Good points all, though I do think that the series is getting a bit better.
But I have to admit, I didn't know the word E S C O R T was corrected to "Ford Econobox" by the forum filters. That's a new one. 
Good points all, though I do think that the series is getting a bit better.
But I have to admit, I didn't know the word E S C O R T was corrected to "Ford Econobox" by the forum filters. That's a new one.
Well, they are not showing any Ford Econoboxes in the series either. So the statement is still true
I would agree though, it does seem to be getting a bit better. I suspect it's because the director is a bit better at the non-action stuff.
Speaking of action directors, there is Guy Richie (no I don't think he would be appropriate for this series, he is too goofy). He has done a WWII movie that will be released in April. Based on a real story (and I am sure a bit "turned up"), The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. You will note in the trailer that one of these guys used a long bow! Well, and I don't see it in the trailer, but he also carried around a medieval style broad sword (and of course bagpipes)!
Jack Churchill (for some reason called "Mad Jack"): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Churchill
Should be a pretty interesting movie:
I'm not expecting realism, but Guy Ritchie movies are usually pretty fun. I'll see it.
^ read that book because a distant relative ran the SOE. The "ministry" isn't those 5 guys on that boat...but it's hard to write a whole movie based on some guy making sticky bombs and another teaching operators how to blow up bridges.
Related to series: old family friend (and HS teacher's father) was a B24 pilot in the 15th. 1st story I recall is when he was encountering flak without his flak jacket on. He took a moment to lean forward to put it on, then wore it until they were safely out of range. When he took it out, he found a hunk of shrapnel right in the back of his seat. In the time to lean forward, his seat got hit. The other story was that after going over Ploesti, you basically couldn't touch anything metal for several minutes without gloves.
In reply to jmabarone :
Ploesti, interesting (where the Air Force discovered low altitude attacks by bombers was a bad idea). I am guessing from the heat of the burning refinery. There was a similar note in the actual Masters of the Air book about the fire bombing of Hamburg. The crews noted they could feel the heat from the city burning as they passed over, and they were at 25,000 feet!
https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/operation-gomorrah-first-firestorms
There is a lot of talk these days about the death tolls in wars... this was ONE city raid (8 days long), and almost all civilian (later duplicated in Japan of course):
As part of a sustained campaign of strategic bombing during World War II, the attack during the last week of July 1943, code named Operation Gomorrah, created one of the largest firestorms raised by the Royal Air Force and United States Army Air Forces in World War II,[2] killing an estimated 37,000 people in Hamburg,[3] wounding 180,000 more,[citation needed] and destroying 60% of the city's houses.[3]
I am still trying to figure out what an Air Trailer is.
(I will show myself out.)
A quick update for episodes 5 and 6. I would say in general it's going well, but as noted, this is mostly because it seems a better on the ground than in the air. Pretty ironic considering the title!
We do, for the first time, see esscort fighters (P-47's) in episode 5. At that point of course (lacking the larger drop tanks) generally served to deliver the bombers to where they are about to be attacked by fighters, then have to turn back (because the Germans just wait of course). The CGI for the shot is pretty bad though (motion very wrong). As someone I think noted, they would have been way better off just shooting many of the scenes in modern flight sims. The motions would have been wildly more accurate.
I also did finally see that the crew members are wearing throat mics (band around neck). I believe they did switch over to more traditional mics at some point, but I don't know when. The quality of those mics (which, as might be obvious, get the sound from the throat, not the mouth) was pretty poor and did create a bit of distortion, which added to the difficulty in communication. I guess simulated them would have been more realistic and immersive (just much poorer audio), but I can image the sound editors would have freaked out.
There is also a very questionable CG shot involving falling debris, which for some reason seems to maintain full forward speed (as in, staying with the forward speed of the bomber).... argh. It almost looks like it is supposed to be slow motion (even still, way off), but the crew reactions clearly are not. Whomever directed the CGI shots should really be embarrassed.
(yes, I did spell esscort wrong, otherwise it will say Ford Econobox)
aircooled said:There is also a very questionable CG shot involving falling debris, which for some reason seems to maintain full forward speed (as in, staying with the forward speed of the bomber).... argh. It almost looks like it is supposed to be slow motion (even still, way off), but the crew reactions clearly are not. Whomever directed the CGI shots should really be embarrassed.
Is that the "mission to Munster"? I watched a highlight on youtube last night. Looked so cheesy. I guess they were going for a time-distortion thing but it just looked dumb.
May have missed it, but caught another clip of a pilot taking evasive maneuvers to dodge fighters. No, just no.
Did anyone else notice the spoiler on the episode selection menu? Totally unnecessary thumbnail image for upcoming episode 7 that eliminates any suspense for episode 6.
In reply to jmabarone :
Ah yes. I was planing on mentioning that also. A B17 gets attacked by two ME-109's after becoming a straggler (a bomber that falls behind the formation, normally because of battle damage and become an easy target for fighters). The pilot decides to maneuver to make a hard target.... well... I am certain a bit of jinking (any unpredictable movement to make you harder to hit) could help a tiny bit (could also make them easier to hit), but as portrayed, the B17 has a minor dogfight with the fighter and ends up diving on it, allowing the nose gun to get a good shot. As I remember, the bomber was even pretty well damaged. Not the time you want to be stressing the airframe!
Although I am sure some maneuvering was done, it is way over shown here (these planes are rather lumbering, especially when fully loaded, even without bombs). As typical, the CGI tends to show the B17's to be far high performance than they were.
Also of note, is that head on attacks seem to be the majority of attacks on the bombers. While they were certainly effective for the early planes (less nose armament) they are rather difficult to setup, even with a large formation. If you ever fly a flight sim, try and set one up, it is not very easy. It is one case where being able to maneuver could help a lot though (creating a much more difficult off angle shot) but bombers have to stick to the formation. Of course, the off angle head on is also super popular and effective in the show.
Another small note is that the show tends to follow the popular thought that the ball turret is a very dangerous position. It, statistically, is actually one of the safest positions. The reason why is that the ball turret is the only position that has any real armor . The seat back is armored, as well as the seat (butt). The guns and ammo will give a bit of protection also since the gunner sits between them (the diagram below is a bit deceptive, see picture below it). Of course, no armor directly forward but as noted previously Flak was the primary danger for injury or death. The pic below gives you a good idea. I am pretty sure those handles you see are charging handles (linked by cables) for the guns since it would be very difficult to reach up and charge them in such a tight space.
It would be a wild place to be, but it would give you a very good view, which is represented in the show as the ball turret reports on the bombing effectiveness.
The ball turret BTW, as well as the top turret, have lead computing gun sights built into them (not shown properly in the show). The gunner has a handle that they can twist to match the fighters wing width and the (fully mechanical) computer will calculate the proper lead. These planes were very high tech at the time, and one of the reasons why the crews tended to (and need to) be more educated than the typical soldier.
I was re-watching The Cold Blue, a documentary on the last missions of The Memphis Bell was pretty well documented and filmed at the time. It looks like it is on YouTube (for now) with Indonesian subtitles, but still has the English voice over.
It's a good comparison to what the aerial sequences should look like since it was shot in color. Especially notice the heavy contrast and shadows created by the sunlight at altitude. Honestly, I think using a more natural light would have made the in-plane sequences far more interesting visually. See 5 min mark for some good in-plane shots.
Just watched episode 7. Still does pretty good with the ground stuff, but... oh my... the animation for the aerial sequences involving the fighters, is horrific (at least for me). I mean really bad. They really should get the $35 dollars back for whomever they paid to do that animation! Apparently, according to this episode, the way fighter cover works is they fly as close as possible through the formation of the bombers to attack the Germans! Argh. As you can imagine, flying through a formation of bombers filled with trigger happy bomber gunners who have been the target of German fighters for many months is not a great idea.
Even more absurd is that one of the changes for these raids was to allow the fighter NOT to have to fly close Esscort (which was not done from withing the formation BTW), so they could roam and attack and kill fighters more successfully (rather than just scare them off). E.g. wait up high to dive on fighters that were attacking the bombers.
The next episode looks to involve a lot of fighters (and seems to jump completely off the train of the current story). From the previews, the flying sequences look to be pretty poorly done. If you have ever seen the movie Red Tails, it seems to be at that level (as in not good at all).
They also show Harry Crosby as cheating on his wife. I am pretty sure this did not happen (at least, from what I hear, according to him, and there is no one else to refer to). If this is the case. I find this very disrespectful. He has 4 children, which are very likely still alive.
Also of note is they are depicting (at least the start of) what was know as The Big Week. This (as noted in the show) were a series of attacks on mostly German aviation targets with the primary goal of getting the German fighters to respond so they could be shot down by the Ford Econobox fighters. They were intentionally flying the same courses, to make it easier on the Germans. They show has attacks on Berlin, which were not part of that though. Regensburg was a big target (Messerschmitt factory), attacked earlier in the show in the Schwiensfurt raid. The goal was to weaken the German fighter force so it could not respond to D-Day (which very much did work, there was almost no German fighter response to D-Day)
Yeah, the CGI is... not good. But the story is compelling enough to keep me invested. I'm liking the Buck and Bucky stuff in the POW camp. Shades of "The Great Escape", which BTW was inspired by the escape the Germans mention in this episode.
Folks on Reddit who've read the book have differing opinions on Crosby's relationship with that lady. Seems like it was intentionally vague about the true nature of it. I can say it's understandable that people in a stressful situation like that, who are away from home for years, would certainly be tempted.
So, with one episode left, we finally got the Tuskeekee Airmen. Pretty late to be introducing new characters that we're supposed to care about, IMO. And it was another episode that was fairly light on aerial action. We got some strafing runs by the Tuskeekee guys, but since Crosby slept through D-Day, we don't see that at all?
There's a lot to like about this show, but it's wildly inconsistent. Keeps throwing new characters in without giving us much resolution on ones that were introduced earlier, like the guys who were on Buck's crew in the first episode. And the CGI remains a problem.
Yeah, so episode 7. If you want to be a bit derogatory about the series, you can call it "Masters of the Ground". Not a lot of flying in the second half. Still a good series, just a bit different than expected.
And yes we get the 332nd Fighter Group. They a bit shoehorned in, in an apparent need to get certain characters to other certain characters (not sure of the reality of that yet). They are, as noted previously, in the 15th Air Force based out of Italy, but those groups did eventually make attacks into parts of northern Europe.
With the sequence for the 332nd.... I have some notes.... one of the first scenes is P-40's making a ground attack strike, apparently at night! Which, pretty much never happened from what I know, because, you know, everything is blacked out, and you can't see anything! (part of the reason British bombers bombed cites, not specific targets). The planes also follow each other very closely for the bombing run and of course release the bombs at, lets say, 50ft!!! This of course would result in bombing your own plane (explosion shocks waves are way faster than the planes) and would certainly take down any planes right behind you at the same altitude!
Then... we have the drop tank issue (with P-51's). First of all, the whole sequence is entirely unnecessary, and has no relevance to the story at all that I can tell. One of the P-51's could not get it's drop tanks to release, and what result in the efforts to release the tanks, is very much some of the worst CGI I have EVERY seen. I mean REALLY REALLY painfully bad. As in the animation in Team America World Police level, and that was done with models and string!!! (and was trying to look bad). Just very embarrassing and hard to watch and actually made me laugh, in a painful embarrassing kind of way.
Also of note is that apparently when shot at P-51's separate their left wing at a very specific point. Two (maybe three?) shot down in that exact way (and bail out, which would be VERY difficult). Obviously just re-using animation sequences, so as to not go over the $50 budget I guess!
Anyway, a chance to post these pictures of a tribute plane I took. Not an actual plane from the group. Most all flying planes you will see are either very late war or post war planes that never saw action, they are just far more likely to have made through the years. This plane for example was actually delivered to the Canadian Air Force in 1951. Probably a very late WWII production plane that sat in storage and was eventually sold. Of note is the planes in WWII were certainly not polished like this one (just plain aluminum). It certainly makes them look very nice though!
Serial #: 44-74908. Delivered to Royal Canadian Air Force as 9273 January 11, 1951.
Looks to be one of the last (as in around 100 from the end) D models Mustangs built in Inglewood CA
Picture in Canadian service:
Also wanted to throw in that the lack of D-Day footage is primarily because Crosby did sleep through it, but it was also not entirely an effective time for the strategic bombers. They did numerous missions trying to suppress the beach fortifications but where rather inaccurate and mostly ineffective (a lot of it to do with the bad weather). As noted previously, and in the show, no sign of German fighters. I think there was a case or two of a fighter getting in low and strafing the beach and quickly running away, but that was about it.
And for those who are not entirely up on the history, and a bit of nod to the initial purpose of the Ukraine thread. The invasion of Europe on D-Day was very much not a surprise to the Germans. It's clearly impossible to hide that sort of massive build up (much like the Russians could not). There was a bit of surprise in the location though, so the deception by the Allies (including where they bombed before the invasion) where clearly successful. (The Russians though did not really manage their "surprise" attack on Kyiv)
It does seem like the meeting of the Tuskegee men in this show and the main character likely did not happen, so likely a bit of fantasy there. I cannot imagine the difficulties in trying to get through Germany as an escaped prisoner (which they are contemplating) for those guys! I really did like the line though "hey, at least I knew you guys where not spies", so I guess they have that going for them! (in regards to the other prisoners)
Of note, there is a very brief appearance of Benjamin O. Davis, Jr. (at the air base in Italy). He became a very accomplished soldier, eventually becoming the first African American General in the US Air Force. Of course, he had a bit of motivations, since his dad (Benjamin O. Davis, Sr) was the first African American General in the US Army!
Some info on the two: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Benjamin-O-Davis-Jr
The last episode is out, and I have to say, likely the best one. Also I think a bit longer than normal, that is a good thing as most of the episodes could have used at least 15 min more. I think the actually ending was rather good (I was a bit worried) though I would have loved to see a cross fade of Crosby talking in a VO, to a video of him talking years later about his time in the Europe. There was even some aerial scenes, which I worried they had abandoned.
I should say, it's not entirely unreasonable that they spent a lot of time on downed airmen. A LOT of them went down.
Strangely, the CG in this episode.... was actually pretty good! I mean, there where actually times where it wasn't obvious it was CGI!! Not sure what happened, maybe a last minute realization of what an S-show the previous efforts resulted in. They did, of course, show Ford Econobox fighters flying through the formation, while under flak attack! (which would be wildly unlikely).
I should also note, I find some of the CG presentation semi-offensive, but I suspect most normal people likely would not even notice(!). Just a huge missed opportunity in my perspective, and rather silly considering they apparently had 8 or so historians on staff to constantly reference. I would guess their involvement with the CG (possibly done overseas) was low, or at least I would hope so.
Since this episode represents very late war, they did (maybe somewhat surprising considering) correctly represent most of the planes in bare aluminum (to make production faster and save money). Trivia note: the bare aluminum B-17 were actually lower performance (both in speed and range) because the paint smoothed out the skin and made them more aerodynamic!
One big miss though. Again, hard to believe. All the B17's shown were earlier E models, without the chin turret the G had (see below of very pretty example). I am not sure if any B17 E's where delivered in aluminum (I doubt it). Also silly considering around twice as many G models where produced than E models.
It should also be noted, and a small miss on the show, is that the B17 was the minority bomber in WWII. There were more B24's made. There is a reason why everyone relates to the B17 though. The B24 was higher performance in every way (speed, range, bomb load etc), but.... was also know not to be able to take damage, mostly related to it's very thin (high aspect ration) wing, which is what gave it a lot of it's improved performance.
There is also a scene with a rocket hitting a B17, that was shot from the ground. This is almost certainly not something that happened (they did try to develop some, but never got them to the level of deploying them), but apparently that is what the after action report said (probably just mistaken)
There is also a scene that involves operation Mana and Chowhound which was an operation to transport food to German occupied Netherlands. The Germans of course had to agree to not shoot them down. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operations_Manna_and_Chowhound
Should you see it? I would say yes. There is a lot of detail in much of the content that makes it interesting to explore the stories behind.
Here is an interview of Crosby that was done in 1993 (that could have been used for my cross fade idea):
Agreed that the last episode was probably the best. When Bucky hoisted the American flag above the POW camp, it got pretty dusty where I was. It was a good mix of action and character resolution. Overall, I give the series a 7/10. Quite good, but not up to the standards of it's two predecessors.
I've been waiting to watch until I can burn through it as fast as I want.
A while back I found out my second cousin was one of the few Luftwaffe pilots left in the area on D-Day and shortly after. After doing some digging I found that most of his squadron had been sent back to Germany to do what they could there. Flying an Fw-190a-8, he shot down a P-51 near Bernay on D-day and another on the 18th off Luc-sur Mer before being KIA on the 23rd near Echauffour, Normandy.
I have a pretty good idea who the pilot was on D-day by going through the Allied records. The only P-51 lost that day that I can find is listed as going down about 15 miles away from where the German records say. At 400mph that is under 3 minutes.
He didn't even make it to 21 years old.
I'm a bit of a WW2 aviation buff so I've been really looking forward to this series.
Overall it's falling a bit short of my expectations. The aforementioned CGI is truly letting down the flying sequences.
My only other problem is common to BoB, Saving Private Ryan etc and that is the lack of any mention of the other allied nations being involved. I know they showed a stuffy British pilot getting taken out by a single punch but other than that it appears to be a completely American war. I fully get that the squadron and support staff would all be Americans but now that they're showing a POW camp it seems odd not to have British, Canadian, Australian, Free French, Free Polish, Free Dutch, Free Belgian etc aviators depicted.
Back in the 70's, in my early 20's, I knew two gentlemen who were B-17 pilots in WW2. One was a relative by marriage.
Its to my deep regret that I had never, up until several years later when both were gone, had never heard of the 8th Air Force and the sacrifices they made.
25% losses on missions. And they kept going back. Amazing. And I never knew to talk to them about it...
In reply to Wayslow :
There is actually a reasonable reason for not showing other countries. The Germans tended (at least in the Luft Stalags) to separate the different nations. So, in the movie The Great Escape (the inspiring escape mentioned in the series) Steve McQueen would not have been part of the escape since he would have been in the American side of the camp.
But, the point that there were a LOT of other people involved is certainly relevant. They did at least do a decent job of showing some of the support people and even how the towns people got involved. The scope of the entirety of the air campaign against Germany was huge (Mediterranean / African campaign, British, medium bombers, reconnaissance, the insane logistics of supply etc, etc) though and it would be very difficult to reasonable depict it. It would have been nice for them to mention or try to explain the scope a bit though.
I am sure there is tendency for those who simply see the movies etc, to think Americans in B17's where all that were involved.
I am still curious though as to why the last camp they showed has a German Kreigsmarine (navy) flag flying over it. I seems unlikely to be an oversight, or an attempt to hide swastikas (it has one in it). It's a bit strange that the navy would be running a camp, but heck, not like they had much else to do near the end of the war. I guess it could have been a navy camp (?). I cannot imagine they every had a lot of naval prisoners.
For reference:
Edit: Looks like there were a few, but pretty uncommon:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_prisoner-of-war_camps_in_World_War_II
In reply to aircooled :
I appreciate your response and have to admit that I wasn't aware that the POWs were segregated by nationality. I also wouldn't have noticed the German navy ensign so that's an interesting detail. I have an interest in the aviation side of the war but honestly never took the time to educate myself on the POW camps.
An interesting side note is that I live fairly local to an old POW camp here in Ontario. It was strictly for officers so they were spared being sent to a lumber or farm camp. A local historian wrote a book about the camp and he came to one of our car club meeting to give a talk. Really interesting stuff. Later in the war the prisoners were allowed out during the day to go to the beach or the movies in Bowmanville but had to be back at dusk. They had to give their "Word of Honour" before leaving.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowmanville_POW_camp
Yeah, it is pretty weird how sort of "civilized" the German POW camps where. A stark contrast to the Japanese and Russians of course.
An interesting story I came across about a particular POW camp in the US for intelligence gathering from high value German POW's called P. O. Box 1142 (!) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P._O._Box_1142. The did not torture the Germans, but the did have some interesting tricks:
Russian American soldiers Alex Schidlovsky and Alexander Dallin would dress in Russian uniforms and they would attend the interrogations. We would play good cop, bad cop. If you want to talk, okay you can go to a nice POW camp in Fort Meade. Otherwise, you could go to the Soviet Union. And guess what they preferred?
— Rudy Pins, interrogator at Fort Hunt, Sutton, Robert K (2021). Nazis on the Potomac: The Top-Secret Intelligence Operation that Helped Win World War II. Philadelphia and Oxford: Casemate Publishers. p. 83. ISBN 978-1-61200-987-2.
A similar story I saw (on some TV show about the location) was that if the Germans were un-cooperative they would load them onto a blacked out truck and drive them around for an hour or so (to simulate going to another location), then back to a different location on the base where they were taken to an integration room. In the integration room with a couple of Russian officers (obviously the two referenced above) where they made it clear they were about to hand them over. At that point, the Germans generally became rather cooperative!
Semi-related note. There's another new Apple TV show, this one is about the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. The actor who played Harry Crosby in MotA plays John Wilkes Booth. I watched the first episode today, pretty good.
You'll need to log in to post.
