WW2 movies, the most/least accurate.


  • I remember seeing a WWII movie starting Cary Grant. Grant was portrayed as the captain of an American submarine.

    In one scene, the sub was attacked by two Japanese aircraft. This, even though there were no Japanese destroyers present.

    To make matters worse, the Americans on the sub responded to the attack by using an aa gun mounted on the sub to shoot down both Japanese aircraft. (The aa gun could be removed and stored inside the sub for when the sub wanted to travel underwater.) Such a scene was far-fetched at best, because subs cannot fire at aircraft.

    On a somewhat unrelated matter, I also read a book which claimed the Industrial Revolution began in England. This, clearly, could not have been the case. As everyone knows, it is impossible to construct an industrial complex on an island. Just can’t be done.

  • '21 '20 '18 '17

    Are you trying to apply an AxA Rule to real life, because indeed, a submarine can shoot at aircraft, many had airborne interception radar and permanently mounted flak guns, it just doesn’t work really well because the submarine’s best protection is to submerge, not fight.


  • I own a DVD of the movie in question, which is titled “Destination: Tokyo.”  The Japanese planes in question were “float Zeros”, meaning Zero fighters modified to function as seaplanes.  The weapons used by the sub crew to shoot them down were .50 caliber machine guns, which were in fact abundantly used on WWII American warships (including battleships) as short-range anti-aircraft weapons.  It’s quite credible that they’d be able to shoot down unarmoured, slow-and-low-flying planes like the ones shown in the film, particularly given that it took the sub crew a good couple of minutes to do so and that the plane got to make several passes before they were knocked out.  The sub in that particular scene in the movie, to answer taamvan’s point, was in shallow waters and in a constricted mountainous bay at the time of the attack, so it was unable to dive or to maneuver quickly.


  • @taamvan:

    Are you trying to apply an AxA Rule to real life, because indeed, a submarine can shoot at aircraft, many had airborne interception radar and permanently mounted flak guns, it just doesn’t work really well because the submarine’s best protection is to submerge, not fight.

    My post was intended to gently poke fun at some of Larry Harris’s rules.

    Obviously, the Industrial Revolution did start in England, hundreds of years before Larry made a rule against building industrial complexes on islands. And, equally clearly, subs sometimes did shoot down aircraft, as CWO Marc pointed out in his solid post.

  • '17 '16

    @KurtGodel7:

    To make matters worse, the Americans on the sub responded to the attack by using an aa gun mounted on the sub to shoot down both Japanese aircraft. (The aa gun could be removed and stored inside the sub for when the sub wanted to travel underwater.) Such a scene was far-fetched at best, because subs cannot fire at aircraft.

    Only in Axis and Allies are they not allowed.

    In reality, they can most certainly fire on enemy aircraft… many subs on both sides had AA guns… it just usually was a pretty dumb idea, and a much better idea to submerge as fast as possible.

    @KurtGodel7:

    My post was intended to gently poke fun at some of Larry Harris’s rules.

    EDIT:
    I ready your first post before your second post… pun is a pun… got it… carry on…


  • Kurt does not own or play AA FYI


  • @Imperious:

    Kurt does not own or play AA FYI

    As usual, you are just making stuff up.


  • Take a picture of your game and post?

  • '17 '16

    @Imperious:

    @KurtGodel7:

    @Imperious:

    Kurt does not own or play AA FYI

    As usual, you are just making stuff up.

    Take a picture of your game and post?

    Uh Oh… Gauntlet thrown…

    Will Kurt pick up and prove Imperious Leader wrong, or has Imperious Leader just exposed Kurt?


  • U571 was ok. At least the equipment was mostly accurate.

  • '17 '16

    @Benito:

    U571 was ok. At least the equipment was mostly accurate.

    I haven’t seen that movie in so-long I don’t recall much about it… except I think remembering it was a nice action-flick but about as realistic as Pearl Harbor, and ergo something I wasn’t going to be rewatching later-on… which is why I can’t remember much about it.


  • Who really captured those Enigma machines?


  • @Wolfshanze:

    I haven’t seen that movie in so-long I don’t recall much about it… except I think remembering it was a nice action-flick but about as realistic as Pearl Harbor, and ergo something I wasn’t going to be rewatching later-on… which is why I can’t remember much about it.

    I saw it once.  I didn’t really care for it.  Like Wolf, I don’t recall much about it either…but I do recall groaning over its lack of historical accuracy (as noted in Private Panic’s post a moment ago).


  • @Wolfshanze:

    Uh Oh… Gauntlet thrown…

    Will Kurt pick up and prove Imperious Leader wrong, or has Imperious Leader just exposed Kurt?

    AA anniversary edition.JPG
    AA Classic.JPG


  • Only two pictures allowed per post, seemingly. So here are two more games.

    AA Europe.JPG
    Conquest Empire.JPG


  • Not technically an Axis and Allies game, but still, I’m throwing this in anyway.

    Samurai Swords.JPG


  • A note of explanation:

    Several decades ago, Hasbro released the first Axis and Allies. (Classic.) It was fairly widely distributed, and you could buy it at Toys R Us, among other places. Originally, Axis and Allies was intended to be part of a series of games. Other games in the series included Fortress America, Shogun (later rereleased as Samurai Swords), and Conquest Empire. Of those, I enjoyed Axis and Allies and Shogun the most, with Fortress America also a good game. Conquest Empire was the weakest of the four, by a significant margin. I didn’t own my own copy of Shogun: they’d discontinued it before I became aware of its existence. So I borrowed a copy from my college’s game club, photocopied the map, and taped the resulting pieces of paper onto a table. And that’s how I played. I later rectified the problem by buying a copy of Samurai Swords. (The same game as Shogun, under a different name.)

    I played plenty when in my teens and early 20s; and liked Revised significantly more than Classic. But people grow up, they move away. I moved away myself. You make new friends, people who aren’t necessarily interested in board games. My games sat on the shelf for years, unused, while I occasionally gave them longing looks. But they’re not much fun when you don’t have anyone to play against.

    Then I went to a gaming convention, in Cincinnati I believe. It was an outstanding opportunity to get back into playing Axis and Allies. I remember playing all day–skipping lunch and dinner–getting out at 11:00 or later at night, without really being hungry. I was that pumped up! Some of the other participants told me how I could go about playing this online. I’ve now been playing online for years. If anyone here wants to play me, I’m on TripleA from time to time.

    After years of wanting (but not having) real world opponents to play against, I eventually moved my physical games into a crowded storage unit. Fortunately, I was able to fight through the mess and chaos of that storage unit to find the majority of my games for picture taking.


  • BAM !


  • Why don’t you sell AA50 before too many people find out about the reprint? It was going for about $400 on ebay

    The others are not worth much


  • Thanks, IL, for the heads-up. I might sell, might not.

    Attached is a picture of my favorite online map, Domination 1914 No Man’s Land. The picture shows you almost all the map, except for half the Pacific. While I’ve gotten plenty of enjoyment out of Larry Harris’s maps over the years, I like this map even more. They added some new units.

    Trench: costs 3, takes 2 hits to kill, defends on a 0. You don’t need a factory to place trenches. Nor do trenches count against the unit placement limits of territories with factories. Instead you can place up to 3 trenches per territory per turn. Use: cannon fodder.
    Heavy gun: costs 5, attacks on a 2, provides artillery support when attacking. Defends on a 4. Gives you more defensive firepower for the money than any other unit, including infantry. Use: defensive firepower.
    Cavalry: costs 4, attacks and defends on a 1, moves on a 2. Can receive artillery support. Use: a substitute for infantry, when you need more mobility.
    Poison gas: costs 4, attacks on a 4, cannot be used on defense. Movement of 3. Pre-battle kamikaze attack. Units killed by gas don’t get casualty shots. Trenches cannot be taken as casualties against poison gas attacks. Use: if you need an offensive unit that’s more mobile than cavalry. Also useful if you have multiple nations attacking the same territory. Gas allows the first attacker to get a decent exchange, even if the attacker’s force is much smaller and weaker than the defender’s. Also, gas is useful if you notice the defender has too many trenches, not enough defensive firepower. Gas will make that situation even worse–for the defender, that is.

    There are some familiar units:
    Infantry: cost 3, attacks on a 1, defends on a 2. Can receive artillery support when attacking.
    Field gun. These are the artillery you know and love. (Heavy guns are also considered artillery, which is why this unit has been renamed field gun.) Attacks and defends on a 2, costs 4, provides artillery support when attacking.
    Fighter: cost 9, movement 3, attacks on a 2, defends on a 3, provides artillery support when attacking. (Okay, so maybe this isn’t 100% familiar because its stats are a bit different.)

    Domination 1914 No Man’s Land’s tech system is very very good. The best I’ve ever seen in any map. Tech allows you to reduce some of your units’ costs, to obtain free units, income, and a free tech token each turn, to improve the offensive firepower of your field guns and the defensive firepower of your heavy guns. Not to mention improving the performance of your ships. Tech also allows you to construct new unit types: the tank, the late fighter, and the aircraft carrier.

    In looking at the picture of the map, Germany is grey, France blue, Serbia orange, Austria yellow, Italy green, Arabia light purple, Turkey red, UK brown, Nationalist Russia white, communist Russia/USSR dark red, and the USA a different shade of green than Italy’s. Neutrals are an off-white, and can be farmed. There are no diplomatic consequences whatsoever to invading neutrals.

    Domination 1914 nml.jpg

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