Operation Market Garden - Opening Battle
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- Опубліковано 13 січ 2012
- A great battle scene from the movie "A Bridge too Far". At 12:30 hours (on September 17, 1944) Lieutenant-General Horrocks received a signal that the first wave of the airborne forces had left their bases within the United Kingdom and set the time for the ground attack to start at 14:35 hours. At 14:15 hours 300 guns of the Corps artillery opened fire, firing a rolling barrage in front of XXX Corps start line that was 1 mile (1.6 km) wide and 5 miles (8.0 km) in depth. The barrage was supported by seven squadrons of RAF Hawker Typhoons firing rockets at all known German positions along the road to Valkenswaard.
The advance was led by tanks and infantry of the Irish Guards and started on time when Lieutenant Keith Heathcote, commanding the lead tank, ordered his driver to advance. The lead units of the Irish Guards Group had broken out of XXX Corps bridgehead on the Meuse-Escaut canal and crossed into the Netherlands by 15:00 hours. After crossing the border the Irish Guards were ambushed by infantry and anti-tank guns dug in on both sides of the main road. Portions of the artillery barrage was refired and fresh waves of Hawker Typhoons were called in. The Guardsmen moved forward to clear the German positions, manned by elements from two German parachute battalions and two battalions of the 9th SS Division, and soon routed the German forces flanking the road. Interrogation of captured German soldiers led to some of them willingly, others after being threatened, pointing out the remaining German positions. The fighting soon died down and the advance resumed. By last light the town of Valkenswaard had been reached and occupied by the Irish Guards Group.
Horrocks had expected that the Irish Guards would have been able to advance the 13 miles (21 km) to Eindhoven within two-three hours, however they had only covered 7 miles (11 km). The operation was already starting to fall behind schedule. In Valkenswaard engineers were moved up to construct a 190 foot (58 m) Class 40 Bailey bridge over a stream, which was completed within 12 hours.
www.imdb.com/title/tt0075784/
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operatio... - Розваги
Production manager to special effects supervisor: "You're going to use HOW MUCH EXPLOSIVES for these scenes again???"
"Yes, sir just for the ocassion."
-Michael Bay the Intern Supervisor for Special Effects.
The poor people living around thinking an actuall war is going on.
Yes..
They obviously needed a lot since there's a creeping barrage involved in this scene. 😂😂😂
world war 3’s on, the soviets are here
I especially appreciated the creditable portrayal of a rolling artillery barrage in support of an advancing column.
Very good yes!
Robert Roth Creeping barrage
Very cool. Never seen that before. Didn't know it was done.
@@davec.3198 It was integral to British doctrine during WWII. Pretty much any attack using a Battalion or larger was preceded by a rolling barrage to suppress the enemy and hopefully kill a few. It didn't work well unless the attackers were right on the heels of the barrage and into the enemy positions before they recovered.
Can't imagine how terrifying it must be to watch those shells get closer and closer to you.
The amount of physical hardware in this scene is insane.
1960's CGI I'm guessing LOL...
@@DaviesMartinezBeats I mean, putting body kits on small tanks to make them look like Tigers was the order of the day, FURY got the last remaining tiger physically driving in it's film. It is a balance between available resources and effect in each era.
@@keithsimpson2685 - TRUE. I was 'joking' about the 1960's CGI component to the film (CGI Not Invented back when the film was made)...
@@DaviesMartinezBeats And o god, the PIAT scene has so much weirdness about it. Teleporting shells, load/unload between shots, etc. I'm just saying the people who are all nostalgic about old movies miss the garbage too.
I saw the making of the film, and the tanks where... VW beettles dressed up like tanks!! Hahaha, and still looks realistic.
Love the sound of those 25-pounders and the rattle of the cases being ejected
For me, it's the ejection of a M1 Garand cartridge when it makes that PING sound
Love seeing those guns in action
The sounds of some firearms in this movie are the same of the back then 007 movies.
Well, you wouldn't if you were on the receiving end.
They recorded the sounds at a shooting range of real 25 pounders, so the sound is very much accurate
"If they are grey, they are USAAF. If they are green, they are RAF. If they are invisible, it's the Luftwaffe" (German black humor of WW2)
Berlin is full of ware houses.
Here were houses there where houses
I know it that Way: If they come at Day: Americans. If they come at Night: Brits. If they don´t come at all: Germans.
How many gears does a french tank have? 6. 4 reverse gears + 2 forward gears for the case the Germans are approaching from behind.
P
The stupid commentary fucks dont understand black humor
This is one of few films, where you can see proper artillery fire.
Crazy how a film made 40 years has better, more realistic and more accurate battle scenes then anything made today. They don't make them like they used to.
Literally came to post the exact same comment.
@@stevekaczynski3793
It isn't just the equipment but the feel and realism. This is how an attack should be made! Compare this to the bullshit that Fury spews and you'll see the problem with modern movies.
Many of the advisors to this movie were in fact the actual participants in the battle. They advised the actors who played them. This lent to the authentic feel of this movie. IMHO, this is among the top 3 WW2 movies ever.
@John6yt Meanwhile, I can show you movies and you would not know they used CGI there you moron. But keep raving against technology.
@@stevekaczynski3793 I would agree with you, however, even movies about Afganistan and Iraq portray war poorly if you have an eye for it or have seen combat.
A creeping barrage by 25 pounders has to be one of the most terrifying things a soldier can ever experience in battle. It must be hell on earth to be watching the explosions come towards you. A Bridge Too Far has to be one of the best War Films ever made.
We will never forget the Heroes of Arnhem and the sacrifice that the greatest generation made during World War 2.
1:40 Got to love the look on that one German's face as if saying "Uh boss, those explosions are getting closer. Shouldn't we get in our fox holes?"
Realism. They hv fear but the fear of letting your mates down were stronger. Brave men. And show human side of german troops
This has to be one of the best battle scenes in cinema history.
YEs! i found you!
The amount of physical hardware in this scene is insane.. Very realistic scene. One of the best in war movies..
Up to this day this is one of my favorite scenes in a war movie. Both sides show skills, both sides make mistakes, there is an accurate depiction of tactics and maneuvers, it's just an amazing scene (and movie in general)
Movies nowadays sadly go towards this "one american vs. a thousand germans with the aiming and tactical skills of stormtroopers" - really refreshing to see the "old ones".
I agree, American and Russian movies are full of propaganda. Movies like this and Stalingrad (1993) are perfect depictions of a great ww2 film
Correct. The Western Allies never really developed a technique in defeating heavily entrenched German positions they whould rather just call in air support and flaten the Germans. Simmilary the Germans whould lay in wait for the Western Allies to approach but then they whould become to entrenched and eventually get bombed or flushed out with flamethrowers or grenades.
For me it's Grabners attack across the bridge in Arnhem.
Richard Attenborough was a great film maker!
@@sirxavior1583 the Germans recovering from that pounding is a testimony of how experienced and effective the German army still was even in late 1944.
Watch it for the first time in 1984, and am still watching it in 2019
This is what I love about these old movies. The production is crude compared to today's standard but its so much better than today. Seeing the aircraft dropping dummy bombs then seeing the special effects is awesome.
Keep in mind that this was the most expensive film ever made (up to that point.)
When I was young I was irked by faked war machines in movies. But as I grew up and learned how insanely hard anything and everything is, I came to appreciate what they did in the days of analogue movie making. To take an airframe and cosmetically modify it so it can actually still fly just for a movie is just awesome.
All guns, commence firing!
Best line EVER!
@@lemmdus2119 2nd best is Get that wreck off the Road
Thanks, just gave me the confirmation of the words after 40 years
How how I wish they can release a proper restoration of this film. It's depressing this day and age that great films like A Bride Too Far, The Great Escape, Magnificent Seven (original), don't have great H.D transfers. Hopefully when this gets a 4k treatment one day it'll look stunning. This to me is the greatest war film of all time.
Nope. I say leave the classics alone, and enjoy!
@@elfhighmage8240 a good HD transfer should just mean a better transfer of the original film print to a digital format. It would be closer to the original than currently available transfers, not a revision.
A restoration yes, a remake hell naw!
My 10 year old cousin ava was watching this movie a few years back and when this part cane on she said "This is scary. But I like it." She is just the cutest thing ever.
"It's the wide part". One of my favourite movie lines ever.
ABTF avoids the platoon syndrome of a lot of WW2 , and actually depicts a total battle . An impressive sequence.
Ah yes, the old war film cliche, “a small group of soldiers trapped behind enemy lines”. Because the film makers rarely have the vision or the budget to depict a decent sized military unit.
@@IbnShahid I think writers and producers find it hard to visualise a story where events take precedence but characterisation is still important, beyond having a single family unit as the protagonists. Hence platoon and squad based stories even in big battles for most war movies. It is a shame, but someone will do a big scale movie like this again - Nolan tried with Dunkirk and it wasn't entirely successful on any level apart from the cool story structure.
The fact in matter is when guiding Artie fire at tank columns is aim just ahead of the dust cloud
Back in the days when war movies looked almost real, while today war movies look like video games.
Lol, midway just proves this comment right here
I remember watching this movie when it was released in the late 70's. Since then and studying military history and equipment I am always impressed with the use of the 75mm PAK40 antitank guns, the MG34 and MG42 machine guns and even the homely 50mm signal mortar in this scene. To put that kind of authentic hardware (or at least to my feeble) eyes is damn impressive.
so amazing. zero CGI and that makes this battle so great.
Best scene of the whole movie!!
At the time I was a conscript soldier with the medicine company 12th army brigade in Nunspeet, the Netherlands. Our company made up actors who were supposedly 'wounded' in the movie A bridge too far. They really did a great job! Great movie! 👍
Artillery. Useful for when something is really offending you with its presence and you want it quickly eradicated.
Used to be different.
Napoleon is the one who made artillery from a supporting role to a dominating factor
Hmmm good point. Be awesome to use against today's social justice warriors and their cancel culture.
@@deweysturgill6220 so people who think terrible people deserve to have consequences deserve to be blown apart? How fucked in the head are you
@@jeambeam3173 not near as fucked as you are bat boy to think it's right for these hoodlum ands thugs to burn rape pillage and plunder.
No different than the terrorist groups in the middle east.
Only thing missing is them sticking dynamite up there asses and yelling aloha snack bar. ...
Gotta love when back in the day it was REAL effects :D
I took my mother to see this film when it came out. Afterwards she told me, " We could hear the guns firing and see the Germans starting to leave but we had hidden all our bicycles a long time before and they didn't get them. " She lived in a small village near Eindhoven.
best part about an old war movie. NO CGI!!! all real tanks and aircraft.
I noticed the Achilles wreck a few times! nice to see they added that into the movie showing that the brits didn't just have shermans but M10's with 17pounders!. ashame that all the shermans have long barrels...still a brilliant movie!.
well most of the Shermans are plastic mockups placed on land rovers.
Or American Easy Eights.
I think in one scene there is even a knocked out M47 Patton tank, which is definitely out of place for the era this movie is depicting.
Think the tank destroyer was there just for numbers, not enough Shermans available for the movie, to someone who would not know better, it looked close enough. Plus not having a roof, they were able to make it look like it blew it's roof and was on fire from the inside.
KingSNAFU its at 5:09 in this video.
Gotta love that uncontested air power.
Mistermax30 yeah this is towards the end of the Second World War…Germans did not have a lot of airplanes left and the ones that were left were stretched out on four fronts.
Actually, 1944 was their top year for aircraft production. They simply ran out of experienced pilots.
+tpsu129
Most of the planes were in the eastern front too.
The fighter sweep tactic absolutely wrecked the luftwaffe
tpsu129 They ran out of fuel and, besides, the german factories were heavily bombed.
All time cinema effects,no CGI,a masterpiece
Back when they made good movies
Amazes me how good everything looks in this film sure if I nitpicked there are vehicles or guns used that are not accurate, but they made do and chose the vehicles to the point where they blended flawlessly still with everything else. This is an incredible scene for the amount of detail. The bulldozer sherman is a great addition.
I would be shitting myself if i was in that German line watching that creeping barrage slowly creep its way towards me.
Snake same here, I would not survive
Too right.
Snake - Darned right ! It scares me enough just watching it coming in the movie. Being right there in front of it would have been terrifying.
Back then you dug deep holes because you wanted to make sure that outside of the round landing right in your hole, you'd be able to survive the blast.
You should have watched it in theaters during first release, mentally completely unprepared for what was coming.(Which was what I did.)
The rolling barrage scene was shown during an AAR when my unit was training at NTC. As a mortarman, it emphasized how what we do could devastate the enemy both physically and psychologically.
Back in the days where war films where much more realistic and never had plot armour but equal opportunity.
and no romantic story to mess it up I am looking at you Pearl Harbor
Don't watch any John Wayne war movies brother. He made some real bs stinkers. only way to get a good performance out of that man was without him realizing you were criticizing him like in The Searchers.
They couldnt really have plot armor here as historically they lost. Although you're right there is do much bias when it comes to combat in so many modern movies
At 0:54, if you look closely at the fifth tank in the column entering the screen from the right side just beyond the tree, you can briefly tell that it's just a mock-up and not a real tank. Its treads are not turning and they don't touch the ground indicating that it is a wheeled vehicle with fixed treads, surrounded by sheet metal designed to resemble a real tank.
well noticed - I'm impressed!
My god.
good spotting - at first I was suprised how many Fireflys / reals Shermans mocked up as Fireflys were used
Well spotted. Still about a million times more realistic than CGI.
Tim Richardson you look closely one the destroyedtanks is an M'26 Chafee!
'You don't know the worst...
This bit...
is the wide part'....
The British lost 9 tanks, and crews, and other troops, during this initial assault. ( About 6 destroyed tanks can be seen at 5:09 ).
But, Horrocks had 50,000 men, and 15,000 other vehicles, including many hundreds of tanks and other armored vehicles, behind them, stretching back over 20 miles on various roads.
This was about the only direct paved main road available which could support the weight of the heavy vehicles. Thus, the Germans were guarding it heavily.
Many other lighter vehicles took other lightly defended surrounding roads alongside.
Assuming XXX Corps advanced alongside even FIVE roads at once, including this one, that works out to a mere 35 feet of road space per vehicle, stretching back 20 miles !
Little wonder that progress was, understandably, very slow.
( Many vehicles could have possibly traveled across country, off road, but gas consumption would have doubled. And it couldn't be spared ).
While on the move, Army Groups like this ( and Patton's, etc. ) used many hundreds of thousands of gallons of gas *PER DAY.* )
Carlie Mckenna My grand uncle was with the Irish guards during the war.
Not too many---Horrocks did a pretty good job keeping his casualties down & still moving as fast was practical.
do you know the best part? It is that that was the wides path they will take to mission objective
Thus the reason for Market Garden's failure....tanks confined to narrow roads in a line.
I was initially impressed by this scene as a kid, watching it with my dad, who served in the Canadian Army (PPCLI). Having served myself in the Canadian Armoured Corps (LdSH) I feel the scene does not ring true. I’ve witnessed artillery bombardments, they’re not as impressive as this and in a wooded area they would have had literally less impact. Also, keep in mind, these are supposed to be German veterans who previously fought in Normandy and spent a couple of years in Russia. They’d been on the receiving end of heavy artillery bombardments (and air bombardments) before and would know the importance of entrenchment. The quick surrender does not seem realistic, as the Panzerjaegers would almost certainly have a plan to withdraw if overwhelmed ...as they no doubt previously did following the Normandy campaign. These soldiers managed to slip out of the Falaise Gap, it’s doubtful they suddenly saw the light to surrender here. Calling in air support would probably take about half an hour, if all goes well, and it would be called in by a FAC, not the leading tank battalion (regiment) commander. Kudos for immediately laying smoke. The tanks would unlikely be able to spot the individual anti-tank firing positions and return accurate fire. One would have to see the flash and then remember where it came from in the heat of battle. One could fire in the general direction to throw off the anti-tank gun, but the beast way to deal with them is infantry, artillery and, after a lengthy delay, air power, if available. still, it does look very impressive.
This movie have all the super star actors in it.
Very realistic scene. One of the best in war movies.
the Germans said the only things that scared then on the western front were the British (creeping barrage) and American (time on Target barrage) artillery, and the "Jabos" (close air support)....
Seth Kimmel Interesting! Could you please elaborate?
The Germans were terrified of
American artillery because there was so much of it, and because of "time on target". tot was a system of fire direction where a foward observer call call down fire missions that involved multiple batteries or even multiple artillery BATTALIONS firing at the same target. What was REALLY terrifying was that the artillery didn't fire at the same time, but at different times so all rounds arrived at the same time. The British used a different system which I'm not familiar with but it was extremely fast in response to fire mission requests. As for CAS (close air support ); the allies pioneered using air force officers as foward air controllers to call in the Jabos (German nickname for the fighter bombers). Using experienced pilots on the ground as observers instead of infantry officers was more efficient. Lastly the allies had TOTAL air supremacy so the fighter bombers didn't have to worry about harassment from the Luftwaffe so they could concentrate on their groind aupport mission.
Seth Kimmel Thank you so much Seth!
From what I've read the Germans feared the British artillery the most, with the American artillery hot on its heels. The reason they feared them both was because the British and American artillery were both fast and accurate. The Russian artillery they apparently rated less highly; the Russians fired a lot of shells but their artillery according to the Germans was far less accurate- it looked very impressive but it was far less likely to do as much damage.
hmmmm not so sure when it came to the katyushas, either way the german infantryman after 1943 had it really rough..
To this day one of the greatest War films EVER made ... this used to be Sunday afternoon viewing in the 70's after the roast!
One of the beauties of "A Bridge to Far" is that it does something that no other war films did....Not only did it honor and show scenes with all branches....Airborne, Artillery, Armoured, Engineers....but it showed the German forces not as robots., but as soldiers....
I saw this on TV as a lad: the Late Night Saturday Night Movie. I fell in love with Sir Anthony Hopkins' Acting as this was the first film I saw him in. It didn't hurt, either, that Sir Sean Connery, Mr. Elliott Gould, Mr. James Caan, Mr. Gene Hackman, Sir Michael Caine, and so many, many more great actors and actresses were ap art of this film.
As an old Retired Infantry Senior NCO and a Veteran of two wars, there’s a DAMN good reason why the Artillery Corps is called “the King of Battle” and the Infantry is the queen of battle. Artillery obliterates targets period. Just the shock wave from their rounds can turn your internal organs to pudding let alone the frag and heat! You have to walk through an area after an artillery strike to comprehend their power. They are very professional in their duties and they do NOT screw around, they’ve covered my ass a couple times.
Watch this in 1977, never gets old.
How anyone survived that war is beyond me.
I have been looking for this battle scene for SO long!
Man that tree line that squirted with everything Goddam. Still one of the best World War II movies back in the day.
Really like the movie. And as a Pole im glad they shown Polish paratroopers, even if Gene Hackman polish is rather funny ;)
I always feel bad watching the scene where they get machine gunned while parachuting down. It feels like murder when you are shooting people who are incapable of shooting back and are absolutely helpless.
@@Tommykey07 thats war
F poland
@@paulizzs4720 LOL
Because lot of Polish people where fighting and do deserve to be mentioned and this movie is one of the best .
And thank you Polish, British, American for stopping Hitler.
The creeping artillery barrage they call it.. Old WW1 tactic..epic scene
What makes this movie so efficient is that you are actually horrified by the sight of the german soliders getting killed even if you don't like them. I consider A bridge too far an anti-war film.
At 2:56, you can see an AMX 13 Automoteur de 105 mm, which is a French self-propelled gun that would not enter service until 1955, more than a decade after the debacle at Arnhem.
They used whatever was available including some artistic licence.
One of my favorite scenes in this movie.
All that old equipment none of it, cgi or anything fancy just real tanks and halftracks. Miss these old flicks
Hmmmm.....
Realistic creeping barrage......
Love war films made like this, no CGI bullshit, just a lot of real explosives and good camera.work
Hey you look familiar
Battle scene was very well done. And they were on the 'wide part' of the road!
This look like a documentary than a movie for me.
I always liked this scene... I'm a true-blue American but the Brits could lay the smackdown on some people during WW2. It's hard to imagine massed artillery like everybody did in The Great War (WW1) and firing 250,000-1,000,000 shells in a day. It was pretty much commonplace to do that... don't have to worry about taking any ExLax, all the concussions probably turned everybody's innards to mush. Just an observation... I know it's Hollywood, but my ass would make like a barnacle and be stuck to the floor of one of those trucks... shrapnel would be zingin everywhere.
More realistic enemy soldiers surrender than todays war film.
This scene has always made me wonder if the artillery was on a range thus firing real shells, then edited into the movie to look like a creeping barrage. Those guns are recoiling like they are firing real shells. A few years ago, the Navy SEAL's were asked to help make and participate in a movie about them. They agreed but only if they could use real ammunition. They did.....
Yes, the guns were firing on a range used by the British Army of the Rhine. The shells were I believe live and yes there was editing as it wouldn't do well if a shell falling short hurt any of the actors or film crew.
That tank commander at 0:24 looks about 12 years old and obviously putting on his brave face. Great acting even from a bit-part.
Thank you for posting this.
You can hardly do better; real British artillery firing LIVE AMMO on an artillery range by Dutch gunners, supporting a bunch of WW2 armor on the Dutch Army tank training ground at Amersfoort. And Michael Caine riding up front! I especially love the T6s representing Typhoon fighter/bombers actually dropping fake bombs, made from fire extinguishers and perfectly synced with ground charges
A great Hollywood movie that has many inaccuracies. The most egregious is the glossing over of the role the 82nd Airborne under Gavin played in the failure of XXX Corp to get to Arnhem on time. When XXX Corp got to Nijmegen they found that 82nd had still failed to take the Bridge and allowed the German to reinforce there force on the Bridge. The day the 82nd landed there were only a handful of Germans the bridges. Gavin took 8 hour to send a force to the Bridge when he initially landed. Then he withdrew them and decided to reinforce the Grooesbeek. This failure of the 82nd meant XXX Corp had a protracted battle to capture the Bridges (there were actually two).
This is really one of the best war movies ever made only without the blood and human parts of recent movies
The best scène of artillerie in the movie
Is this the only representation of a creeping barrage in all of cinema?
Rolling barrage.
back when WW2 films werenot always about the egocentric yanks and actually showed shit relatively true to how they happened
It's less of a "back when", more like "that sweet, brief moment in cinema history", between the Golden Age of Hollywood and the advent of Saving Private Ryan. Cross of Iron was another good one that came out at this time.
Jack Timson
The Longest Day was great too.
I wouldn't say Patton glorified the yanks so much as it showed what Patton himself cared about. To claim he never cared for his men is wrong, but at the same time HE was the ego in the Army. That's why he go the nickname "Old blood and guts". His blood, our guts. He demanded respect, and was interested in winning, even if it meant sacrifice to be first over everyone, especially Monty. Again, HE was all the ego the allies could take and it actually got him fired a few times, just once permanently.
LOL what a dumbass you are! Tell me, the films made in the UK in this era...they don't highlight the British do they? Lol what an idiot. THEY ARE AMERICAN FILMS IDIOT, NO KIDDING THEY SHOW THE BEST OF AMERICANS! lol! If you don't like them, don't watch them dumb ass (I have not seen Fury yet and prob. never will and the Uboat movie from a few years back was even worse from what I heard)
this is a film about joint US-UK effort not a dick swinging contest
I wouldve loved to see this movie in the theatre back in the day.
Lots of stars in this movie.
🌟
This is more realistic than the war movies made today with much better practical effects. Sad how much we've regressed.
i think they had ww2 vets show them how it looked and the budget they had, but I might be wrong
Dunkirk was the last good War Movie I have seen tbh and that was directed by Christopher Nolan. The remake of 1976 Midway however was dreadful.
@@ojsilva1975 1917 was not all that bad (not as large in scale though as Dunkirk).
@@accountreality1988 I totally forgot to mention that tbh, thanks for adding that in there!
Well you still have very accurate ww2 films made today and there were inaccurate ones back then.
4:53. Best part
💥
Einer der besten Kriegsfilme überhaupt!!!👍👏😉Genial
This is what you call creeping artillery barrage with a full frontal assault. Brilliant!
Meanwhile in Company of Heroes , infantry general fires artillery , then tank general launches 12 m4 Sherman then destroyed
Very realistic.
autistische aktion You're god damn right.
But the whole point of a 'creeping barrage' was that the attacking forces were close up to the barrage and gave the enemy no time to react before they were on them.
As can be seen from this clip, the British were so far behind the barrage that the Germans had time to recover and organised a defense before the tanks arrived.
Very cinematic, totally unrealistic.
This is a 6 minute interpretation of a three hour engagement by civilian artistic departments reading from chapters of a brief history book for the purpose of making money through ticket sales. In that sense it is very good.
So what they showed was a poor advance to contact plan trying to do the work of a complex assault plan. A fail at corporals school, let alone staff college. It propagates the myth that infantry are just ranks of fodder who somehow win through by the contents of their chests and not their brains.
I intend to explain this divergence from realism - at length - because most peoples experience of assault operations comes from a Hollywood seat. Its why we poor bloody infantrymen are universally seen as raging pawns, locked into a simple task of bloodletting forward movement controlled by heroic gestures and six word order-groups. While that is the essence of our arena, you don't win by giving in to those constraints.
The Brits have known where the enemy front line is for days. If they don't then its a complete failure of preparation, observation, intelligence, planning and awareness - boring things soldiers take really seriously.
The plan is to trundle towards a large number of enemy forces hoping a barrage does all the work - which no barrage has ever done, ever! These enemy must have suspected they were in a dodgy place, and probably wasted no effort with the shovel, so the confidence in a short barrage of light field guns is lacking in aggressive rigour..... and as the column approaches, the guns stop! Why? Lift 50 or 100 and you'll still be having an effect.
The columns plan for breaching a front line is to hold back on the shooting? I wouldn't. Where was the co-ordination of suppressive fire? co-ax keeping heads down? splash of pre-arranged SF? Why were the Shermans not trolling for fire, putting rounds down range into likely positions before the germans fired a shot? Its called winning the firefight, we go on about it a lot.
Heathland either side of the road left unused, despite the whole point of tracked vehicles being off-road mobility. No attempt to create a wider front from the start, to stretch the enemy fire while bringing more of yours to bear, just a narrow head on assault at the most obvious most heavily contested spot. Its not even brave, just silly.
Everyones got weapons that reach out, but are waiting for the whites of each others eyes. Why? Suppressive fire is well taught at solider school and those heavy awkward guns you sweat to lug around are designed to do just that. Soldiers in the assault care not for husbanding ammunition or where it goes, so long as less of it comes back at them.
Here both sides elect to give up the greater part of their kill zone to raise tension in a Wild West show down. Hollywood loves the white of their eyes bit, its a visually effective way of using actors talents to bring immediacy to a scene. Truthfully soldiers care less about this.
What we see here in execution of a prepared plan was no mutual supporting fire until the last minute because the British are bunched up, tripping over themselves on too narrow a front. Terrible dispersal of troops compounded by poor use of cover by both sides - why are the Tommies sitting on top of their armoured personnel carriers when entering a kill zone? Why do the Germans only get in their trenches when the creeping barrage gets to them. Not a lot of veterans or professionals in this fight. Those Germans lying out in the tree line watching the bombardment look like they know its only the SFX department facing them, not some blokes intent on meaningful violence.
Someone read the book, saw the bit about an advance down a single road, and pictured nothing else. In reality the battalions tried everything to mitigate the single road. Ive walked this route, the front was by military standards claustrophobic - but it still extended half a mile either side of the road. The real visual of the WW2 battlefield is a jam-packed emptiness. Everyone is spread out, doing their best not to be seen, good tactics, poor cinematic impact.
And the creeping barrage! So WW1 not late WW2. The incremental lift across the heathland had no purpose other than to make the ground less passable to your own vehicles, and obscure the Germans from direct observation and more accurate fire of the Shermans - their primary purpose in the assault.
The barrage aided the Germans who didn't need to observe the British to hold them up. They would have had prearranged fire and interlocking arcs for those ATGs and MG42s, they would have been zeroed in on the road, choke points and likely routes for days and would have been pouring blind fire through that barrage. Their muzzle flashes and smoke hidden from view and retaliatory fire.
Tanks don't want creeping barrages, thats for mass infantry-only assaults, which armoured warfare was supposed to avoid. All that arty would have been put to better use hammering the known or likely sites of enemy crew served weapons from the start.
As a former (very junior) infantryman I would have faced dramatic reduction in rank for even proposing such an attack, or leading such a wilful rush in lieu of planned and controlled operations making best use of: ground; intelligence; resources; support; target identification; fire control and the complex communication of a mutually supportive manoeuvre onto the objective; winning of the firefight; fight through the position; consolidate and re-organise for the expected counter attack.
In this movie only Anthony Hopkins got it close, Michael Caines eyebrows suggest a deeper understanding and Edward Fox did well to encapsulate the mission objectives. But audiences simply wouldn't sit through the real, realism of warfare which is waiting in frustration for hours that feel like minutes and minutes that feel like hours. A giant jazz orchestra of differing talents and instruments, working on instinct, inching towards invisible targets and impossible goals with incomplete orders that change with the breeze.
They say in drama you can confuse but not frustrate your audience. My experience of warfare is the direct opposite: frustrating in the extreme, but broken down into tiny increments to limit confusion.
Evan Wright said Groundhog Day depicts warfare the best, I agree. If you want one with guns in it - The Way Ahead.
Old is gold .....
Surprised how many people still don't know about this op. And the fallout after.
This is a really well executed scene, but did anyone notice that, as the tanks are beginning to roll forward the last tank before they cut to another angle, it's tracks aren't touching the ground, looks like wheels beneath but the cut is too fast
The production called for shots of Sherman's crossing a bailey bridge but the bridge as built could not take the weight of a real sherman so some fake ones were built over dutch army left hand drive land rovers
I jst love artillary batteries.😍😘😘😘❤👌🏻
This is likely the battle south Of Valkenswaard. There's a cemetery there with over 200 graves - mostly Irish Guards. Its quite surreal because a few 100 metres/yards up the road is a modern CenterParcs holiday village. I came across the cemetery while staying there.
I recommend Anthony Beevors' book on market garden - it was basically just a rubbish plan and wasted a lot of British and American airborne troops , and XXX corps ground troops - not to mention the suffering of the Dutch population. Apparently The Dutch army officer school before the war had exercises on how to attack from the south into Holland - and any officer who picked that route immediately failed the test - yet the poor old Irish guards had to advance up it single file. Everything had to go right for the plan to succeed - and that never happens. In fact - if the Germans had blown Nijmegen bridge when they should have (the day before the American airborne troops bravely captured it) - then no-one would have got anyway near rescuing the British Airborne troops at Arnhem. The Germans foolishly kept it intact so they could counter attack.
No, they didn't foolishly keep it intact. If you read "Lost at Nijmegen" (Poullussen), it quite clearly states that the bridge explosives were rendered inoperative by a local Dutchman (who is later executed as a collaborator when captured by the Germans). Beevor's book is good, but I think Cornelius Ryan's original book is better, but needs to be read on conjunction with "It Never Snows in September", by Robert Kershaw, so that you get a more complete picture. The plan wasn't that bad and it almost worked. The failure of the 82nd to take the bridge when it was undefended was the fatal flaw, as almost everything else was able to be worked around. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but had Gavin NOT concentrated on the Groesbeek Heights (where Browning had decided to set up the AB Command HQ, by the way), then the result would most likely have been very different. Browning's decision to set up HQ there must also be canned for what it was, as it deprived 1st Airborne of 36 additional transports, which would have given Urqhardt the additional troops he needed on Day 1.
Poullussen wasn't a historian,revisionist hack,he started the 1,000 tank theory in the reichwald.And the idiot couldn't identify an M-1 he was a painter by proffession.Alan Brooke himself blamed bernard - who later admitted it later
Movies wayyyy before blue screens. Miss the original movie making....
Wow explosions that actually look like high explosives and not just a tank of gasoline.
Well, back then they actually used high explosives. It was a simpler time and Hollywood had a lot more leeway when studios owned thousands of acres of land to do with as they pleased.
Thy killed more trees than nazis
SweBass they grew back
Pretty sure a fair few died at 4:14 and 2:04
@James Cook they got what they deserve!
The trees did nazis it coming...
This bit we're on now; it's the wide part. WOW gotta love those Jabo's
Awesome creeping barrage scene ! 👍
"Staaht the purple!!"
There is more more realistic, or stunning artillery barrage in the history of film......I recall seeing this for the first time in a theatre, and my arseholes tightening up the same way the Germans must have waiting for the barrage to contact.......☺
I agree with the sentiment, but how many arseholes do you have!?
Tim Richardson lol
Tim Richardson wtf LMAO
@@paladin56 ahahaha 😃
Fred B. - In my case, Fred, my dicks tightened up ! lol
So realistic explosion looks nuts!
Best movie ever
If Mike Cain had really commanded the Irish Guards they would have made it!
I just love that the guy on the table at 0:08 jumps! Btw what were the planes? Couldn't tell if they were Hawker Tempests.
@@incognito9292 Harvards painted tto look like Typhoons
Brilliant film with a cast of big names!
A perfect creeping barrage
I think its the first movie that they actually uses real Sherman tanks and not some mock up tank
They've used actual Shermans in a lot of WW2 films, though I understand that some films use Chaffees, Walker Bulldogs, and sometimes Pattons. and there were some mockup Shermans that were shown for a second or two, but these looked exactly like the actual tank.
thi tran They only used like 3 real shermans in this movie, the resr are mockup frames set on cars
but still there are 3 actual shermans.
You forgot kelly's heroes 1970 real shermans
I think the longest day had a couple of Sherman’s.
as a stationary anti tank unit, the Germans knew they had to take the shelling until they had targets.
Gotta love when the P-47s come in. Saved many lives, the air superiority the allies had.
I think they were supposed to be Typhoons...actually Texans/Harvards
@@richardsimpson3792 they're meant to be Jugs. If they were tiffies they'd need the inline engine rather than a radial.
The German PAK-40, Effective then and still today, in certain circumstances....I have a copy of A BRIDGE TO FAR in my vast military history library. It's an excellent
read, I highly recommend it. 👍
Pak 40 as lethal as the 88
@@eckyx9019 Exactly 👍💯💥