Battlefield S5/E6 - The Battle for Caen

Discussion in 'Books, Films, TV, Radio' started by Ramiles, Apr 9, 2016.

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  1. Ramiles

    Ramiles Researching 9th Lancers, 24th L and SRY

    Battlefield S5/E6 - The Battle for Caen

    Youtube suggested this, a part of the Battlefield TV series: Battlefield (TV Series 1995– ) - IMDb

    IMdb re. this series quite funny - as says "stars Jonathan Booth, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin ^_^

    Has a "wiki" at.... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlefield_(TV_series)

    This episode made in 2001. I wonder if much has changed in interpretation over the last 15 or so years, or if there are some issues with some of what it presents. Quite a bit about Rauray around the 1hour mark, discussion re. Monty, British tanks, German tactics et alia. and on....

     
    Last edited: Nov 5, 2016
  2. Swiper

    Swiper Resident Sospan

    Watched it as a teenager, still an excellent series.

    Some major cracks in the narrative now present themselves... but it has been 15 years. As a start point, this remains a solid piece of programming (rather depressing no one has yet surpassed it).
     
  3. m kenny

    m kenny Senior Member

    The Cromwell stuff is much older that 2001. This was out on video in the 1990s. It is the same 20 mins of IWM stock footage (ordered by the yard) played several times with the order changed. The scenes at 14:51-53 for example is 1st W.Gds at Cagny during GOODWOOD
     
  4. Ramiles

    Ramiles Researching 9th Lancers, 24th L and SRY

    I guess I was looking pretty closely at the maps, as well as the bits especially, it recounts around the events re. Rauray.

    I read through some of the comments in the Youtube section re. this particular "Battlefield S5/E6 - The Battle for Caen"

    Youtube the Battle for Caen - Google Search

    Some of it was in ref. to things like the Churchill tank, the MG 42, whether many Tiger2's were there, or if it was mainly the Tiger1s etc. and assessing/reassessing the 2001 thoughts on the ground attack aircraft vs. German armour etc. I think in the

    "Myths of American Armour"


    .... there was some assessment that the ground attack aircraft did better re. the soft skinned vehicles though had a heavy psychological effect, obviously negative for the Germans, and positive for the allies, encouraging them to press on etc.

    It seemed to fall quite hard on Monty, but had some time to give Kurt Meyer some words of praise. : Kurt Meyer - Wikipedia

    And re. Whittmann for example, not so long ago, Mark Urban in his excellent BBC doc. "Tankies Tank Heoes of Work War 2 - Part 2" seemed to make Villers Bocage - a bit "more of a draw" as well as "But it meets its match when it comes up against another new British tank - the Sherman Firefly." ;) : BBC Two - Tankies: Tank Heroes of World War II, Episode 2

    "In the last of this two-part series, historian and former tank commander Mark Urban continues the story of six remarkable men from the Fifth Royal Tank Regiment in World War II.

    Surviving veterans and previously unseen letters and diaries relate in visceral detail how an extraordinary 'band of brothers' fought throughout the war.

    This episode picks up the story with the regiment's triumphant return from north Africa and victory at Alamein. Expecting a well-earned rest, instead they are joined by new recruits and re-equipped with brand new British-made Cromwell Tanks in preparation for D-Day - the invasion of Europe.

    Fighting in the hedgerows in northern France is a shock to the men of the Fifth Tanks, who were used to fighting in the wide-open spaces of the desert. German soldiers lie in ambush behind hedgerows with hand-held anti-tank weapons. Veteran Gerry Solomon, one of the most experienced tank commanders, tells how his tank is knocked out and he is wounded.

    The new Cromwell tank proves no match against the German Tiger tank. At the battle of Villers Bocage, a single Tiger brings the advance of the whole British Army to a standstill. But it meets its match when it comes up against another new British tank - the Sherman Firefly.

    Veterans describe how for two months they fought a battle of attrition, losing hundreds of tanks in the British Army's biggest ever tank battle, but keeping the German tanks fighting in the British sector so the Americans could break out of their sector into open countryside beyond.

    The Fifth Tanks advance rapidly, the first to liberate Ghent in Belgium. Pushing on into Germany just days before the end of the war, some of the regiment's most experienced veterans, who had been fighting since the beginning, are tragically killed."
     
    Last edited: Nov 5, 2016
  5. m kenny

    m kenny Senior Member

    This is just repeating what Taylor said in his Villers Book in the 1990s. He said it was (from the Allied side) a defeat in the morning and a win in the afternoon. There is little doubt the second attack into Villers was as much a German shambles as the morning attack was a 4th CLY disaster.
    I am afraid the myth of Wittmann has completely swamped the reality. I can think of only 4 books that get it right. Forty's book in the Battlezone Normandy Series in not one of them. Trew is another that (I think) accepts the German account of the Campaign too readily.
     
  6. Clint_NZ

    Clint_NZ Member

    This was on just the other day, really enjoyed it.
     

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