Maybe I'm too uptight about this but I would have attacked the farmhouse in the evening under the cover of darkness.
One/two men sent to volley grenades through windows, the element of surprise being perserved, lives being saved from being mowed down by machine gun fire. That's all I'm asking.
You wouldn't make it in my platoon. The object of knocking out the farmhouse at night was addressed, and discarded, as the farmhouse HAD to be knocked out ASAP. That was the platoon's mission. It was a strongpoint that had to be eliminated prior to advancing to the interior.
shareYes it had to be taken ASAP but a direct assault across the open like that invited failure and insane casualties. Did they not have any smoke grenades? Rifle grenades? How about some sharpshooters in addition to the machine gun to pin down the defenders?
The platoon just left the beachhead. The chance of them having specialty equipment would have been low. At this time the sniper policy for the US Army was a two day course given to one man in the company. They should have had the company's heavy weapons squad, but that might have been designated to another role. The company's 60mm mortars would have been good support for smoke and suppressing fire, but they seem to be not available. Smoke grenades would have been only good if they could have gotten up closer to the building.
This was the Salerno landings and the Army was still learning alot about amphibious landings and support equipment.I would guess that the bazookas were supplied to reduce the building, but they got spent on the German armoured recon unit.
Writes telsono:
The platoon just left the beachhead. The chance of them having specialty equipment would have been low. At this time the sniper policy for the US Army was a two day course given to one man in the company. They should have had the company's heavy weapons squad, but that might have been designated to another role. The company's 60mm mortars would have been good support for smoke and suppressing fire, but they seem to be not available. Smoke grenades would have been only good if they could have gotten up closer to the building.
Problem is that this platoon wasn't part of a company or a battalion. It was made clear that it was a regimental intelligence and reconnaissance (I&R) platoon of the 36th Division (Texas National Guard). These units come one to a regiment, the equivalent at the regimental level of the infantry division's reconnaissance troop (a company-strength unit).
The first time I saw A Walk in the Sun I remember being a bit confounded, as the unit was larger than an I&R platoon's table of organization prescribes (about 25 men), and should have been "organically" motorized ("owning" about 7 jeeps, each with a pedestal-mounted .30 or .50 caliber machine guns). It was also doing something that no regimental commander would use an I&R platoon to do.
In a way, A Walk in the Sun fell prey to the same lack of historical verisimilitude that did so much damage to Finding Private Ryan. In each movie, the task assigned would not be addressed by a force of less than company (or reinforced company) strength, and everything would've been done to put wheels under the people assigned the job.
Even a platoon drawn from a line company would've been too weak to send out on such an errand all by its lonesome, and the sight of Tom Hanks' character and his short squad crossing the middle of a big, open field in the Normandy countryside (were there any such big, open fields in the Normandy countryside?) in Saving Private Ryan just about drove me nuts.
You've got a handful of men and you're working your way through unsecured territory. There are perfectly useful tree lines all to hellangone over the place, and you're going to walk straight across a pasture virtually inviting everybody in line-of-sight (including nervous American units scattered all over the Cotentin Peninsula) to shoot you?
One of the accuracy points I credit to another World War II movie - Hell is for Heroes (1962) was a remark made by one member of the stretched-thin squad of protagonists left holding their whole company's sector of the front, to the effect that during the night a full-strength company would have several patrols out in the no-man's land between their line and the Germans' fortifications - patrols of at least squad strength, perhaps more, to deny the disputed zone to German infiltration and scouting and to probe for enemy strength and position.
Patrols totaling more men than the whole of that platoon in A Walk in the Sun, and they wouldn't be going much beyond the range of their own company's mortar section supporting fire.
Oh good! My dog found the chainsaw!
and you sir wouldn't make it in my platoon. the mission was the demolition of the bridge. the farmhouse was an obstacle which was circumvented by the advancing squad using the river to approach and blow up the main objective. they discussed a nighttime attack and discarded it because the bridge had to be knocked out ASAP. both attacks, the bridge attack and the farmhouse attack are diversionary in support of each other, (brilliant strategy, i thought) as they attacked the farmhouse first with Rivera's machine gun, then the bridge blows, then over the wall and the "nobody dies" belly crawl to the final assault on the farmhouse. primary and secondary targets eliminated. mission accomplished but the loss of men during the charge on the farmhouse is questionable. in my opinion since the farmhouse was secondary they could have waited until they had bazookas or rifle grenades.
"only one food for the rest of my life? That's easy, cherry-flavored Pez. No question about it."
I think that they were in a time crunch. The Germans could have used the farmhouse to observe,report and harass Allied traffic on the road all day, and the invasion couldn't waite for night.
*Forever Cho Chang Fan*
Cho's story continues at: [http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1552296/1/]
It was anyway a pretty bad planning from the battalion to leave such an important target for just one platoon. The German armored cars could have attacked the platoon in the open field and kept them out from even seeing the farmhouse. But of course the platoon didn't know anything about the armored cars and the cars didn't know about the platoon. The platoon beat the cars because they managed to ambush them.
It was anyway because of those cars they lost all their bazooka ammunition. Like Sgt Ward stated that if they had only one round left the farmhouse had been easier to conquer.
The Apple Scruffs Corps, 05
Children, don't do what I have done
"Maybe I'm too uptight about this but I would have attacked the farmhouse in the evening under the cover of darkness."
PRECISELY!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What was the big hurry? Maybe I missed something, but that house appeared to be a good fortress, assuming that it also could be heavily fortified. Waiting until night, to me, would have given much better cover. Even if it would have taken several hours to low-crawl to this house during the night, so what? To me, then, lobbing in some grenades would have been easier.
MON: JUN-16/2008. Interesting point about needing to take out this German position ASAP, but why did the US troops attack this German convoy in the first place? Was this enemy convoy enroute to reinforce this same, German outpost house?
MON: JUN-16/2008. Back again. I was just thinking, if the Americans used a lot of their ammunition on that German convoy, why didn't they strip this same convoy of as much weapons, ammo, whatever, as possible, which could give the Americans more firepower?
my issue was the stripes on the clothes
they looked painted on
that rilly rilly bothered me
& they were so clean
frog scene aside
they were way clean
Servadoo 122112 Billabong Mooch
This was a good old movie but like everyone observed, there is a lot of holes in it. A frontal assault against a fortified position like that is suicide. The house should have been scouted to find the weakest area, like one wall that only had one window for example, and then a diversionary attack while the real assault on the weak point took place. Also there was no radio contact, the real way to deal with the house would have been to call in artillery or an air strike. There might have also been friendly tanks in the area they could have radioed since they were on foot and the mechanized stuff would have been almost caught up to them in 5 hours time. If anyone noticed...the half track was an American GMC and the machine guns in the house were American Browning .30 cal. But still a cool movie. Saving Pvt. Ryan they really went all out and had the real equipment for accuracy. I
shareyeah
I was watching the dudes with the fresh paint on the sleeves
running towards a belt fed weapon
& I was like
Uh
Wait
Wait
Uh
No
Oh hey
they over ran that --- R they made of Iron
it must have been the war effort - make them feel good about running head long into death
make them feel that they can do anything
I don't know
too many little things like this
I am going to have to lower my rating - drastically
Servadoo 122112 Kansas1918 Mooch
Yeah, the charging towards the machine guns seemed suicidal. There were three mgs, in a semi fortified position....the unit would have taken fairly extreme casualties.
If that situation was real, it would be quite likely that the unit may have sustained huge casualties and not actually closed to grenade throwing range.
Given that the platoon had just come off an attack transport, their relative state of "way clean" clothing and equipment was entirely appropriate.
As for sleeve insignia looking "painted on," stenciling enlisted rank insignia directly onto the sleeves of utilities was common practice in the U.S. Marine Corps at that time, though not to my knowledge in use in the U.S. Army, where chevrons were sewn to fatigue uniforms.
In addition to regulations, there were quite sensible reasons for "sewn-on" stripes, not least important was the fact that sergeant's stripes (like officers' collar trimmings) tended to act as bullet magnets.
See Battleground (1949) where a couple of the cast demonstrate the value of insignia which can be quickly removed in the field when snipers are suspected.
I'd have to take a second look at A Walk in the Sun.
Oh good! My dog found the chainsaw!
As 2 the paint
U'd get a new shirt every time somebody died?
flown in?
Or U'd just take the fallen commrads shirt?
O & as 2 the thread:
did U think a mass charge on belt fed automatic weapons was a good idea?
U can get happy in the same pant U got pissed in. - Becky Sue
Plz lrn 2 spl & punkchoo8 F u wnt aneebudy 2 take u seeriusly.
sharehere's an idea
go live yer life
I'll b over here
it is important that these peeps have a view of me that is in line with how I c myself
oui
ridentem dicere verum quid vetat?
soooooooooooo
do u have anything 2 say about the movie
or the scene where they "human wave"
?
What it is, is, what is, is. Is what it is.
hmmm..Just wondering. We're a couple years on from the tactical situation in AWAITS. If the same situation presented itself today, would we get the same attack scenaro from Army fighting mavens???
sharegawd uh
whell if they've had any training
so so nyet
but u never know
um um um
ya gotta hope
not not
K?
What it is, is, what is, is. Is what it is.
[deleted]
Dude, why would I want to have a "view" of you? Give your opinion; then move on.
Don't get me wrong. We all recogmize your genius.
Personally, I'll be building a statue to you tomorrow morning.
I don't plan on flushing for days.
russsin
head long in to belt fed wheapon?
what ever
sum what shur it's not gonna come out as port-tray'd in this
as 2 yer hate
& yer dreams
& yer flush
sad
K?
so so sad
Ja, ja, ja, so, no rilly - wait, what?
PWI (posting while intoxicated) is always a piss-poor idea. Get some help, pal.
Honk if you love Jesus...
Text if you want to meet Him...
so so so ther 4 u on what happens in cars being so so so important
K?
so so so
big in yer reality
K?
hate hate hate
vento
nuttin' 4 the convo
just hate
well what u give u get BAC 3 fold
u got anything 2 shay about movie
or movies
or any thing?
just hate
how yer Jeebuss feel about hate
u gonna meet up soon?
with all that hate?
u wanna consider
running into the spray of a belt fed
water cooled
well stocked
gawd?
2 say 1 can do a thing - may proclude should purr-hap