Commando Duck Presents: The Military Channel - 20th Century Battlefields vs. Commanders at War
I happen to be nuts about battle strategies. It's the one area of history where my father and I completely disagreed. He always found them boring--I continue to find them fascinating. From the beloved turtle formation that Roman Centurions formed with their body-length shields to protect them from onslaughts of spears and arrows while they advanced to my favorite strategy, encirclement, used by everybody from Caesar to Sitting Bull, of luring the enemy in, encircling them and then attacking. I'm sure this strategy has a better name, I just don't know it. Just as the Scottish Sister who took care of my Mom when she was in hospital in Ceylon once said, "I like Americans--but not enough to live among 'em," I like battle strategies, but not enough to study 'em.
Of course with hundreds of cable TV channels, I can practically pick and choose--there's the National Geographic Channel (now disgustingly renamed "Nat Geo", presumably to attract the Lady GaGa crowd); The History Channel AKA THC (no, not TetraHydraCannibanol, the active ingredient in pot) most commonly referred to among History buffs as Hitler TV (HTV - All Hitler, All the Time); and the Military Channel, which caters primarily to men aged 17 - 88, effectively covering everyone from potential recruits to retired veterans, which is why the commercials range from Army recruitment ads to The Scooter Store. Of these three, the Military Channel is the newest and the most obsessive when it comes to individual battles, especially those of WWII. Just recently I had the opportunity to compare the treatment of the Battle of Stalingrad (AKA Operation Barbarossa) between my two primary battle shows, 20th Century Battlefields and Commanders at War.
20th Century Battlefields is definitely the lesser of the two. It's hosted by a father-son team whose primary interest in the show revolves around putting on uniforms and messing around with weapons and ordnance. This is especially true for the father. In the meantime, the son walks around and talks about the battle. Periodically the show is broken up with some way-cool computer animated sequences that look like your Risk game board has come alive. The figures for the two opposing sides are even blue and red, just like the game! Either the father or the son will lean over a large table that holds the board and talk about different days in the battle while the little figures run around, dodging tiny puffs of smoke that represent explosions. They have miniature tanks and even little pontoons for crossing rivers! It's so cute I can hardly stand it. However, the end result is that you never get a coherent analysis or even a simple explanation of each battle, and you end up learning exactly what you would learn from watching strung-together newsreel footage from the battle: nothing. Still, it's worth watching for the animated Risk sequences. You have to admit we've come a long way from those cartoon arrows in The World at War.
Commanders at War is head and shoulders above the other show. First of all, there are no annoying hosts, just a voice over and a couple of actors representing the most important principals, in this case Lt. General Friedrich Paulus, an aging desk jockey with no battlefield experience who led the Sixth Army on the German side; and the brilliant Lt. General Alexander Rodimtsev, a battle-hardened infantry man who rose through the ranks to twice win the Heroes of the Soviet Union award (somewhat similar to the Congressional Medal of Honor, except you don't have to die to win it), and who led the 13th Guards Rifle Division in the actual defense of and subsequent offense from Stalingrad. As much as I'd like to, I won't go into the details of the battle because otherwise I'd end up with a doctoral thesis rather than an LJ post, but suffice it to say that this was the critical battle that turned the tide against the Germans and eventually lost them the war. As Eddie Izzard has pointed out, Hitler (and obviously General Paulus) never played Risk as a kid, or he would have known you couldn’t win in that territory. Approximately 2 million lives were lost in this battle. Hitler, in his usual fashion, wouldn't let the freezing and starving 6th Army surrender and instead cynically promoted Paulus to the rank of Field Marshall in the expectation that he would kill himself like all good Field Marshalls do rather than surrendering. For the first time in his career, Paulus defied a direct order from his commander and surrendered. Having to waste thousands of lives by taking useless orders from an idiot like Hitler was one of the reasons so many of his senior officers ended up wanting to kill him, and, of course, a few actually tried.
The battle is clearly explained and analyzed in chronological order, effectively mixing actual film footage with a much more sophisticated "game board" made up of animated figures that look like painted cardboard cutouts--the buildings and tanks look like something you might cut off the back of a cereal box and assemble yourself. It sounds a lot worse than it actually is. The advantage to this "cut-out" technique is that the board has a three-dimensional effect. You're not just looking at it from above, like the animated Risk board; you're actually following the troops and tanks as they make their way around the city. So it's much, much easier to actually follow the course of the battle, as well as to see exactly how it was fought. You quickly learn that while the Germans initially had quite an effective offensive, in the end it backfired on them. The city was so destroyed that the German tanks had difficulty making their way through it, and the troops themselves were fully exposed, like sitting ducks. the buildings left standing were thus filled by the brilliant Rodimtsev with highly effective snipers who simply wiped out the advancing troops like flies. The snipers were backed up with mobile, multiple-rocket launchers that took out the tanks. Because the average life expectancy of the Red Army solider was 24 - 48 hours, the snipers and other soldiers were constantly replaced with new ones, so the strength of the Red Army defense never faltered, and of course they ended up taking the offensive in driving the Germans off their soil.
And this takes us to a little fun factoid regarding Inglourious Basterds. If you have the published screenplay, you'll see that Stolz der Nation was originally set in Russia, with sniper Frederick up in the bell tower cutting down Red Army soldiers. But of course this didn't make any sense, since the only battles involving snipers in Russia featured the Red Army as the snipers and the Germans as the snipees. So they had to set the film in Italy, instead. And this little fun factoid is why I'm posting this on IB communities.
It was a horrible battle, and in retrospect a chilling precursor to many of the battles that would be fought in Viet Nam, where one side would drive out the other, then leave, then the other side would come back and take over the area they'd left, back and forth, on and on, which is why so many US troops turned against the Viet Nam war. And of course for the Germans it was doubly difficult, because they'd expected to take over Russia as effectively as they had France, Belgium, Poland, etc, within a matter of weeks, so they weren't expecting to be there the following winter. Then when winter came, they were wholly unequipped to deal with it, in everything from tank antifreeze to winter clothing for the troops.
And here's where Commanders at War really shines. They show you exactly why the Germans freezed, first by dressing a volunteer in the typical uniform and great coat worn by the German soldiers in this battle. Second, the volunteer enters a temperature-controlled truck that is set to mimic the average daily temperature for the soldiers. Third, through infrared photography they're able to measure the amount of body heat subject to loss. The result of all this is that you can see exactly how much body heat the German soldiers were losing in their Spring/Summer uniforms, which were only slightly warmer than your average Lederhosen, Loden coat and Alpine hat.
Then they dress the same volunteer in the typical Red Army uniform from the battle and send him back into the refrigeration truck. Now the Red Army uniform looks like a snowsuit made out of a down sleeping bag. Underneath the greatcoat the volunteer literally looks like the Michelin man. But what's most brilliant is that there are no separate mittens or gloves. The sleeves of this snowsuit cover the hands completely like mittens, with special glove-like sections for the thumb and trigger fingers. Best of all, if those fingers get cold, you simply pull them back into the mitten-like sleeves to warm up again. Combine the snowsuit and greatcoat with the big floppy hat with the fur-lined flaps and you're pretty well insulated. So insulated, in fact, that virtually no body heat is shown escaping through the infrared cameras.
So in Commanders at War, you not only get a comprehensive, chronological assessment and analysis of the battle in question, you also get that extra information that may not directly pertain to the battle itself but enhances and enriches your overall understanding of other, very important factors that that had a significant impact on the outcome. And that extra information goes a long way in helping you understand all the different factors that contribute to an historical event.
Lt. General Rodimtsev Obergruppenführer Paulus
Генерал-лейтенант Родимцев
(I find him very hot in that brooding, Russian way)
Of course with hundreds of cable TV channels, I can practically pick and choose--there's the National Geographic Channel (now disgustingly renamed "Nat Geo", presumably to attract the Lady GaGa crowd); The History Channel AKA THC (no, not TetraHydraCannibanol, the active ingredient in pot) most commonly referred to among History buffs as Hitler TV (HTV - All Hitler, All the Time); and the Military Channel, which caters primarily to men aged 17 - 88, effectively covering everyone from potential recruits to retired veterans, which is why the commercials range from Army recruitment ads to The Scooter Store. Of these three, the Military Channel is the newest and the most obsessive when it comes to individual battles, especially those of WWII. Just recently I had the opportunity to compare the treatment of the Battle of Stalingrad (AKA Operation Barbarossa) between my two primary battle shows, 20th Century Battlefields and Commanders at War.
20th Century Battlefields is definitely the lesser of the two. It's hosted by a father-son team whose primary interest in the show revolves around putting on uniforms and messing around with weapons and ordnance. This is especially true for the father. In the meantime, the son walks around and talks about the battle. Periodically the show is broken up with some way-cool computer animated sequences that look like your Risk game board has come alive. The figures for the two opposing sides are even blue and red, just like the game! Either the father or the son will lean over a large table that holds the board and talk about different days in the battle while the little figures run around, dodging tiny puffs of smoke that represent explosions. They have miniature tanks and even little pontoons for crossing rivers! It's so cute I can hardly stand it. However, the end result is that you never get a coherent analysis or even a simple explanation of each battle, and you end up learning exactly what you would learn from watching strung-together newsreel footage from the battle: nothing. Still, it's worth watching for the animated Risk sequences. You have to admit we've come a long way from those cartoon arrows in The World at War.
Commanders at War is head and shoulders above the other show. First of all, there are no annoying hosts, just a voice over and a couple of actors representing the most important principals, in this case Lt. General Friedrich Paulus, an aging desk jockey with no battlefield experience who led the Sixth Army on the German side; and the brilliant Lt. General Alexander Rodimtsev, a battle-hardened infantry man who rose through the ranks to twice win the Heroes of the Soviet Union award (somewhat similar to the Congressional Medal of Honor, except you don't have to die to win it), and who led the 13th Guards Rifle Division in the actual defense of and subsequent offense from Stalingrad. As much as I'd like to, I won't go into the details of the battle because otherwise I'd end up with a doctoral thesis rather than an LJ post, but suffice it to say that this was the critical battle that turned the tide against the Germans and eventually lost them the war. As Eddie Izzard has pointed out, Hitler (and obviously General Paulus) never played Risk as a kid, or he would have known you couldn’t win in that territory. Approximately 2 million lives were lost in this battle. Hitler, in his usual fashion, wouldn't let the freezing and starving 6th Army surrender and instead cynically promoted Paulus to the rank of Field Marshall in the expectation that he would kill himself like all good Field Marshalls do rather than surrendering. For the first time in his career, Paulus defied a direct order from his commander and surrendered. Having to waste thousands of lives by taking useless orders from an idiot like Hitler was one of the reasons so many of his senior officers ended up wanting to kill him, and, of course, a few actually tried.
The battle is clearly explained and analyzed in chronological order, effectively mixing actual film footage with a much more sophisticated "game board" made up of animated figures that look like painted cardboard cutouts--the buildings and tanks look like something you might cut off the back of a cereal box and assemble yourself. It sounds a lot worse than it actually is. The advantage to this "cut-out" technique is that the board has a three-dimensional effect. You're not just looking at it from above, like the animated Risk board; you're actually following the troops and tanks as they make their way around the city. So it's much, much easier to actually follow the course of the battle, as well as to see exactly how it was fought. You quickly learn that while the Germans initially had quite an effective offensive, in the end it backfired on them. The city was so destroyed that the German tanks had difficulty making their way through it, and the troops themselves were fully exposed, like sitting ducks. the buildings left standing were thus filled by the brilliant Rodimtsev with highly effective snipers who simply wiped out the advancing troops like flies. The snipers were backed up with mobile, multiple-rocket launchers that took out the tanks. Because the average life expectancy of the Red Army solider was 24 - 48 hours, the snipers and other soldiers were constantly replaced with new ones, so the strength of the Red Army defense never faltered, and of course they ended up taking the offensive in driving the Germans off their soil.
And this takes us to a little fun factoid regarding Inglourious Basterds. If you have the published screenplay, you'll see that Stolz der Nation was originally set in Russia, with sniper Frederick up in the bell tower cutting down Red Army soldiers. But of course this didn't make any sense, since the only battles involving snipers in Russia featured the Red Army as the snipers and the Germans as the snipees. So they had to set the film in Italy, instead. And this little fun factoid is why I'm posting this on IB communities.
It was a horrible battle, and in retrospect a chilling precursor to many of the battles that would be fought in Viet Nam, where one side would drive out the other, then leave, then the other side would come back and take over the area they'd left, back and forth, on and on, which is why so many US troops turned against the Viet Nam war. And of course for the Germans it was doubly difficult, because they'd expected to take over Russia as effectively as they had France, Belgium, Poland, etc, within a matter of weeks, so they weren't expecting to be there the following winter. Then when winter came, they were wholly unequipped to deal with it, in everything from tank antifreeze to winter clothing for the troops.
And here's where Commanders at War really shines. They show you exactly why the Germans freezed, first by dressing a volunteer in the typical uniform and great coat worn by the German soldiers in this battle. Second, the volunteer enters a temperature-controlled truck that is set to mimic the average daily temperature for the soldiers. Third, through infrared photography they're able to measure the amount of body heat subject to loss. The result of all this is that you can see exactly how much body heat the German soldiers were losing in their Spring/Summer uniforms, which were only slightly warmer than your average Lederhosen, Loden coat and Alpine hat.
Then they dress the same volunteer in the typical Red Army uniform from the battle and send him back into the refrigeration truck. Now the Red Army uniform looks like a snowsuit made out of a down sleeping bag. Underneath the greatcoat the volunteer literally looks like the Michelin man. But what's most brilliant is that there are no separate mittens or gloves. The sleeves of this snowsuit cover the hands completely like mittens, with special glove-like sections for the thumb and trigger fingers. Best of all, if those fingers get cold, you simply pull them back into the mitten-like sleeves to warm up again. Combine the snowsuit and greatcoat with the big floppy hat with the fur-lined flaps and you're pretty well insulated. So insulated, in fact, that virtually no body heat is shown escaping through the infrared cameras.
So in Commanders at War, you not only get a comprehensive, chronological assessment and analysis of the battle in question, you also get that extra information that may not directly pertain to the battle itself but enhances and enriches your overall understanding of other, very important factors that that had a significant impact on the outcome. And that extra information goes a long way in helping you understand all the different factors that contribute to an historical event.
Lt. General Rodimtsev Obergruppenführer Paulus
Генерал-лейтенант Родимцев
(I find him very hot in that brooding, Russian way)