The Harley side car was an exact copy of Lee Money's origional - he was on
the set for the whole shoot but when they wanted his bike he pointed out
that his military Harley is a UL "big twin" 84cu" wasnt (with
sidecar)right for the ETO, so they used a WLA and copied his sidecar. So it
was as accurate as possible.
If anyone wants (provably genuine)origional scripts for BoB I know Lee has
some for sale.
Cheers, N
----- Original Message -----
From: "Richard Notton" <Richard@fv623.demon.co.uk>
To: "Military Vehicles Mailing List" <mil-veh@mil-veh.org>
Sent: Saturday, October 20, 2001 10:01 AM
Subject: Re: [MV] Band of Brothers
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Geoff Winnington-Ball" <gwball@sympatico.ca>
> To: "Richard Notton" <Richard@fv623.demon.co.uk>
> Cc: "MV List" <mil-veh@skylee.com>
> Sent: Friday, October 19, 2001 12:19 AM
> Subject: Re: [MV] Band of Brothers
>
>
> The inimitable Spinning-Ball and esteemed list people,
>
> > McStolly,
> >
> > We here in North America have so far seen seven episodes. Trust me, they
> > just keep getting better! I remain sitting, stunned, in front of the
> > tele for a good few minutes after each one.
> >
> Indeed it is proving to be highly enjoyable and very well done, we have
just
> seen part 4, there is a disadvantage though in being a trifle
knowledgeable
> and interested in MVs plus personal contact with some of the MV
> support/supply people who made it, you can see the joins as it were. The
> producers of course do not and cannot cater for the MV anorak.
>
> I am puzzled though about the Harley (or was it an Indian) in the earlier
> part, it would seem the US use of sidecars was exceedingly rare, the
sidecar
> was attached correctly for the UK drive on the left and its style was a
very
> recognisable domestic Watsonian attachment of the 50's and 60's; perhaps
one
> of our American chums into motorbikes could help out here.
>
> > I just wish we could do the same for the Britis/Canadians/Commonwealth.
> > Maybe one day. It would be equally outstanding, BoB having set the
> > precedent.
> >
> Perhaps, it takes people of the stature like Hanks and Spielberg to get
this
> sort of project off the ground and to achieve the backing needed, this
> invariably starts in the US where the industry is strong and the finance
to
> be had, naturally the storyline has to be from an American view since this
> is the source of cash and major intended revenue earning.
>
> An epic dealing with the British/Canadian effort would be an uphill
struggle
> to get started, perhaps you, me and the expert Ballards could have a go
with
> some German consultancy from "The Baron Paulus von Hocking", let me know
how
> many million $ Canadian you can raise. . . . . . . .
>
> This has led to a worrying skew of popularly perceived history with the
> plethora of semi-documentary and very powerful films dealing with one side
> of these issues only, for example BoB has again led to the uninformed view
> often heard that the British and Canadian forces simply sat around Caen
> whilst the US advanced swiftly, whereas in fact this was a planned
operation
> to hold the German armour, so successfully deceived to wait at the Pas de
> Calais, in order that a swift pincer encirclement could be achieved, and
it
> was. It is a pity that all bar a few minutes of film exist covering the
> three British/Canadian D Day beaches, the rest having been lost in a
> processing error at the time. Having attended the Omaha memorial I am
also
> slightly ashamed the British Government has never seen fit to fund a
similar
> dedication, the numbers would be higher though and currently these sites
are
> scattered around the area in fragmented form largely tended by the French.
>
>
> Having attended the dedication and contributed to the Churchill now placed
> on Hill 112 it is obvious that the detail of operations around this area
and
> time need some effort to unearth, seriously bitter fighting with huge
losses
> it certainly was. The Churchill driver veteran I spoke with made light of
> his experience, broadly on cresting the rise of Hill 112 the first AT shot
> destroyed the turret, killed the turret crew and had most of the remains
of
> the commanders head go down the back of his neck, the almost immediate
> second shot carried off the gearbox selectors, at which point he decided
> fighting with one gear and the hull MG was largely useless and retreated.
>
> Lets not forget also, leaving aside politics or who's "right", the
Wehrmacht
> was a small army by this time, a substantial amount had been disbanded
after
> the fall of France, the losses in Russia were huge and between 1939 and
1945
> the total German armour production was 1/4 that _of just the UK_,
push-over,
> certainly not, effective and efficient fighting force it certainly was.
>
> It was noted that BoB correctly noted the losses for Operation Market
Garden
> at the end of part 4, British and Canadian losses were very heavy again,
the
> plan was bold and sensible but let down by faulty intelligence, which
> happens, and a total loss of communications which under the circumstances
> was unforgivable when you look at the detail.
>
> For the benefit of the technical and the Ham Radio Ops amongst us, the
> Wireless Set No. 76 was designed for airborne operations and was a simple
> transmitter of 9 watts using six crystal controlled channels and an
> associated R 109 receiver, the whole station including batteries, antenna
> and guyed mast sections to support the 1/2 wave antenna could be air
dropped
> in two containers, breaking down into a four man load. Crystals were in
> very short supply and no spares could be provided, until later in the war
no
> crystals below 3 MHz were available for the 76 set. The drive level in
the
> 76 set was known to be too high for the crystals in use and these failed
in
> short order, firstly the sets were operated on the night frequencies as
the
> day channels had failed (on HF you need to use different frequencies for
day
> and night over long distances owing to the characteristics of the
> ionosphere), then, as expected the night crystals also failed leaving the
> operation with no medium/long-haul comms at all.
>
> In other respects the operation was quite well equipped, the very
effective
> 17pdr AT guns were Dakota transported along with the rugged Morris
> Commercial CS8 15cwt truck as a load carrier and gun tractor, we have seen
> original documents showing how these are partially dismantled and
> shoe-horned into a Dakota.
>
> > This is the best [military] thing to hit the airwaves, ever. I'll be in
> > perma-withdrawals when it's done...
> >
> Indeed, very good it is and we look forward to the remaining 6 episodes,
> perhaps we shouldn't whinge too much about vehicle accuracy and being left
> out of these productions, these very good efforts have their multi-million
> dollar budgets spent over here, plus 99.99% and 44/100ths of the audience
> are stunned with the very believable vehicle accuracy, lets be fair, no
> museum or person is going to let a film crew play fast and loose with
their
> Tiger, SdKfz 251, etc., the A27M Cromwell and the Grizzlies were real
> though, as
> are some Opel Blitz 3, 6 - 6700A trucks. (Usually 3 Cromwells were
deployed
> with a M4A4 Sherman V Firefly to provide balanced firepower, the 17pdr
> Firefly being all but useless against anything other than armour and the
> A27M's AP shot being weak but its HE and canister handy for everything
> else.)
>
>
> Richard
> Southampton - England
>
>
>
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Dec 07 2001 - 00:36:27 PST