Or fail to simply take out the Sherman with one of the many *Panzerfausts *they were shown carrying. :smack:
Fury was a great movie up until the final battle which was so stupid it should have been in a Transformers film and pretty much ruined the movie for me.
In a just world, if either aircraft were shown flying from a US carrier* everyone involved would be strung up and horsewhipped. Sadly, I can almost guarantee that the first will happen and the second will not.
*There was a flight of six TBFs from Torpedo Eight, but they flew from Pearl to Midway and attacked from there. They didn’t fare much better than the TBDs flying from the Hornet: five of the six were shot down, and the ball turret gunner in the survivor was killed.
The TBD had a ball turret? That’s news to me:
SFAIK, the rear gunner had a swivel-mounted .30, but no ball turret. Neither would I call the rear gunner’s turret in the TBF a ball turret.
Bad phrasing on Otto’s part. He meant the TBFs had a ball turret, and that they weren’t any more successful than the TBDs.
Huh! I guess the Avenger did have a ball turret, though it was very different from the ones used in the B-17 and B-24:
I should have specified that “five of six” referred to the TBFs from Midway rather than the TBDs from Hornet.
Anyway, Torpedo Eight deployed 21 aircraft and 48 pilots/aircrew. Losses: 20 aircraft, 45 pilots/aircrew. Hits: none — which is by no means a commentary on their dedication and bravery, since they were attacking with woefully obsolete aircraft (TBD), unfamiliar aircraft (TBF) and early-war torpedoes that could charitably be called wretched. Not to mention no fighter cover. The situation was considered so grave that the US was throwing everything but the kitchen sink at the Japanese — including a night torpedo attack by PBYs(!!!) against what was thought to be the main body but turned out to be the invasion convoy (fortunately).
Right; I get it now. Thanks for the clarification.
I thought it was a drama about Midway Airport in Chicago. :smack:
never mind
The PBY attack the night before the main battle was the only torpedo hit scored by any American aircraft or submarine in the entire battle.
The Hornet’s troubles weren’t just with Torpedo 8 and their detached TBF Avenger’s. They lost nearly half of the rest of their aircraft during the initial attack on the Japanese without ever sighting the enemy. The US didn’t coordinate their strikes in any fashion and the Hornet’s dive bombers and fighters missed the Japanese fleet entirely that morning. The losses were aircraft running out of gas because they couldn’t find their way back to the ship.
As for the 1976 version of Midway, I notice all the clips that they reused from Tora Tora Tora and those same half-dozen or so clips that are actual color footage from the Pacific War and used in Black Sheep Squadron, too. But in 1976, unless you were going to build your own air force (Tora Tora Tora had some 30 period aircraft and Battle of Britain a few years earlier used over 100) you went with stock footage. I can forgive that because the story and acting was pretty damn good.
So yes, if you are using CGI to recreate an historical battle, I expect the aircraft to be accurate. I expect the squadron formations to be depicted accurately. I expect markings to be accurate. I would like the flight physics to be accurate. This trailer looks like a cartoon.
When I eat at a restaurant I pay attention to the sides, I can tell a lot about a Mexican food place, for example, by how well they do rice and beans. Movies are the same way, if the little details are not right, then it is unlikely the movie itself will be because there was no attention to getting it right.
Maybe the trailer is giving me the wrong impression, but I am afraid what Emmerich made is Independence Day 3 with the Japanese carriers playing the roll of the alien motherships.
txtumbleweed, correct in both history and commentary, although one torpedo from Nautilus probably hit the Kaga but did not explode (as noted above, before mid-1943 or so US torpedo performance was a ghastly joke). According to Walter Lord in Incredible Victory, the torpedo broke in half with the warhead sinking and the after section bobbing to the surface; some of the Japanese may have tried to use it as a flotation device.
Torpedo Eight is rightly lionized for their sacrifice, but it should be remembered that the other squadrons were prit’ near wiped out as well: Torpedo Three (Yorktown) lost 11 of 13 and Torpedo Six (Enterprise) 10 of 14. All three squadron commanders were killed. Oddly, the number seven plane in each squadron — 3-T-7, 6-T-7 and 8-T-7 — either was not launched or survived.
As for the movie, I finally watched the trailer and I agree with the OP. In addition to the deficiencies already noted, in what appears to be the initial SBD attack the US planes are shown coming in on the beam; but doctrine was to dive on the centerline to maximize the chances of a hit, and everything I’ve read indicates this is the way it was done.
Feature films are works of fiction. I don’t hold them to the same standard I hold documentaries to. Just like I wouldn’t compare the accuracy of a novel to a history book.
I judge feature films by how well they work as stories and/or entertainment. I can accept inaccurate details in things like history or science or law as long as they’re not so blatant they overwhelm my suspension of disbelief.
Ooof. that trailer did not leave me with a good feeling.
So you’re ambivalent? Divided? Moderate? Equivocal? Uncertain? Irresolute? Dubious? Unsettled? Wavering? Iffy?
Ignorance rationalized! 
[Moderating]
Little Nemo, I’m not sure how you managed to mangle the quote tags that way, but in post 33, you had a quote attributed to terentii and linking to one of his posts, but the quoted text was actually by txtumbleweed. I think I fixed it, but I’m honestly curious about how that happened.
In Australia, they made a TV series about the UK-Australia air races of the 1930s.
Someone wrote in to complain that in the scene where the old farmer is leaning against his gatepost, the bolts on the gates had a hex-head style not introduced to Australia until after WW2.
I mean, in some way you have to admire it…
One of the guys with whom I used to do Living History once complained that Little House on the Prairie was full of things that “looked old-timey” but weren’t really. He specifically mentioned that the technology for swinging saloon doors (double hinges, I assume) wasn’t invented until the 1880s or '90s.