century, F&I, or AWI battle looked like.
Hey it‘s you!
I love this show, it’s absolutely one of my favorites. So I love this too because even me and my friends who are huge fans too love to joke about the Monmouth in winter.
Great job!
We got patriot review series, now do a TURN review series
He'll definitely bring up the gratuitous use of British regulars wearing powdered wigs which is a typical trope.
As a fan of historical tv shows I can say this isn’t a John Adams (HBO)
Bear in mind, Turn is more of a Spy story with battle scenes thrown in for "Flavoring".
I have taken deer at 120 yards with a Fusil de Çhase, a Reproduction of an early 18 Century design. They are contemporary with the 1st model Brown Bess, but it used a plug bayonet so it has a real front sight
Is that a rifled weapon, though? I know plenty of people (including myself) who hunt deer with repros of antique guns, but they're always rifled. I wouldn't try for a deer at 120 yards with any smoothbore, including a modern shotgun firing slugs, you're as likely to wound the poor thing as kill it cleanly. And most hunters in the 18th century used rifles for large game. War is different, of course, because in war giving the enemy a severe and debilitating wound is just as good as, and in some ways better than, killing him outright.
@@brucetucker4847 it is a smooth bore, on the first 2 shots it is extremely accurate. At the time in the woods and light I thought it was like 70 or 80 yards. As it was on my property I used a wheel measure later and found the real distance. The gun keeps the first 2 shots in about 8 inches at 100 yards. I aim to break the shoulder so that puts a ball in the 12 inch vital zone at that distance.
No-one beleive this man! He claims he took "deer" with this weapon, but in fact he "took" my wife.
It was a moon-lit night in October when it happened. I was leading her through a meadow, the moonlight creating such a romantic scene. I could barely contain my excitement and joy at finally being able to spend the night with her. She gently nuzzled my arm, her thick breaths against my flank comforting in the chill breeze. She scraped her hooves against the snow. It was time.
Then a crack from afar. I screamed, she bayed with such pain. My beautiful wife...she would have been a mother to my centaurs! Dead from a Fussy Deechis or something. Horrifying.
@@Zogerpogger Thanks for the laugh I live in South Carolina no snow in October here :-)
@@Zogerpogger RIP Harpog's wife.
I love this show, and absolutely LOATHE the battle scenes. They also do a few historical figures pretty poorly, but it did help me get into some more niche Revolutionary War topics.
This is exactly my take. I can endure the obvious budget and time constraints for the few and infrequent battle scenes, because overall the show is a well-written drama that tells a very deep and moving story. It does get many of the smaller things about life in those times correct, but it seems those get overshadowed by complaints about battle scenes that are expected to be spectacles (even though the few battle scenes in the show are ultimately small footnotes in the story), and complaints of rewriting historical figures into dramatized characters by making them inaccurate to the people they are based on. I can look past these issues that others have with the show as I find the story to be very compelling, and overall it just drives me to research more into the true history behind the characters and fuels my passion and love for the time period.
Hey, Blade Smith here. Don't accept anything from Kamikoto. They sell 2 dollar knives for 350 dollars. Just look up the steel they use. Its trash stainless steel with less than 0.40% carbon, AKA no edge retention.
Filming this battle in the winter is like filming a Battle of the Bulge scene in August.
Brandon, have you ever thought of reviewing probably the most famous (And laughed at shows in Reenactment circles here in the UK) of Napoleonic shows. I am of course talking about Sharpe! Particularly Sharpes Eagle with the Battle of Talavera.
He did a great job on one incident of Sharpe silliness- I'd love to see another
Saw this along with the series of Turn. Inaccurate condition of the weather. It was in the summer of '78 when they fought at Monmouth. At least, it's not The Patriot. Happy Thanksgiving.
I was astonished to never see videos about that production made by you, private Brandon. I have to say that I could not watch more after 4 or 5 episodes. Not alone that repeating scene with that Civil War-spy (men with beard who was obviously looking strange in comparison with most of the other figures) or the woolen red coat uniforms WASHED by the Damsel in Distress... The whole story made me crazy. I did not know should I laugh or should I cry. Many missions of the main characters did not made sense at all because they obviously were to slow to bring information in time (for example when the Hessians marched to Trenton) and many of the missions were completely useless because every reconaissance of riders could bring the information better and faster than the "spies".
Thank you for your look on the battle of Monmouth!
I'm happy to see this. I hope all of TURN's inaccuracies doesn't ruin the show for me! It's a fun period drama but the inaccuracies (creative liberties) are pretty severe...Thank you for the battle analysis!
It’s better to watch it with a blind eye and not keel over at the historical accuracies. All of that aside it’s a pretty good show but with a conundrum of side plots. The lead is pretty eh (it’s Jamie Bell, what are you going to expect?) but the rest of the cast are pretty good. 8/10 show.
I used to reenact in a British light infantry unit. We did /a lot/ of running. I was grateful to find myself in a good unit, and was proud to be one of the only units actually running during battles.
Thank you for another great video. Your knowledge is quite useful for enlightening new enthusiasts. Hollywood hooks them in, and you teach them the real history!
They should send you a check. 😂
Regarding ranges at which armies fought. The blog kabinettskriege did a really interesting article about it. I would add a link, but RUclips tends to nuke links.
TLDR armies of the period often exchanged fire at much longer ranges than we might expect, considering how pop culture depicts the musket as basically being useless at anything other than point blank range.
I said it on other comments, but the Spanish army trained to fire at distances of up to 400m (500 yards).
Regardless of the myriad historical inaccuracies, TURN is probably the most underrated show I have ever seen, I truly love it
Well, I'm thankful for this video and channel! Happy Thanksgiving!
POV: you forget to order your troops to fire in a turn based game.
Something worse than The Patriot.
I know there are no British soldiers in it, but what's your opinion of the portrayal of Napoleonic warfare in the 2016 BBC adaptation of War and Peace? It certainly didn't spare viewers the carnage and horror of war.
About the accuracy of muskets, I've read that shots by soldiers with an M16A2 are still only about 20% at 100 meters, which is rather noticeably below the effective range of 550 meters.
In other words, it's hard even for modern soldiers in clearer condtions to make use of highly accurate weapons, so an average soldier with a musket generally isn't going to be affected all that much by his weapon's limited range.
The point you probably missed in comparing modern combat statistics to muskets is that people adapt. Nobody marches in open field in a line formation these days, precisely because any one stupid enough to do it will be cut down by modern accurate firearms. If we take your 20% (presumably hit ratio vs shots fired) as true, it is because people are in cover, prone etc. add to that the fact that high rate of fire and magazines makes suppressing fire the main objective of a typical infantry unit. Long story short you just cant compare modern firearms with muskets.
I honestly would be interested in your take on Drums Along the Mohawk.
Also, Turn's battle scenes were its weakest points from a production perspective. But I did like how they got around not showing the Battle of Trenton.
It’s a show meant for the backcountry skirmishes and engagements, and not the big open field line battles you’d see in movies like the Patriot or Waterloo.
26:15 Not having watched it, I assume that is Lee, who was convicted in a court martial and had his career ended as a result of the battle. He has been pretty much vilified ever since (he was a major bad guy in Assassin's Creed III).
My guess is the show will have him complicit with Arnold.
I have noticed that TV series really need to add a historian or two to their team. The re-enactment of the Battle of Monmouth looks way more exciting than what they portrayed here. I mean why couldn't they go to the re-enactment and shot a few scenes there!?
Yeah, Hello! All they needed to do was contact the park people and would have found a lot of people willing to help.
This production may be unusually obvious in its errors, but most do too, even while crediting a historical adviser.
One regular error is to show exploding shells during the long period when only cannon balls were used.
The other regular error is to show members of British forces saluting when bare headed. Never. (It was explained to me that the salute originated from doffing your hat.)
There is ZERO givashit behind the making of Turn.
I believe this all may of been the fault of whoever managed the budget for these scenes. The acting, the props, everything else besides the battles is incredibly accurate. I love hearing their voices, their words, i love seeing their uniforms, their rifles. Thats more then enough for me to be thankful to the show and its creators, including everyone who played a part.
If they didn't have enough guys to portray a full-scale battle, they shouldn't have portrayed a full-scale battle. And besides, I could easily imagine them using the same 100 or so extras and simply duplicating them on the screen in editing (e.g. film them acting out one subdivision, then changing their facings, then move them into position to act another subdivision from the same camera angle, then splicing the shots together).
I think they filmed this in winter so the production wouldn’t interrupt the crop season in June. I don’t know about the size of farm fields in the AWI but in this scene these farm fields obviously plowed by modern agricultural machinery look way to big to have been made by anybody during the colonial era.
The kominko knives and Lord and Lady in Scotland are the same scam company I've heard just a heads up.
This really feels like they tried to represent a much larger battle with a very limited number of extras, so we’re supposed to just scale everything way up in our heads, from the number of men per “block” to the distance between “blocks”
I think they should have just skipped most of it and just filmed at close angles Washington's reaction to General Lee's retreat. They also forgot to include Molly Pitcher!
I enjoyed Turn. It had a fun story, and to actually see this period in a TV show is good as this period is criminally underrepresented in the media.
But yeah, when it came to the battle scenes. I nearly died from the cringe of just how bad they were.
I like what they did with the Benedict Arnold story
@@alisaurus4224 yeah that was a good side plot. Speaking of which, another con about this show is the confusing number of side plots that weave throughout the show.
This is what I imagine the films writers research looked like
Writer: hey any historian, what did the battle of Monmouth look like?
Historian: oh the Americans led a surprise attack on the British at Monmouth and-
Writer: yeah yeah, who won?
Historian: the British won but the-
Writer: ok that’s all I need to know.
Historian: ok well I have some battle layouts If you want them
Writer: nah I saw the patriot I’ll be fine.
This is what happens when someone looks at a battle in Empire Total War and says, " Yep! That'll do!"
Looks like they used a tabletop wargame as their primary visual reference
With a tow row row row row to the British Grenadiers!
you are a lord, neih, a KING of snark.... and today was a masterpiece of deconstruction that left me in stitches and left the battlelines of the enemy routed!
You talking about Monmouth not filmed in summer reminds me of the movie Battle of the Bulge where half the film has no snow despite the real battle famously be fought in a massive snowstorm in December 1944.
I was pretty sure you'd bring *Culloden* (kind of a drinking game?), and you did well, this is a great movie. And I agree with your point on how war should be presented as horror, not adventure. Thanks for the video.
Regarding the distance of the opposing forces: maybe some teams of javelin trowers were hired as extras. When they walked up to each other; they chose a distance at which they felt confident to potentially hit the other guys with their musket-shaped javelins.
Omg, I don’t think they had the same budget as Waterloo or War and peace!
Hey Brandon, I have been getting into the history of linear warfare lately and I was wondering what you think is the most authentic depiction of linear warfare between two modern armies on screen is. If you reply thank you, and thank you for your content. I love channels like yours that give the history the respect it deserves. There is too much historical content that propagandizes or sugar coats the history and removes all the nuance.
Limited area of making the show, the show was filmed in between three state prisons in VA.
Someday I want to make the most historically accurate 18th century battle scene ever, just so I can see Brandon get excited.
Brandon is a weeb, now it's canon!
Jokes aside awesome video, love your battle reviews. I have an idea for a military "flintlock fantasy" novel that i might try to write one day, so learning 18th century battle tactics is always a pleasure
By god sir, I've lost a leg! Anyways great content as always and keep on going lad! Toast to you!
"By god sir... so you have."
To lose one leg may be a misfortune, but to lose two looks like carelessness.
Agreed.
Fastest click in the west
yeehaw
Season and landscape realism are important elements of historic accuracy. Although the landscape matched the history, the differences between summer and winter in New Jersey are so profound that the battle depicted could have happened on a different planet.
A brilliant critique. I honestly couldn't get into the show to even reach this scene much less do anything else. It was just soap-operaesque. And the material culture is horrific. But such is the nature of films and shows based on the American Revolution, I'm afraid.
I love that you referenced "With Zeal and Bayonets Only." It really is the "ruling work" of British Revolutionary War Reenacting.
Thank you. As always I learn much from watching your videos and appreciate you taking the time to bring so much of this to light!
I endured the show, mostly because I like the actors Kevin McNally and Burn Gorman. I HATED what they did to Major Simcoe and also how they depicted King George III. Wrong, just wrong.
@@JJfromPhilly67 I just... I couldn't get into it, couldn't get past the terrible material culture, the just blatant lack of basic research they did into the campaigns and events taking place in the area...
But I'm glad that people enjoyed it. :D
Great video! Love to see media reviews. Also, sorry but Kamikoto knives are a scam I'm fairly certain.
Checkout Shadiversity's video on the subject. He takes you through his entire investigation into the knives and their qualities and pulls no punches about what he finds. They are definitely a scam.
Why are the Continental Officers who are from New England States Regiments (white facings) commanding men from Mid-Atlantic states Regiments (Red facings)?
You know, I wonder if they just looked up some simple "battle of Monmouth" map and purposely arranged the lines to looke xactly like they saw on the map without actual regard for numbers, tactics, or... context really.
“My that’s a lot of bayonets coming at us.” -Duke Cumberland, Battle of Hastenbeck 1757
0:37 Fun fact: In Spanish we still call it "fila india" (Indian file).
Culloden was an amazing underrated film war film!!! cheers mate from Australia
this is what a person who saw a "fun facts" article about line warfare would imagine being
Regarding the number of flags, I had an interesting email exchange with one of the historians at the Swedish Army museum in Stockholm about the regimental flags. In that he made mention that Swedish regiments during the Napoleonic Wars officially had and were supposed to go into battle with 4 Flags per regiment (1 Life/Colonels Colours and 3 regimental colours, the Life colours being with the 1st battalion), but often 10 flags could be seen in battle in some regiments (usually the extra flags were the older versions of their flags, especially on units that were a regiment was disbanded and folded into an another regiment)
I cannot remember if he said why they did it, but it does seem to have been something that happened. Perhaps not often, but it seems plausible for more flags per unit depicted in this scene.
Not in the british army they had two flags per regiment. They would be the king's colour which is a big uinion jack and the regimental colour which is regiments colour and union jack. The colour could be anything but say yellow then the facings of the men in the regiment would be yellow. I am not sure if battalions at that time carried two flags, but considering the number of men in each regiment would be low, they were rarely full strength it is possible a battalion had the two flags and served at the host regiment. Though i have read at least for the napoleonic war the home battalion would be in the UK and other battalions would be off fighting wars. I am sure this was not always the case tyhough