# How realistic are battle scenes shown in movies? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 25, 2017, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-realistic-are-battle-scenes-shown-in-movies/783031 "2017-03-25T20:44:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![snfaulkner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snfaulkner/32/433_2.png) [@snfaulkner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snfaulkner)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2017, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-realistic-are-battle-scenes-shown-in-movies/783031/21 "2017-03-27T22:14:12Z")
> [@Kimballkid](#): > > I haven’t seen the movie but from [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvZS63Osons) of a battleship firing it’s 16-inch guns, there seems to be a lot of ‘fire’ coming out of the barrels. Did it look worse than that? Gunpowder (like gasoline) is not a high explosive. Gunpowder is the fire you see coming out of the barrels. The TNT or RDX or whatever is in the shell IS high explosive and looks a lot different. ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2017, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-realistic-are-battle-scenes-shown-in-movies/783031/22 "2017-03-27T22:46:12Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > It’s worth nothing that official visual records of battle are largely sanitized of corpses and less attractive elements like detached limbs. There are whole histories of WWII that show casualty-free battlefields and only select corpses like Mussolini’s. Museum images show corpse-free scenes as well. I don’t necessarily know about “sanitised” as much as “not presented to the public” - I’ve seen plenty of WWI and WWII images from the archives of places like the Imperial War Museum and the Australian War Memorial showing corpses and the general unpleasant aftermath of battles etc. The thing is, you had to go looking for the images - they weren’t classified or restricted, you just had to search them out yourself rather than having them front and centre. ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2017, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-realistic-are-battle-scenes-shown-in-movies/783031/23 "2017-03-28T15:03:01Z")
> [@snfaulkner](#): > > Gunpowder (like gasoline) is not a high explosive. Gunpowder is the fire you see coming out of the barrels. The TNT or RDX or whatever is in the shell IS high explosive and looks a lot different. Excuse me while I put my geek hat on: [http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS\_16-50\_mk7.php](http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS_16-50_mk7.php) ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2017, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-realistic-are-battle-scenes-shown-in-movies/783031/24 "2017-03-28T15:22:26Z")
I’ve never been in the military, nor have I studied military history, so I undoubtedly have no clue. However, I’ll note that both “Saving Private Ryan” and “Band of Brothers” had [Dale Dye](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0245653/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1) as a military advisor. Dye was a Marine in Vietnam, and he now runs a company, “Warriors, Inc.”, which provides consultation to Hollywood on military topics. His wife, Julia, is a friend of mine, and she works with him in the company (she’s an actress, stuntwoman, and fight instructor). In addition to advising directors and producers on what combat is really like, they also train actors on what being a solider is really like. I know that, for “Saving Private Ryan,” before filming, they took the actors out for a ten-day boot camp, in (IIRC) Montana, in the winter. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2017, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-realistic-are-battle-scenes-shown-in-movies/783031/25 "2017-03-28T17:35:05Z")
> [@Drum\_God](#): > > What about the magical cargo net? In the movie, Doss’s unit scales a cliff wall by climbing a cargo net. At the top of the cliff, they find the battle and engage in the mayhem therein. Doss rescues wounded soldiers by gathering them up and lowering them down the cliff face, eventually to waiting Americans below. What I want to know is what is so magical about that cliff and cargo net? Why didn’t the Japanese advance to the cliff and fire down at the soldiers below? From a storytelling point of view, it provided a clear “on the battlefield” and “off the battlefield” delineation, but I don’t see how that would work in real life. The soldiers below the cliff appear to be in relative calm and were not worried about attack from above. Why not? To be honest, I found that bizarre too, and yet the cargo net was legitimately a thing. You can find any number of pictures of it. The difference is that the net in the movie was like a hundred feet high. In real life it was maybe a 20, 25 foot climb. The Japanese were unable to secure the edge of the cliff without coming under heavy fire. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2017, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-realistic-are-battle-scenes-shown-in-movies/783031/26 "2017-03-28T19:23:48Z")
> [@snfaulkner](#): > > Gunpowder (like gasoline) is not a high explosive. Gunpowder is the fire you see coming out of the barrels. The TNT or RDX or whatever is in the shell IS high explosive and looks a lot different. This. For more clarity, the issue is about what’s happening when the projectile hits its target, not what happens when it’s coming out of the barrel. This is pretty common in cinema, i.e. detonation of high-explosive devices is commonly portrayed with a massive ball of flame and heat (that the actors sometimes outrun, when in reality a large part of what you get is a very sudden and destructive blast wave that shatters and displaces objects more than burning them. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-realistic-are-battle-scenes-shown-in-movies/783031.md?page=1)