will this movie ever come out on DVD?
A VERY GOOD AN CHILLING MOVIE,it could be updated with terrorists blowing up the pipeline or something,but wish it came to dvd.
shareSounds like this movie is pretty hard to find. How about Red Dawn? Its a similar tone, in that its also about WW3 with Soviet invasions via conventional warfare. Of course, those who did not like the Brat Pack kids of the 80s will have some issues with the movie. Still not many like it.
shareHaving seen both, they have little in common except the WW3 and foreign invasion elements. "Red Dawn" focused primarily on non-military people (on the US side) forced to fight for their lives where this film was more military and political.
shareI liked World War III better, more realistic than Red Dawn and alot more intresting. In Red Dawn you had to ignore the US Navy's known ability to keep soviet reinforcements away and a mass grouping of armies could overwhelm most of the US so quickly; while in WW3 it was easy to believe a small, mobile group of soviet soldiers with one objective in mind could infiltrate alaska after careful planning and timing.
shareI have the same question. Maybe because it was originally an HBO movie it never made it. I saw this movie several times years ago, and still wonder why the national guard soldiers didn't carry live rounds while on patrol in the artic - they do have predators like polar bears!
shareCan't speak for the Guard in Alaska but i know in the PA Guard we never have live ammo unless we are on the range. I know that the alaskan Guard was in a different status duirng the cold war. besides if theywere all carry the Basic Ammunition Load, 210 rounds in 7 30 round magazines, it would have eliminated a plot point. if memory serves the troops were severly short on ammo through out the movie...
shareAlaskan Guard Units do carry live ammunition on ftx's because of the various hostile wildlife in the Bush, namely Grizzlies, Kodiaks, Polar Bears (western and northern Alaska), Wolves, and Moose. They probably were carrying their basic load - remember, we're talking M16A2's here and when I was in the army (from '87 to 91') it wasn't uncommon for new guys to get excited during their first live fire ftx and unload a clip in 20 seconds. Trust me, 210 rounds of ammo sounds like a lot, but I'd like to have about three times that if I knew I was going into a fire fight - just ask the guys who have MOS 11B, all you want to carry is water, ammo, more ammo, even more ammo, and if you have any extra room - some ammo.
In this case I don't doubt these guys probably started out with their standard load, Also if you recall, Soul had to remind the guardsmen to fire short bursts and to help keep down their wasting ammo he put them in culverts. They used the metal culvert walls like fire stakes so their field of fire was restricted and the different angles at which the culverts were arrayed created interlocking fields of fire that cut through the soviets as they stormed the pumping station. In fact one of the things I liked best about this movie was the technical accuracy and realism. From the state of the guard units at the time, eager but undertrained and underequipped, to the tactics used (not a lot of charging in with guns ablazing), to the outcome of the battle - it was a very near thing - the movie was amazingly accurate. I found myself thinking that if only they'd have had more ammo, and maybe a few more grenades or a light mortar, that recon unit could have held off the assault indefinitely.
modean, awesome post!
My one question, is at the end of the movie...the Soviets were so parinoid about blowing up the pump station, however the Soviet Major lobbed a gernade into control room at the end.
"I'm a vehemently anti-nuclear, paranoid mess, harbouring a strange obsession with radioactive sheep."
tgs333,
Thanks for the comment! Actually the apparent dichotomy that occurs in the movie, the conflict between the Soviet politicians that are increasingly less comitted to the plan to blow up the pump station and the Soviet military team that is in the field attempting to carry out the mission, can be better understood if you understand the force structure of the Soviet military at the time.
The average Soviet (Russian) military unit had a slavic core composed mostly of Russian, Belorussian, and Ukrainian officers and enlisted men (mostly specialists) and were on average at 40% to 50% man power unless they were pushed to combat ready status where they would then be flooded with Armenian, Azerbaijani, Georgian, Uzbek, Khazak, Kyrgyz, Tadzhik, and Turkmen conscripts. This meant that while the Soviets could field an impressive army by sheer numbes, their average unit lacked the cohesiveness, training, and experience that could be found in any American or NATO unit. To address these factors they created the position of Political Officer, better known as the zampolit.
Elite military units, like the Soviet Vozdushno-Desantnye Vojska (Airborne Assault), were composed almost exclusively of slavs, dominated by native Russians, and kept at or near full strength at all times. Even so these units possessed zampolit as well. While some have speculated that the Soviet forces in the movie were meant to be SPETZNAZ, I doubt that. A SPETZNAZ unit on this kind of mission would almost certainly be an OZNAS unit, highly trained, fiercely loyal, and far too powerful for the small National Guard unit to handle. Also the commander of an OZNAS unit would never have considered abandoning the assault on the pump station as the Soviet Colonel did. Most likely it was a VDV unit specially selected for this mission, thus the Soviet Major was also the unit's zampolit and the reason he tossed the grenade was because failing to complete the mission was unthinkable to him, the kind of "flexible" thinking that the Colonel could indulge in he was conditioned to abhor.
Thanks modean! I'm currently reading a book called: The Bear Trap. It details in a lot of ways what you did about the soviet army, this in regards to the Afhgan war.
Here's anonther question...when the Guard Unit helicopters to the valve station, did they all fit in the two chopters? are do you think more than one trip was made??
"I'm a vehemently anti-nuclear, paranoid mess, harbouring a strange obsession with radioactive sheep."
They'd have chopper'd in with UH-60 Blackhawks. Blackhawks fly with a crew of three and can pack a full squad for air assault missions. Given that Soul's unit amounted to about two squads, I'm assuming they made it all in one trip.
shareAs the Helos they had for the Movie were OH-58A's and they had two of them, the max they could have taken would be 3 people per trip. The OH-58A carries 3 + Pilot. That is also assiming no equipment as the payload of the "Alpha" Model is barely enough to carry the four pax.
sharegtjob wroe on Wed Mar 15 2006 @ 17:34:19
>>Maybe because it was originally an HBO movie it never made it.<<
Actually it originally aired on NBC as one of those 'Movie of the Week' special events during sweeps. It was a two parter if I'm not mistaken.
It did air on national tv back in 1982, as a two part mini-series. I thought it aired on CBS (Fox) movie. It later re-aired on local affilate tv stations and HBO back in the 1990's.
"I'm a vehemently anti-nuclear, paranoid mess, harbouring a strange obsession with radioactive sheep."
it aired on cbs in feb. 1982. for years i searched for it. i found the vhs on amazon but i refused to pay 35 bucks for it. amazon only a a few of this rare tapes. i finally found a rare movies website. they charged me only 11 bucks for dvd. 4 bucks shipping and handling. it was copied off a vhs tape obviously but it was picture on tv was ok all things consider it was not digitally transferred or remastered like most professionally transfered vhs to dvd quality.
shareGot Red Dawn on DVD,its an MGM classic series,as for WW3,never seen it.
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