Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: GRUNHERZ on February 25, 2001, 11:26:00 PM
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Stukas Diving in on and strafing ships, Ju88 bombers dropping bombs on the city, plus all the sniper stuff.
Heres a link to the trailer!
http://www.apple.com/trailers/paramount/enemy_at_the_gates/large.html (http://www.apple.com/trailers/paramount/enemy_at_the_gates/large.html)
cant wait
[This message has been edited by GRUNHERZ (edited 02-26-2001).]
[This message has been edited by GRUNHERZ (edited 02-26-2001).]
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It looked alot like "Pearl" which is due out this year.
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I'm there baby!
Mk
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Stalingrad; 1942... one of the most incredible battles of the war.. and the place the Russians decided to play for all the marbles.. and so did the Germans.
This was the bloodiest battle in history.. in no other place at any time has anything remotely like it occurred.. and it is largley unknown in the west what happened there.
The germans tossed more than a million men into the fight.. the russians were at one point down to less than 20,000 men without adequite food; ammunition... truly an epic story of heroisim and determination. This fight was not won by Communists, but by Russians knowing full well the the price of defeat... destruction of "mother russia". Had the Germans won through here; it is doubtful we would have ever been able to win the war... THIS was the pivotal battle of modern history.
In the midst of THIS massive war of attrition a russian pesant.. a village hunter of wolves with an uncanny talent with a rifle emerged as the 'Russian hero', and daily reporte and 'stars and stripes' like red propoganda sheets begain to daily publish his 'hunts' and his kill tally. This man helped form and train a 'sniper unit' that went out nightly to set up fire postions.. they hunted German officers exclusively. This hugely demoralized the german units... pick up a radio.. recieve a salute, issue directions; stand in the turrent of a tank, wear binoculars... a bullit found you. Instantly.
The russian Snipers name was Vasily Zaitsev. And his name; thanks to the russian propaganda sheets intended for the russian audience soon became known in berlin.. where the High Command issued instructions of their own... "Kill Him". The germans sent SS Colnel Heinz Thorvald.. an olympic champion marksman.. and germany's best sniper and head of the german sniper school to put him down.
What ensued was an amazing duel.. a war inside a war, with both sides aware of the presence and porpouse of the other. They stalked each other.. killed each others protoges in the combat and finally met face to face thru the sights of their rifles....
Truly, an amazing and engrossing story, sad to say true for the most part. What is also true is that the final toll at Stalingrad was over 1 million, one hundered thousand soldiers died there... (an entire german army simply ceased to exist there) and out of a civilian population of 500,000 fewer than 1,500 survived.
A salute to those brave Russians is in order.. and it's about time the story of the battle that made it possible for England to survive and the Allies to prevail was told here in the west. I think you will all enjoy this film.. If "Saving Private Ryan" woke you up to the terrible toll we paid for Normandy, maybe this one battle will put the russian sacrafice in perspective. We lost about a half a million men in the course of the enitre war... the Russians lost 750,000 in this one battle alone.
See this film.
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Hang
1st/AG "Bishlanders" << Recruiting!!
"Turn to kill, not to engage."
Commander 'Willie' Driscoll, USNR
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What?...the US didn't win the war for us?
(ducks and runs for cover) (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/smile.gif)
bowser
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Wow Hang... Incredible.
Is there a book out there on this (Vasily Zaitsev)? I think it would make fer a fascinating read.
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Wll bowser, heres an update. The Marines and Navy kicked Japans bellybutton and the Army made Russias job a wee tad tiny little bit more interesting.
Truth is Germany Kicked Russias bellybutton at first then when Germany was retreating Russia was kicking Germanys bellybutton while Germany still kicked Russias bellybutton in reverse.
In the end, Russia overwhelmed Germany with brute manpower.
Would be funny if it wasnt so damned tragic (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/wink.gif)
Y
PS The movie is a true story (mostly) and the trailer looked awesome! Ed Harris plays the German Master Shooter and another well known and younger actor plays the part of the Russian. Should be a helluva story. In any event its pleasing to see the story as a subject of a western motion picture!
[This message has been edited by Yeager (edited 02-26-2001).]
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Yup Nash.. check out "War of the Rats", David L Robbins. Heluva read.
If yah like sniper novels, Stephen Hunter writes some good ones too. He refers to the now legendary duel between Zaitsev and Thorvald in some of 'em.. It was a remarkable fight, no more can I tell lest I spoil the ending. (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/wink.gif)
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Hang
1st/AG "Bishlanders" << Recruiting!!
"Turn to kill, not to engage."
Commander 'Willie' Driscoll, USNR
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I doubt it'll be very authentic. Hollywood will probably make some sort of a happy end there.
And while we are on the topic of movies...
The soviet movies on the topic of WWII were usually quite realistic in the sense that they would end in a tragedy where almost all the main heroes and heroins die. I can recall only a few of them: "State border of the USSR" (about the early days of invasion), "Hot Snow" (about battles near Moscow, about what it was like to serve in the infantry there - stopping german tanks with 45-mm guns, granades and Molotov cocktails - almost the whole infantry unit got wiped out, but they didn't let the tanks through to Moscow), "Seventeen moments of spring" (this is a classic about a Soviet counter-intelligence officer, placed high in german intelligence, frustrating german efforts for a separate peace with the US and Britain at the end of the war; you would be hard pressed to find anyone in the former SU who wouldn't know aboout SS Shtandarten-fuhrer Shtirlitz (Colonel Isayev); this B&W movie has been hugely popular since the 70-s when it was made; I guess they even chose B&W just to make it look more like WWII-era), there were many more...
There were some aviation movies too - "Chronicles of a dive bomber" (about a Pe-2 crew), "Torpedo-bombers" (Il-4s, with excruciating scene of a flaming Il-4, a navigator burning alive, taraning a nazi ship), "Only old-hands go into battle" (about fighter pilots), then there was some movie about Normandie-Neman regiment, I can't recall the exact name (the scene I remember from that is a French pilot mistaking the Russian word for "to eat" with a french "bed" (couchette) and a faux pas with a pretty soviet girl that resulted from that), then there was some movie about creation and production of the Il-2 (not a documentary).
As they say - "knowledge of a foreign language opens a new world". There is a collective memory of a nation of 200mln people reflected in books and movies that the US public will never know.
Some of those movies last for 5-7 hours, so they were broken up in manageable chunks.
I wonder if any copies of these survived the turmoil of the early 90-s.
BTW, there is a common conviction in fSU that Japan didn't attack because it got beaten in Manchuria (river Khalkhin-Gol) in the late 30-s, so they were not that eager to repeat the experience even though Hitler urged them too (the information was obtained by a Soviet counter-intelligence officer Richard Zorge, who was a german military attache in Japan at the time; his life alone deserves a movie; suprisingly I can't remember a single one). Plus a considerable number of divisions were tied to Far Eastern borders anyways.
About how important Stalingrad was:
At http://history.vif2.ru/library/battles/battle1.html (http://history.vif2.ru/library/battles/battle1.html)
I found a scanned image of the following statement by Theodore Roosevelt:
"In the name of the people of the United States of America.
I present this scroll to the City of Stalingrad
to commemorate our admiration for
its gallant defenders whose courage,
fortitude, and devotion during the siege
of September 13, 1942 to January 31, 1943
will inspire forever the hearts of all
free people. Their glorious victory
stemmed the tide of invasion and
marked the turning point in the
war of the Allied Nations against
the forces of aggression."
[This message has been edited by Wisk-=VF-101=- (edited 02-26-2001).]
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Id love to see some of those soviet movies.
I think its real sad to see that hollywood is getting itself into WW2 movies now, with the current fad of mass producing low quality/high-fx movies with idiotic cliche's and cheap laughs thrown in even in the most serious of movies/storylines.
I think I can count the number of good movies without the above mentioned fad elements... with my right hand only. And 3 of them are from Spielberg.
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It is unknown wether or not this duel actually took place, there are no records of a Heinz Thorvald or Walter Keonig(I've seen both names mentioned as the German sniper). Historians say that it in fact never did take place but was a Soviet propaganda ploy.
[This message has been edited by Nath-BDP (edited 02-26-2001).]
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Which historians (cause there r some these days claiming Holocaust never happened) ? I read that the writer of the book on which the movie is based personally interviewed Zaitsev before his death (which was already after glasnost was proclaimed by Gorby). I doubt Zaitsev himself and apparently a lot of other people would maintain the same lie for so long even in private conversations.
I find it that it's more usual in human nature to cover up a failure than to invent a complete fable of a successful event.
That's why, say, all Soviet space launches were only announced "post-factum" - if it wasn't successful they wouldn't say anything.
Some of the known cases of Soviet WWII propaganda are not nearly as brazen. For example there is a famous story (at least in fSU) of an Il-4 crew of Gastello who was the first to perform a fire taran (direct a burning bomber into concentration of ground targets). Right after the war they found out by the remnants of medals that it wasn't Gastello - it was a different crew - nevertheless they maintained that story till glasnost' when everyone stopped caring about keeping tabs on it.
Or another one - that the names of the soldiers who hoisted the Red Banner over the Reichstag were Kantaria (Georgian) and Egorov (Russian). This one was created in deference to Stalin and once again it held out only while it was "enforced" - till about 1985.
I have more examples of the works of Soviet propaganda on the subject of WWII. The point is it doesn't look like it.
I see absolutely no reason why any participant of those events wouldn't have dispelled the myth since 1985 (you can't believe how much self-hatred soviet people went through during glasnost - there were a lot of stories that actually bent the truth a bit the other way; hehe, I remember one movie explaining why Stalin worked so late - he had a constipation - they actually showed an actor representing Stalin on the can, surmising the fate of the country).
I don't think it's propaganda if Zaitsev himself told the story after the "sword" of a certain KGB directorate was no longer above him.
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Hey thanks.
(http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/biggrin.gif)
-- senna
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Some comments:
1) It wasn't explicitly claimed in this thread, but you'll see a lot of people claim elsewhere it was based on the book War of the Rats.
The movie actually has NOTHING to do with War of the Rats. BOTH that book and this movie were inspired by the book "Enemy at the Gates."
It's confusing because all the major characters on the Russian side have the same names in both (since they're more or less based on historical people.)
It's a great book..highly recommended.
2) The Germans were pretty thorough recordkeepers (too thorough for their own good, as the Nuremberg trials showed.) The fact that no one can come up with ANY record of ANY supersniper of ANY name sent to Stalingrad to kill Zaitsev should certainly throw up warning flags. This isn't to say that Zaitsev must be a liar. I'm sure it's some combo of Soviet propaganda and Zaitsev wanting to believe he faced one.
3) This isn't really a "Hollywood" movie. It has a French director and was filmed entirely in East Germany.
The reviews are decidedly mixed. I have a friend who is hardly a war not who saw a test screening in LA..she actually liked it except for the romance.
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It is the most expensive film ever produced in Europe.
Somebody asked 'Which historians?'
This one:
Antony Beevor, in his excellent book 'Stalingrad: The Fateful Seige 1942 - 1943'
Available here (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0140284583/o/qid=983296343/sr=8-1/ref=aps_sr_b_1_1/103-9736264-0046236)
I believe he is recognized as THE authority on Stalingrad. This is an excellent book.
There are no records of the duel in russian records, and they made a huge PR deal out of sniperism, and in Beevor's opinion would have made an enormous noise about this event had it actually transpired.
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not to say the story isn't gripping...
I enjoyed War of the Rats, and am looking forward to the film.
EDIT: Which is also not to say that I think the film is based on War of the Rats...
They are just all the same story.
[This message has been edited by Kratzer (edited 02-27-2001).]
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Originally posted by Wisk-=VF-101=-:
The soviet movies on the topic of WWII were usually quite realistic in the sense that they would end in a tragedy where almost all the main heroes and heroins die.
And most of them were full with bs, propoganda etc, like that "Pobeda" (victory) serial. But some were really great. I probably will add to your list "Batallions ask for a fire support" -- really liked it, and another one great is "Aty-baty walked the soldiers" (line from a children verse).
What is interesting that every single veteran of wwII who I talked with had extremely low opition about a Soviet war movies. Like "politruk" stands first to lead his men to attack -- in reallity most of officers tried to push out of the cover someone else. War is the hell, blood, mud and animal fear -- it is almost NOTHING heroic in it. I still waiting for a movie which will show it more or less realistic. Spilbergs attack on a beach really stunt me, I wish he stoped there and wont turn it into another bs heroic unrealistic saga.
Fariz
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Originally posted by Hangtime:
Yup Nash.. check out "War of the Rats", David L Robbins. Heluva read.
If yah like sniper novels, Stephen Hunter writes some good ones too. He refers to the now legendary duel between Zaitsev and Thorvald in some of 'em.. It was a remarkable fight, no more can I tell lest I spoil the ending. (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/wink.gif)
Gotta second this one...Stephen Hunter writes some excellent stuff.
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As to the veracity of the sniper duel.. I dunno. I've read about it from three diffrent authors.. two from noted historians with a penchant for detail. I also read Zaitsev's interview. Since he has no English i found it oddly compelling that his account and the american and british historians acoounts were very similar. Neither had interviewed him, and he never read their books. I believe it to be true.. sadly; those books are now buried beneath the other details of 48 years of living as I trim my life's possessions down to a pile small enuff to fit in a 34' sailboat. (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/smile.gif)
All armed forces look upon their sniper units as a very big potential black eye from a PR and accountability standpoint.. to this day the majority of SOG operations in Vietnam are classified. Understand that when the goverment sends out a sniper team they are empowering the shooter to commit simple murder. Assination from extreme range; with malice and forethought.
Something to think about...
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Hang
1st/AG "Bishlanders" << Recruiting!!
"Turn to kill, not to engage."
Commander 'Willie' Driscoll, USNR
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Anyone seen the movie "Stalingrad". It was in German (I believe it was A German production) and I watched it with subtitles all though at the movie rental place they had it with english dubbed over the german. Great flick about 3hrs long or so believe it was released 1995 or so. No doudt more fiction then reality and it took almost an anti-war stance kinda like apocalypse now did with a bit less philosphying by the main characters. At Stalingrad I believe out of 96000 german pow's only 3000 or so ever returned home.
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Pray not for an end to the slaughter...but for VICTORY!!!
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Originally posted by Wotan:
At Stalingrad I believe out of 96000 german pow's only 3000 or so ever returned home.
Close to 5000 from 98000. Only about every 20th returned home.
Hang, Germany would lost the war with or without Stalingrad. It had a little strategical value, almost none, even in initial "Blaw" operation plans. It had idiological value for both sides (named after Stalin etc.) but capturing it could change nothing. Let me remind you that it turned for a big mousetrap for Germans.
Fariz
[This message has been edited by Fariz (edited 03-01-2001).]
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Originally posted by Hangtime:
All armed forces look upon their sniper units as a very big potential black eye from a PR and accountability standpoint.. to this day the majority of SOG operations in Vietnam are classified. Understand that when the goverment sends out a sniper team they are empowering the shooter to commit simple murder. Assination from extreme range; with malice and forethought.
Something to think about...
If killing one saves thousand's, tens of thousands, it should be done, no if's, and's or but's... screw PR. It's not a popularity contest, it's war.
Eagler
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Originally posted by Eagler:
If killing one saves thousand's, tens of thousands, it should be done, no if's, and's or but's... screw PR. It's not a popularity contest, it's war.
Well, right, but that doesn't remove the public stigma associated with snipers - which is why after both WWI and WWII the US Army closed their sniper programs.
I believe that is what was being referred to...