The Cretans were lightly armed archers, who didn’t normally fight h2h if they could avoid it, especially against heavily armed legionaries. They would have no chance in close combat.
So I read it as the Romans using the testudo against the large number of missiles aimed at them and pushing forward into the Cretan line, while the Cretans fell back, still firing or throwing missiles at them.
If you read the full linked account, they weren’t just facing Cretans, but also Thracian and Macedonian phalanxes. Well, attempted phalanxes, apparently that didn’t work so well in that terrain.
My reading is that the tortoise is only mentioned after the arrow fire is already dealt with, and “forced their way through the enemy” is close combat i.e. that they used it as a hammer to break the line.
Caesar does describe a case where a Gallic spear, thrown from close range, pierced the shield of a centurion, but didn’t have enough force left to pierce his sword belt.
It’s a remarkable incident where two bitter rivals each saved the life of the other:
In the legion were two very brave centurions named Titus Pullo and Lucius Vorenus, both of them nearly qualified for the first grade. They were always disputing which was the better soldier, and every year the competition for promotion set them quarrelling.
When the fighting at the entrenchment was as its height, Pullo cried: “Why hesitate, Vorenus? What better opportunity do you want to prove your courage? Today shall decide between us.” With these words he advanced outside the fortification and rushed towards the thickest place he could see in the enemy’s line.
This brought Vorenus too over the rampart, hastening after his rival for fear of what everyone would think if he lagged behind. Pullo stopped a short way from the Gauls, hurled his spear and transfixed one of them who was running forward from the ranks. The man fainted from the wound, and his comrades covered him with their shields, at the same time showering missiles upon Pullo and preventing him from advancing further. His shield was pierced by a javelin, which stuck in his sword-belt; and as the blow knocked his scabbard out of place, he could not get his hand quickly to his sword when he tried to draw it, and was surrounded by the enemy while unable to defend himself.
His rival Vorenus ran up to rescue him in his distress, and all the Gauls immediately left Pullo, who they thought had been mortally wounded by the javelin, and turned upon Vorenus. Vorenus drew his sword and fighting hand to hand killed one of his assailants and drove the rest back a little; but pressing on too eagerly he stumbled down a steep slope and fell.
It was now his turn to be surrounded, but Pullo came to his aid; both of them escaped unhurt and after killing a number of the enemy returned to camp covered with glory.
Thus Fortune played with them in their struggle for pre-eminence: bitter rivals though they were, each helped and saved the other, so that it could not be decided which was the more deserving of the prize of valour. V.44
I too was already annoyed with the direction the show was going at that point, plot-wise, but I was blown away by that battle sequence, until the convenient deus-ex-machina anyway. The shield-wall formation tactic was brilliantly executed and highly realistic from everything I’ve read about medieval battles, and the way they shot the scene really brought home how much of a brutal slog the battle would have been.
Exactly - that’s the main function of the shield - to render projectiles non-lethal. No-one is saying that all projectiles are going to bounce off scutums like they were vibranium. Just that they were actually good for protection against missiles.
Actually… Barry Lyndon took place in the 18th century when the general tactic for attacking was to advance to firing range, let loose with a volley, and then charge with bayonets. So it’s not entirely unlikely that they’d have marched into range, fired a volley and charged. From what I can find on YouTube to review the scene, it looks like that’s exactly what they were going to do, but the scene changes before the English fire and charge.
As to the OP’s question, apparently Memphis Belle was pretty historically accurate according to my grandfather (a B-17 flight engineer/top turret gunner) as far as the formation flying, group firing on fighters, etc… except for one thing- the movie crew chattered WAY too much on the intercom according to him. His comment was that everyone stayed quiet, because too much conversation could mean missing incoming fighters.
My father’s (B-24 pilot) biggest quibble was with the bombardier. Dad said that the bombsight was mostly automated, and aiming and dropping was not nearly as dramatic as the movie portrayed.
Yeah IIRC, the bombardier just held the crosshairs on the target, and the bombsight did the rest- to the point of flying the plane as needed, and even dropped the bombs at the right time.
At some point, they went to “drop on lead” (or something like that), where only the bombardier in the lead bomber of the formation actually used the bombsight, and the rest of the bombers in the formation just dropped when the lead bomber dropped. That was well after the “Memphis Belle” finished its tour though.
It wasn’t. Can you give an example of that? Preferably from the European theatre of the Seven Years’ War, where Barry Lyndon is set.
The only case where a regiment might charge (and then they would start to run as soon as they were in range) was attacking a defensive wall, or a wood, where there was no point in firing at the defenders at a disadvantage.
Well, maybe not for everyone, but it seems to definitely been a preferred British Army tactic.
Fire By Volley: European Musketry at War - Warfare History Network
British forces employed shock-oriented tactics that were distinctly at odds with contemporary European practices. The rationale behind this approach was that a battalion’s best means of eroding its opponents’ will was to stand its ground or to press the attack closely, fire one or two massed volleys, then charge with the bayonet. I
Also
Battle of Waterloo: Armies, Battle Tactics and Orders (futurelearn.com)
It is now believed that British success had another basis. The evidence of military memoirs suggests it was a common practice for British soldiers to hold their fire until very close, firing a single volley and then charging with bayonets.
Also… at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, while the British were not advancing, they still employed the volley followed by bayonet charge to break the attacking French.
Exactly. Fire at least a couple of volleys first, to create smoke and confusion, not walk forward blithely forward into heavy fire.
The other quote is from the Napoleonic wars.
That’s what “press the attack closely” means, doesn’t it? Effective musket range was only 50-100 yards, and in the movie, the French start firing much further out than that. It seems likely to me that the approach was to close to effective firing AND charging range, fire the one or two volleys, and then charge with the bayonets.
You seem to be agreeing with me that what is shown in the movie is highly inaccurate. 
From a 2019 thesis at the University of Leeds,
A Study of the British army in the closing stages of the Seven Years War in Western Europe
The regulations focus on the regiment maintaining a fire superiority over their adversaries and to drive them off in this manner alone. It simply states that the platoons are to fire ‘as quick as possible, taking care that the Men level well, and present and fire together’.
Further instructions were originally added in Richard Kane’s A new system of military discipline, only stating that if the Enemy maintained their ground, then the regiment was to march closer to the enemy and then begin firing again until the enemy was driven off. This highlights the importance of firepower in the regulations over attacking with the bayonet.
Yet this was usually effective enough, as the French commented on how their own infantry were inferior to the British due to the superiority of its counterpart’s firepower.
However, later the British army was influenced by the Prussian regulations, which used a different firing system, and which “highlight the importance of attacking with the bayonet if the enemy did not retreat during the firefight.”
Ultimately, the British infantry developed for themselves a reputation of coolness in combat, coupled with a devastating fire delivered from their volleys. These factors had been developed in the wars of the Spanish and Austrian Successions, and the trend was to continue during the Seven Years War, with battles such as Minden and Vellinghausen heavily influenced by the actions of the infantry. By turning away from the regulations and adopting the alternate fire system, as well as utilising the aggressive nature of the British infantry, these factors regularly saw them succeed over their opponents, and ultimately identified the British infantry as a crucial part of the Allied army’s success in Western Germany.