Here is an interview with a WWII P-51 pilot who ended up kind of wandering around Europe and ultimately hooks up with the Red Army. He talks about encountering the Soviets at about the 22 minute mark.
As to how real world the trope is, we also have to ask whether the question is real world in 1866, 1915, 1942, 1968, or 2024.
Units being lost or misplaced is sorta inversely proportional to the commo tech of the day. And whether your side is winning, or just about spent.
During WWII there were units in Eastern Europe simultaneously fighting fascism and communism and the Czech Legion was fighting the Germans on the eastern front during WWI and when Tsarist Russia collapsed they ended up kind of running around fighting anyone who messed with them.
By May 1918, the Czechoslovak Legion was strung out along the Trans-Siberian Railway from Penza to Vladivostok. Their evacuation was proving much slower than expected due to dilapidated railway conditions, a shortage of locomotives and the recurring need to negotiate with local soviets along the route. On 14 May, a dispute at the Chelyabinsk station between legionaries heading east and MagyarPOWs heading west to be repatriated caused the People’s Commissar for War, Leon Trotsky, to order the complete disarmament and arrest of the legionaries. At an army congress that convened in Chelyabinsk a few days later, the Czechoslovaks – against the wishes of the National Council – refused to disarm and began issuing ultimatums for their passage to Vladivostok. This incident sparked the Revolt of the Legions.
Fighting between the Czechoslovak Legion and the Bolsheviks erupted at several points along the Trans-Siberian Railway in the last days of May 1918. By June, the two sides were fighting along the railway route from Penza to Krasnoyarsk. By the end of the month, legionaries under General Mikhail Diterikhs had taken control of Vladivostok, overthrowing the local Bolshevik administration. On July 6, the Legion declared the city to be an Allied protectorate,[20] and legionnaires began returning across the Trans-Siberian Railway to support their comrades fighting to their west. Generally, the Czechoslovaks were the victors in their early engagements against the fledgling Red Army.
Apparently they made a videogame based off of those events:
I went to college with a guy who was writing his master thesis about them, I should track him down and see if he knows about this game.
Check the credits - maybe he was the technical advisor?
What I was going to say. For most of human history if a unit was distant from the main army, it was somewhere between very difficult and outright impossible for them to maintain contact with their commanders. And it wasn’t just communications, it was map quality and navigational tools as well.
Kind of the opposite of the modern world where if anything the problem is that it’s too easy to get localized - and bombed - thanks to our advanced communications and navigation.
On Combat!, the squad was usually sent out on a specific mission. Of course, not everything always went according to plan.
Otherwise, the story began in what was probably the middle of a mission, like the time Sgt Saunders was deafened by a grenade blast and had to make his way back to headquarters without being able to hear anything.
I have heard that some units essentially decided “Fuck this war.” They would be sent out on a three patrol to move around and look for enemy combatants to fight.
Instead, they would travel for a day or two, find a good spot, and then stay there for the length of the supposed patrol. There would be no attempt to find any enemy combatants.
After three weeks, they would go back to their base and file a fake report of how they had moved around, fought a few minor firefights, but had taken no casualties.
Here’s the real classic of the enre:
I would imagine that’s a common problem in any army that starts to suffer from low morale. Particularly during any sort of war of attrition with no clear strategy or objectives beyond “find and engage with the enemy”. And it would be relatively easy to do if you are in a platoon or company sized unit stuck in some far-flung outpost guarding some bridge no one cares about.
I mean at least until the enemy figures out you disciplines sucks and you aren’t sending patrols anymore and now you have a different war movie.
Kind of another reason the end of Fury is a bit unrealistic. Four seasoned veterans who are getting “short” and an FNG are going to ride out the last days of the war fighting to the death in their crippled tank with all of V Corp rolling up behind them? I don’t think so. And they wouldn’t even be slacking off IMHO.
I remember reading somewhere that a Vietnamese (NVA or Viet Cong, I forget) was nearly court martialed for not having killed some Americans who did precisely the “Fuck this war!” thing and spent an entire day sitting in a clearing eating cookies and crying. He was in a camouflaged sniper’s nest with a comrade and just couldn’t bring himself to go through with the kill because it was clear the GIs were stoned, probably from marijuana in the cookies.
As I said, I disagree. I felt it was clear that the characters in that movie (except for Norman) had realized they didn’t want to live past the end of the war. So their decision to die in a battle in the final weeks of the war makes sense.