The two excellent and intelligent German-reviewers of this film here certainly add significantly to the reviews including their fathers or grqandfathers comments, but although I don't necessarily doubt the existence of this plaque in the forest today exclaiming 55,000 US KIA, I think you will find that figure is fairly wildly innaccurate, whether its on a German plaque at the scene or not.  33,000 combined casualties of ALL kinds is the consensus of figures that turn up on a web-search, including from sites assisting war-gaming the battle.
55 000 would seem incredible out of about 300,000 US KIA in the entire war, all fronts.
At 55000, you would effectively have 4 divisions wiped-out to a man, not merely destroyed as fighting-units or decimated, but wiped out no survivors. It was bad, but not on that scale statistically! German-plaques aside, if you start checking, I think youll find Im 'rechts'.
But you are correct this battle is deliberately played-down in Hollywood compared to the still relatively huge US death-toll, and relatively huge US bungling and callousness, of legends like Bradley who had a tank named after him.
This film addresses that, and this battle should have been looked-at in non-flag-flapping terms previously, it is classic-grounds for the anti-war genre. It could have been better in terms of technical advice, and like 'Private Ryan' we have this strange and difficult to comprehend 90s language in 1944 soldiers.
They didn't talk then like they do now, soldiers or any other people-why would a supposedly highly intelligent director and writer imagine or allege they did, and lose this branch of continuity, which unlike German Mk IV tanks costs the same whether authentic or bogus.
Remember the sniper in 'Private Ryan', keeping-up the bizarre running commentary about enfilades and 'I got no shot!'
Who is the race-call battle commentary intended for(hes not supposed to know we are there) and why is it in 90s video-game amusement parlor punk language?
This is a good and over-due film of the anti-war genre, but like Private Ryan even, the standard-setter, it left room for improvement, and a lot of it low-cost improvement.
The two excellent and intelligent German-reviewers of this film here certainly add significantly to the reviews including their fathers or grqandfathers comments, but although I don't necessarily doubt the existence of this plaque in the forest today exclaiming 55,000 US KIA, I think you will find that figure is fairly wildly innaccurate, whether its on a German plaque at the scene or not. 33,000 combined casualties of ALL kinds is the consensus of figures that turn up on a web-search, including from sites assisting war-gaming the battle. 55 000 would seem incredible out of about 300,000 US KIA in the entire war, all fronts. At 55000, you would effectively have 4 divisions wiped-out to a man, not merely destroyed as fighting-units or decimated, but wiped out no survivors. It was bad, but not on that scale statistically! German-plaques aside, if you start checking, I think youll find Im 'rechts'. But you are correct this battle is deliberately played-down in Hollywood compared to the still relatively huge US death-toll, and relatively huge US bungling and callousness, of legends like Bradley who had a tank named after him. This film addresses that, and this battle should have been looked-at in non-flag-flapping terms previously, it is classic-grounds for the anti-war genre. It could have been better in terms of technical advice, and like 'Private Ryan' we have this strange and difficult to comprehend 90s language in 1944 soldiers. They didn't talk then like they do now, soldiers or any other people-why would a supposedly highly intelligent director and writer imagine or allege they did, and lose this branch of continuity, which unlike German Mk IV tanks costs the same whether authentic or bogus. Remember the sniper in 'Private Ryan', keeping-up the bizarre running commentary about enfilades and 'I got no shot! '
Who is the race-call battle commentary intended for(hes not supposed to know we are there) and why is it in 90s video-game amusement parlor punk language? This is a good and over-due film of the anti-war genre, but like Private Ryan even, the standard-setter, it left room for improvement, and a lot of it low-cost improvement.