# Military folks: what are the best hilariously inaccurate military movies / scenes? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 16, 2013, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/military-folks-what-are-the-best-hilariously-inaccurate-military-movies-scenes/655860 "2013-04-16T19:28:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Ranger\_Jeff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranger_jeff/32/2065_2.png) [@Ranger\_Jeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranger_Jeff)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2013, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/military-folks-what-are-the-best-hilariously-inaccurate-military-movies-scenes/655860/41 "2013-04-17T17:44:16Z")
> [@tim-n-va](#): > > Keys for military specific vehicles, especially jeeps. Starter button on the floor would be the accurate way to start them. Yes. Removing the distributor cap was the way to keep people from driving off in them. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2013, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/military-folks-what-are-the-best-hilariously-inaccurate-military-movies-scenes/655860/42 "2013-04-17T17:44:18Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > Ever notice that there’s always one oddball in an outfit who’s always out of uniform and gets away with rank insubordination because he’s so cool? Two examples that come to mind are Ben Gazzara in _ **The Bridge at Remagen** _ (with Robert Vaughn playing a Nazi general :rolleyes: ) and Hal Holbrook in _ **Midway** _. > > Both movies totally suck (_ **Remagen** _ was made for TV), but the scene where Holbrook, tieless in a silk bathrobe and with a soggy cigar in his mouth, says to Henry Fonda “Ain’t that worth a hot-diggety-damn, Admiral?” takes the proverbial cake. Any USN commander who dressed and talked to a superior officer like that would have found himself on board a PBY the next day headed for Spokane. Unless they were indispensable, in which case they could do what they want so long as they did their job. I’ve known soldiers like that. Look - good commanders are, by definition, brave, audacious risk takers. They always push the limits, and that includes pushing back against authority. If they’re smart and know how far to push, they get away with. ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2013, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/military-folks-what-are-the-best-hilariously-inaccurate-military-movies-scenes/655860/43 "2013-04-17T17:51:54Z")
If only our troops could be issued submachine guns with movie-style bottomless clips. ---
**Author:** ![MostlyClueless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@MostlyClueless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MostlyClueless)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2013, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/military-folks-what-are-the-best-hilariously-inaccurate-military-movies-scenes/655860/44 "2013-04-17T17:52:49Z")
[Apparently, there’s plenty stuff one can get away with.](http://skippyslist.com/list/) ---
**Author:** ![hotflungwok](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/edb3f5/32.png) [@hotflungwok](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hotflungwok)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2013, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/military-folks-what-are-the-best-hilariously-inaccurate-military-movies-scenes/655860/45 "2013-04-17T18:15:38Z")
I saw _Independence Day_ in the theater with my brother, who is in the Navy, an aircraft mechanic. During the scene where they’re running around getting the fighters ready before the climatic battle my brother bursts out laughing, for no reason that any of us could see. Later he told us that all the men you see running around doing stuff to planes are all wearing line rat gear from a carrier. He actually was a line rat on a carrier, and seeing them all wearing that stuff on land was hilarious to him. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2013, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/military-folks-what-are-the-best-hilariously-inaccurate-military-movies-scenes/655860/46 "2013-04-17T18:24:03Z")
> [@mlees](#): > > [Joseph Rochefort - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Rochefort) > > Or reassigned to command a floating dry dock in 'Frisco. > > Wikipedia doesn’t mention it, but I have read that Rochefort was somewhat eccentric. Patton was eccentric too and was damned lucky that Eisenhower didn’t ship him back to the States. Of course, he couldn’t; George was one commander without which the war in Europe would have taken much longer to finish (forever, if it had been left in the hands of generals like Montgomery, who is **vastly** overrated). ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2013, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/military-folks-what-are-the-best-hilariously-inaccurate-military-movies-scenes/655860/47 "2013-04-17T18:31:35Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > Patton was eccentric too and was damned lucky that Eisenhower didn’t ship him back to the States. Of course, he couldn’t; George was one commander without which the war in Europe would have taken much longer to finish (forever, if it had been left in the hands of generals like Montgomery, who is **vastly** overrated). George “never rose above Army Commander and saw subordinates promoted over him” Patton? ---
**Author:** ![Capt\_Kirk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@Capt\_Kirk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt_Kirk)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2013, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/military-folks-what-are-the-best-hilariously-inaccurate-military-movies-scenes/655860/48 "2013-04-17T18:39:20Z")
> [@MostlyClueless](#): > > [Apparently, there’s plenty stuff one can get away with.](http://skippyslist.com/list/) Skippy sounds like my kind of guy, that was fantastic. Thanks **Capt** ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2013, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/military-folks-what-are-the-best-hilariously-inaccurate-military-movies-scenes/655860/49 "2013-04-17T18:55:50Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > . . . George was one commander without which the war in Europe would have taken much longer to finish (forever, if it had been left in the hands of generals like Montgomery, who is **vastly** overrated). Well, maybe, and maybe not. Could have been that the war would have been over in about the same amount of time, but with American and Soviet soldiers shaking hands at the Seine instead of the Elba. ---
**Author:** ![pancakes3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ba9def/32.png) [@pancakes3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pancakes3)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2013, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/military-folks-what-are-the-best-hilariously-inaccurate-military-movies-scenes/655860/50 "2013-04-17T19:00:44Z")
> [@Svejk\_1](#): > > Star Wars. I don’t even know where to start but clearly George Lucas has never seen the inside of an X-wing - or a Death Star for that matter. To be fair, he did try to go back and correct his mistakes, specifically the way a Death Star properly explodes. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2013, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/military-folks-what-are-the-best-hilariously-inaccurate-military-movies-scenes/655860/51 "2013-04-17T19:09:41Z")
Since all the good ones are taken, I’m going to go off the wall and say Avatar. Yeah, it’s not a war movie, but it was pretty hilarious. Here is an advance space faring population, who wants to clear out a group of stone age aliens from around a tree, and the best they can do is to get within bow range to use their advanced rockets, and then later a shuttle rigged up with explosives and a ground/air assault on the aliens mountain fortress?? No one ever though ‘hey, why are we using troops when we could, I don’t know, drop a rock on them from space’? 😛 Even leaving that aside, what was the ground assault supposed to accomplish if they were going to drop explosive from the shuttle?? Just to make sure the stone age aliens had a chance to get in a calvary charge through heavy woods and into the teeth of modern troops using Napoleonic tactics and forming line? Why didn’t those troops do something really meaningful and form square? ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2013, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/military-folks-what-are-the-best-hilariously-inaccurate-military-movies-scenes/655860/52 "2013-04-17T19:58:15Z")
> [@detop](#): > > I will give a pass on Hal Holbrook. Just read about Joe Rochefort, the guy he portrayed in the movie. I think that Holbrook’s performance is toned **down** to what Rochefort was in real life. For cite : Gordon W. Prange’s _Miracle at Midway_ and Walter Lord’s _Incredible Victory_. [Here](http://www.usncva.org/clog/smok_jkt.shtml) is an interview Rochefort gave in which he was explaining why he wore the smoking jacket and slippers over his uniform. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2013, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/military-folks-what-are-the-best-hilariously-inaccurate-military-movies-scenes/655860/53 "2013-04-17T20:16:18Z")
> [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](#): > > The opening batle scene in Gladiator. > Heavy cavalry charge through a forest on uneven terrain into your own men. > Saddles are wrong. > The Germanic tribes coming out of the forest to face an formed legion (They’s learnt the trick of not fighting like that with Arminius.) What was it like serving in the Legions? ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2013, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/military-folks-what-are-the-best-hilariously-inaccurate-military-movies-scenes/655860/54 "2013-04-18T04:15:17Z")
Re: the round crews wearing the RAT gear at Area 51 in Independence Day… I will never be able to not notice that. For those of you who are curious, on an Air Force base, the ground crews would mostly be wearing camo fatigues with elastic reflective belts and eye/ear protection. ---
**Author:** ![Ranger\_Jeff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranger_jeff/32/2065_2.png) [@Ranger\_Jeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranger_Jeff)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2013, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/military-folks-what-are-the-best-hilariously-inaccurate-military-movies-scenes/655860/55 "2013-04-18T05:41:27Z")
In movies with scenes in the cockpits of large aircraft, usually it’s a B-17 or B-29 (what have they got against Liberators?) when the pilot makes a hard turn (like after dropping a bomb on Hiroshima, Japan), he always turns the yoke hard to the right and holds it there until, seemingly, the aircraft is on the desired new heading. It’s like this. You only hold the yoke like that if you want to roll the freaking aircraft. If you want to change the direction you turn the yoke to the right, for example, until you have the desired angle of bank. Then you straighten out the yoke and the bank angle will remain. Once you’ve turned enough (I haven’t mentioned the elevator and rudder adjustments) you turn the yoke the other way until your wings are level. Then you level the yoke again. ---
**Author:** ![pjnlsn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e8c25b/32.png) [@pjnlsn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pjnlsn)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2013, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/military-folks-what-are-the-best-hilariously-inaccurate-military-movies-scenes/655860/56 "2013-04-18T05:54:53Z")
> [@robby](#): > > How about pretty much everything in _[Crimson Tide](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112740/)_? > > To name a few: > [ul] > [li]Officers don’t order sailors on submarines to drop and do push-ups like drill instructors do in basic training.[/li][li]Submarine dolphins aren’t worn on white dress shirts (part of the service dress blue uniform), but on the SDB jacket.[/li][li]Sonar displays do not look like radar scopes.[/li][li]The gist of the plot is contrived and unrealistic.[/li][/ul] > > _[The Hunt for Red October](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099810/?ref_=sr_1)_ wasn’t nearly as bad, though it had quite a few whoppers of its own. A trivial one is that the submarines seemed to have quite a bit more chrome and neon lights than I remember. Real submarines are much more drab and utilitarian. Oh I love Hunt for Red October. Especially Sean Connery. I did recently watch K-19 the widowmaker and while I don’t know if it was technically innaccurate (or indeed procedurally innacurate) but the film kept the tension level constantly high, without a break, which was annoying, and made out that the entire crew is grossly incompetent, but like so incompetent that ordinary tasks on a sub, even if their ordered to do them fast, would result in death and injury…always. And so you see men dying because a torpedo has hit them in the head while it’s being loaded, and all sorts of other weird crap. I refuse to believe any submarine crew is that incompetent. I mean, to screw up a nuclear reactor, like as happened to the real K-19, you don’t need to be grossly incompetent, it seems to me, you just need to not be brilliant. And beyond that the acting was sub-par, except for Harrison Ford, who I like cuz he’s a reliable actor. He wasn’t brilliant, but he was better than any other actor in the entire movie. Without him, there wouldn’t have been much reason to watch it. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2013, 10:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/military-folks-what-are-the-best-hilariously-inaccurate-military-movies-scenes/655860/57 "2013-04-18T10:15:12Z")
> [@Raguleader](#): > > . Or the staggering ease with which a bunch of high school kids are able to infiltrate the most secure areas of an Air Force installation and steal a pair of fighter jets. Back in the mid 80s when I was living in Tidewater VA, I used to ‘social engineer’ my way all over various bases. I still have a belt of ammo cases that I collected on Fort Story, and one time I talked my way onto NOB, and all the way across several flightlines to HM14 to pick up a guy I was dating. I frequently went on base and hung out in barracks sewing on patches and altering uniforms for spare cash. Getting onto military bases pre 9-11 was not all that difficult. I wouldn’t try to engineer my way into a nuke storage facility, or certain other secure areas - but many areas were more or less accessible. > [@terentii](#): > > Patton was eccentric too and was damned lucky that Eisenhower didn’t ship him back to the States. Of course, he couldn’t; George was one commander without which the war in Europe would have taken much longer to finish (forever, if it had been left in the hands of generals like Montgomery, who is **vastly** overrated). Wasn’t he the one who made some sort of statement about the Germans that they needed to be kicked around until they learned their place every now and again? [referring to the various times the Germans got into a war and ended up losing] > [@AK84](#): > > George “never rose above Army Commander and saw subordinates promoted over him” Patton? never underestimate how your career can be scuttled by others who dislike you for one reason or another. The military seems to have a lot of grudge lack of promotions/sideways promotions/change of duty station - in the civilian world it is harder to screw someones career if they do not work in the same company - but someone in the Navy can screw someone in the Army handily. Patton may have had his eccentricities, but by damn, he could inspire loyalty in his subordinates. [and occasionally intense hatred.] I think it was much different back in WW2 - there was a different sort of unit cohesion - frequently all the recruits from say Wyoming County NY [or just Western NY west of Syracuse] would all end up in a specific training camp, sorted out into a specific unit with a set of officers. They would stick together and only get replacements for the combat injured and killed/captured. [hence in the movie Big Red 1 they more or less ignored the replacements until they had survived combat for a while] This new style where everybody sort of trains en mass and gets sorted out after A school always annoyed my Dad, he felt that it wasn’t as good for unit morale. He had ‘his’ General, and any time he ran into someone who had been in his original unit, they always knew who was meant when they talked about The General did \. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2013, 11:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/military-folks-what-are-the-best-hilariously-inaccurate-military-movies-scenes/655860/58 "2013-04-18T11:02:55Z")
No mention of the hilariously inaccurate film Battleship? Maybe some of our representatives from the Navy can explain this common trope where an unmotivated slacker fuckup becomes an officer in the Navy, has significant responsibility AND still manages to maintain his fuckedupedness? Because I was under the impression that you had to go to Annapolis or at the very least graduate from college with a math or engineering degree be in ROTC. Both paths requiring a great deal of work. Not “oh gee I don’t know what to do with my life so I guess I’ll go be the weapons officer on an Arleigh Burke class destroyer until I figure my shit out.” Not to mention a dozen guys getting the decommissioned USS Missouri ready for battle in a few hours. > [@pjnlsn](#): > > And so you see men dying because a torpedo has hit them in the head while it’s being loaded, and all sorts of other weird crap. I refuse to believe any submarine crew is that incompetent. > > I mean, to screw up a nuclear reactor, like as happened to the real K-19, you don’t need to be grossly incompetent, it seems to me, you just need to not be brilliant. I would imagine submarines and ships in general are very dangerous places to work. You have high pressures and temperatures (and radiation) and large, heavy objects moving around in confined spaces while the ship is moving and rolling. ---
**Author:** ![spifflog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@spifflog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spifflog)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2013, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/military-folks-what-are-the-best-hilariously-inaccurate-military-movies-scenes/655860/59 "2013-04-18T12:15:42Z")
My biggest complaint recently had been with the latest Star Trek movie. This bugged me so much that even as a lifelong Star Trek fan, I couldn’t even enjoy the movie. James Kirk, a kid who isn’t even a graduate of Star Fleet academy, taking over command of the flag ship! This is like a Sophomore or Junior at the Naval Academy on a summer cruise on the newest, biggest, baddest aircraft carrier in the fleet, somehow taking over command over the ohh, tens or hundreds of real Officers on the ship! Such complete and total crap that it took me out of the film. ---
**Author:** ![PoorYorick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecccb3/32.png) [@PoorYorick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PoorYorick)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2013, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/military-folks-what-are-the-best-hilariously-inaccurate-military-movies-scenes/655860/60 "2013-04-18T12:39:03Z")
> [@Ranger\_Jeff](#): > > Oh, in movies and television programs made in the 70’s, the haircuts are just wrong. During the later seasons of Baa Baa Black Sheep, Robert Conrad’s son was cast as one of the pilots. His hair covered half of his ears at least. That never could have happened. The TV show _M_A_S_H\* was the worst for this, especially in the later years (with _Happy Days_ coming a close second). People don’t understand that hair was a really big deal in the '50’s and early '60’s. Wearing your hair over your ears wasn’t just considered unconventional, it was _unmanly_. I remember hearing remarks about the Beatles’s [mop tops](http://www.google.com/imgres?sa=X&hl=en&biw=1003&bih=365&tbm=isch&tbnid=b_CT08bvPsEFDM:&imgrefurl=http://hubpages.com/hub/The-Mop-Top&docid=RxefwvGKBcQtmM&imgurl=http://s4.hubimg.com/u/515239_f260.jpg&w=260&h=251&ei=A-lvUf26AYrU9QTRsYH4CQ&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=2&vpy=31&dur=107&hovh=200&hovw=208&tx=125&ty=167&page=1&tbnh=141&tbnw=131&start=0&ndsp=13&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0,i:85) – are they men or women? – for chrissakes [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/military-folks-what-are-the-best-hilariously-inaccurate-military-movies-scenes/655860.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/military-folks-what-are-the-best-hilariously-inaccurate-military-movies-scenes/655860.md?page=4)