Can someone please tell me what the devil that CO did in the most recent episode? I’m puzzled by the part where he (I forgot the character’s name) and Donnie Wahlberg are by the building being shot at, suddenly he (the CO) runs toward the enemy, jumps over the wall and comes back apparently having accomplshed something.
Wahlberg said something to the effect of “The Germans were so suprised they didn’t even shoot.”
me: baffled (a condition you’d think I’d have grown used to)
He accomplished the linkup with the other platoon. I think he ran over, hopped over the wall, said “we’re here”, hopped back over the wall and ran back.
The effect of linking up with the other company was the escape route for the Germans was cut off (they were on the verge of taking off) and so 100 Germans were captured, etc.
I just wanted to comment that I really appreciated the humorous moments in episode 7 (ex: “getting shot in the ass is kind of an Easy company tradition”), especially seeing as how ep. 6 was such an unrelenting downer (although I like the medic character).
Lt. Speers ROCKS THE HOUSE!!!
Just wanted to say that.
stoid
I still don’t really get it. Yeah, I understand he made contact with the other company, but just what did the other company do with the info? They kinda fast-forwarded right to the post-battle celebration at that point.
What we need is someone who read the book.
Well I think mack summed it up pretty well. As you will recall there were several possible methods of taking the village. Easy Company had trouble making it to the designated spot and with all the counter-fire and snipers it was probably hard to tell where everyone was. He hooked up with I Company to fill them in on their position and what they had accomplished along the way. He did not need to come back to Easy but as a true leader, he did. One bad-ass motherfucker !!
I watched it twice now, and I guess I still don’t understand. I guess I’ll have to watch it again (and they rerun these shows over and over). Who was I company? Was it the group that Dike stupidly told to flank and attack from behind? Their position during Speers’ berzerk charge doesn’t make sense, they weren’t in a rear enough position to cut off the germans, and I didn’t see how they got in that position in the first place. He would have had to tell the to advance and cut them off. And why in the hell did the germans abandon their armor? Some of them were self-propelled guns which have no turrets and are totally useless in close-in fighting (the gun crew isn’t even enclosed), but they also had Tiger tanks, which IIRC had front-mounted heavy machine guns. No way they should have been able to take the town against armor unless they had bazookas. And in the early scene when they’re watching the town through binoculars, the germans looked like they had panzershrecks, which would have been standard for mech infantry, and would have blown the infantry all to hell at close range.
In lieu of better interpretation, I guess I’ll just assign this to dramatic license plus the fog of war. I better read the book.
[li]Like Easy company, I company is presumably also part of the 101[sup]st[/sup].[/li][li]Dike was a well-connected CO who had no idea of what to do in an actual combat situation. He ordered the town and the occupying German forces attacked from the rear. Easy company knew this was wrong so they stayed put until Dike was replaced.[/li][li]Speers relieved the incompetent Dike and ordered Easy to continue forward and not bother trying to go around.[/li][li]IIRC, Easy was on one side and I on the other. Portions of each remained outside the town and were able to cover any Germans who tried to escape between the two.[/li]Easy had mortars, how effective are they against self propelled guns? Maybe I had the bazookas? Someone who has read the book can tell us.
I think mack got it right. He may have said more to the other company than “we’re here”, but it basically boils down to Speirs running the attack way more effectively than Dike.
I’m reading the book right now, and watching the series.
Which is NOT the way to do it, I’m stuck at this point in the book and can’t go any further until Sunday.
Speirs (which is how his name is spelled in the book) is, possibly, the guy I thought was Lt Strain from episode two in this thread: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=87910 . Anyone else think they’re the same?
BTW, the book is sufficiently different from the show that I’m inclined to call the show a work of fiction. Events have been distorted and rearranged enough for me to notice lots of differences. So I don’t know if there’s any point to quibbling about which guns the Germans had during the assault on Foy.
I’m trying to figure out where Dike kept running off to. He would wander off for hours at a time and come back apparently with no explanation. What was that all about?
Well from the show I got the impression that Dyke was out of his element when it came to being a commander. He was overwhelmed by his duties and just walked away for hours on end. Where he went really wasn’t all that important the important thing was that he wasn’t there.
Marc