Re: Combat films

>If you are looking to chose between Cross of Iron and Stalingrad,
definately

>grab Cross of Iron

One very good Combat film is "Die Bruecke" - The Bridge.

What's that godawful film involving US teenagers valiantly repelling the
Forces
of Darkness (Cubans and Russkis) who invade the US? Red Dawn?

Anyway, this is the same sort of idea. But the highschool kids have had
some
military training, it's Germany 1945, and the invaders are a very
professional
but lacklustre bunch of US veterans.
The kids do pretty well, all things considered. One makes the mistake of
firing
a "recoilless" AntiTank projector from inside a room, with predictable
consequences.
The grizzled veteran who's supposedly in charge gets shot by some MPs as
he's
coming back with dinner as a deserter (The MPs skedaddle just before the
Amis
attack, they're not stupid). But the kids do repel the attack on the
small bridge
they're supposed to be guarding, despite a very, very competent attack
by the
small group of US troops (who basically bypass them instead, why take
casualties
over a meaningless bridge when the war's nearly over? there's a hundred
bridges
just like this one, but unguarded).

A very dark film, with very good (if predictable) combat sequences, the
US fights
very much by the "Manual of Small Unit Tactics" of the time. They take
very
few casualties (evacuating the wounded), whereas the untrained but
intelligent
German teenagers just sort of muddle through as best they know how, and
get
decimated. Only the steady camera angles and high film quality
distinguished
it from actual footage.