Showdown: Air Combat

[Spikes]

Anyone gunna watch this? Just saw an commercial for it on the Milt Channel. It's on next Sunday, didn't hear the time.
Showed some F4U's, 38's, Jugs, and some modern birds. I'm going to see what it's like.

[Slash27]

What's the show about?

[SFCHONDO]

What's the show about?

Think it is about a Turtle and his friend a Rabbit. It all begins one day on.....wait a minute, you have to watch it, I can't tell you everything.   

[Captfish]

It is just like dogfights only instead of computer models fighting they are going to show real planes in dogfights, reenact actual historical match-ups.
 
here is the commercial:
http://military.discovery.com/video/showdown.html

[DaveJ]

Saw this promo when I was watching the Military channel awhile back.

Definitely going to watch it. Looks fantastic.

[Anodizer]

If any of you have On-Demand, check Military Channel On-Demand listings to see if you have the 1st episode sneak pre-view (it's the full episode).  It was supposed to start airing June 6th..  It didn't show up till the next day on my cable system..  The 1st ep. is about the F-22.  Max Moga is a great narrator and does a great job at explaining all the intricacies involved in many aspects of air combat. The show is informative and more in depth than Dogfights.  However, even being actual footage of re-enacted operations with real planes, it's a bit glum when compared to the CGI done in Dogfights (I'm sorry to say)..  But, since Dogfights has been canceled, I'll settle for this show.  The technical aspects alone make it worth watching.  Again, check your On-Demand listings to see if the 1st episode is available for you to watch.

[JeepinAZ]

If any of you have On-Demand, check Military Channel On-Demand listings to see if you have the 1st episode sneak pre-view (it's the full episode).  It was supposed to start airing June 6th..  It didn't show up till the next day on my cable system..  The 1st ep. is about the F-22.  Max Moga is a great narrator and does a great job at explaining all the intricacies involved in many aspects of air combat. The show is informative and more in depth than Dogfights.  However, even being actual footage of re-enacted operations with real planes, it's a bit glum when compared to the CGI done in Dogfights (I'm sorry to say)..  But, since Dogfights has been canceled, I'll settle for this show.  The technical aspects alone make it worth watching.  Again, check your On-Demand listings to see if the 1st episode is available for you to watch.

Thanks for the tip. I was up in Phoenix all weekend & missed the show. Finally found it in the OnDemand list!! 

[sunfan1121]

I was up in Phoenix all weekend & missed the show.

did u take a shower twice?

[valdals]

they cancelled dogfights? oh well the show was in a crappy time slot.

[Saurdaukar]

they cancelled dogfights? oh well the show was in a crappy time slot.

I couldn't stand the narrator's voice, never mind the script.

"And the 51 BLAZES AWAY with MACHINE GUNS and and MISSILES! and Im REALLY EXCITED!!"

[Anodizer]

I couldn't stand the narrator's voice, never mind the script.

"And the 51 BLAZES AWAY with MACHINE GUNS and and MISSILES! and Im REALLY EXCITED!!"

Yeah, that dude's voice as well as the historical inaccuracies were disappointing..

[sullie363]

So I recorded this show when it aired but only just watched it now.  I thought the segments of the show that talked about the aircraft and their pilots were interesting.  BUT, the half bellybutton attempt at portraying the dogfight was a real letdown.  I thought the whole point of the show was to reenact a historical dogfight with the actual aircraft.  Instead they fly around in formation with the two opposing aircraft and make some gentle banks to one side or the other.  Anything interesting from the dogfight is then just animated with very corny CG, at least when compared to Dogfights from the History Channel.  Although I was wondering before the show aired how they thought they could risk historic warbirds in mock dogfights, and now I know, they just get around it with computers.  Perhaps most annoying and silly is the host of the show pretending to watch this computer generated dogfight as if it were happening outside of his chase plane.  So yeah the show had it's interesting bits but, overall, I'd call it disappointing.

[BnZ]

Why doesn't the Millitary Channel just pick up "Dogfights" instead?

And how the Hell does "Dogfights" get canceled anway? I can't believe people aren't watching this show. This is the bloody History Channel, yet half the stuff I see is "this is what life is like in Alaska", Astronomy, and stupid looking-for-Sasquatch-b.s.. Mind you, I actually find some of those subjects at least somewhat entertaining, but its not what the History Channel is supposed to be about. Surely "Dogfights" fits the bill more than the above crap. It almost looks like they are trying to make me order History International channel so I can see ACTUAL history on a History Channel.

If they don't think they can sell actual history to the viewers, they should go off the air, or at least change the name.

[Saurdaukar]

I think half the problem with Dogfights is that you can maybe put together 20 episodes before you run out of original material.

-Iraq I
-Vietnam
-Korea
-WWII PTO
-WWII ETO
-WWI

The average viewer probably wouldn't sit through 15 separate "...and then we engaged the 109's attacking the bomber stream..." episodes.  Too similar.

Its really too bad the animation technology wasn't available in the 60's and 70's.  The pilot interviews would have been the draw and the key to separate one 51 v. 190 episode from the next.  Unfortunately, most of them are dead.  On that show, I would have loved to hear of a couple of Galland's of Rall's exploits in their own words, for example.

Showdown is ok.  The discussion is more knowledgeable than DF but I concur that I was expecting more of a head-to-head match up than two aircraft weaving back and forth, supplemented by a script and some bad CG.

I did enjoy seeing the 15's 37mm actually fire during that historical footage, though.  In AH, its far too easy for us to take for granted the real life hitting power of some of those cannon and that 37mm was a beast when the trigger was pulled.  Without restraints, I bet it would have moved the A/C back, on its gear, 3-4 feet with each round.

[Motherland]

Believe me, there's a LOT more original material that they could have used for dogfights. Plenty of German fighter pilots either had books written about them or wrote books that detail combat. I think Rall is still alive.
Heck, the pilot portrayed in the Showdown; Air Combat episode was dead.