This week we embark on Dirty Dozen December with a special guest, Lee Marvin’s biographer Dwayne Epstein. Naturally we start this month long exploration of the four Dirty Dozen films with the first and best of them – 1967’s The Dirty Dozen, directed by Robert Aldrich. With Dwayne’s help we look at the making of what has become an iconic war film of the era with defining performances from a strong cast including Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine, Charles Bronson, Jim Brown, John Cassavetes, George Kennedy, Robert Ryan, Telly Savalas, Robert Webber and Donald Sutherland. Grab your Grease Guns we’re headed for the chateau!
In 1940 Britain was overrun and became just another country occupied by Nazi Germany. At least that’s what happened in Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo’s 1964 film ‘It Happened Here’. The film follows Pauline, a nurse as she is forced to choose between resistance and collaboration. Made over 8 years by two exceptionally young filmmakers ‘It Happened Here’ is an impressive and thought provoking film.
In this week’s episode we examine one of the most ambitious amateur films of its era and delve into the fascinating production, performances and story of ‘It Happened Here’.
Warning – this episode includes discussion of fascism, the Holocaust and euthanasia in relation to the plot of the film.
This week we examine a Polish film 303 Squadron (Dywizjon 303) with Jennifer Grant, a postgraduate researcher focusing on the Polish Armed Forces in the West during the Second World War. With Jenny as our wingman we discussed the nuances and missed opportunities of this film which follows the exploits of the RAF’s first operation fighter squadron made up of Polish pilots. Immortalised first in 1969’s The Battle of Britain and also revisited in another 2018 film Hurricane, 303 Squadron has a fascinating history but we ask the question – does this film do them justice?
Grab your SLR and LAW 80 and jump in the back of the FV432, the Soviet 3rd Shock Army is on the advance! This week we dive into a pair of British Army training films Fighting In Woods (1982) and Soviet Encounter (1983) with Dr. Kenton White – an expert on the Cold War British Army. These well-made films show a potential (and somewhat optimistic) scenario of how the British Army would have fought the Warsaw Pact if the Cold War had ever gone hot!
Join us for the fifth edition of our Show & Tell series were we discus ‘Valley of Tears‘ (2020) which takes place during the Yom Kippur War and ‘A Breed of Heroes‘ (1994) following a British officer during Operations in Northern Ireland.
We are zipping up our Denisons, checking our Rifle No.4s and climbing aboard our Horsa Glider for this week’s look at the brand new Dutch war film ‘The Forgotten Battle‘, directed by Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. it boasts the second largest budget ever for for a Dutch film at around €14 million. With a cast of British and Dutch actors ‘The Forgotten Battle’ is sett during the the Battle of the Scheldt in 1944.
The film is an ambitious attempt to combine three storylines into a film just over 2 hours long. Competently made with some decent performances and a real eye for Mise-en-scène and atmosphere. The Forgotten Battle attempts to cram in too much and largely forgets the ‘Forgotten Battle‘ of the title. While the film brings us three engaging and potentially fascinating story lines that tackle the moral choices that faced soldiers and civilians alike during war, however, there is not enough time or space for them to all develop and ‘The Forgotten Battle’ may have been better adapted as a limited series. We explore all this in this week’s episode!
In this week’s episode we join Richard Todd and crew besieged on China’s Yangtse River as we examine 1957’s Yangtse Incident: The Story of H.M.S. Amethyst. Based on real events during the Chinese Civil War the film, directed by Michael Anderson, calls on a strong cast including William Hartnell, Akim Tamiroff, Donald Houston, Ian Bannen and a young Bernard Cribbins.
We are joined this week by Andy Moody, who is currently undertaking his Masters degree exploring popular cinema depictions of the Great War to talk about Great War films made between the wars. We enjoyed an in-depth discussion of a range of early films made during the interwar period, including: Ypres (1925), Mons (1926), Big Parade (1925) and Journey’s End (1930).
If you’re familiar with the film Siege of Jadotville you will remember a scene in which the Irish company’s sniper takes on a long range shot… with a Bren. The sniper exchanges his Rifle No.4(T) for a Bren (MkII – in reality, according to contemporary photographs of Irish troops in the Congo, it would have been a MkIII) and single loads a round with the magazine removed.
Following discussion of how plausible this scene is during an episode of the Fighting on Film podcast we teamed up with Richard Fisher, of the Vickers MG Collection and Research Association, to test out the plausibility of the scene. In the film the sniper is seen to be highly proficient with his Rifle No.4(T), barely missing a shot. When tasked with shooting a target which appears to be approximately 400 yards away he sets down his No.4(T), with its No.32 3.5X telescopic sight, and takes a Bren, sets the sights, loads a single cartridge into the breech and takes the shot. The shot strikes and kills the target, a man in a white suit who was directing an attack on the Irish/UN positions.
This scene raises a number of questions:
Why does the sniper do this?
Is the Bren more accurate than a Rifle No.4(T)?
Can you easily single-load a Bren?
At the range, behind a Bren MkI with a MkIII barrel (Rich Fisher)
The video above explains our methodology for trying to answer some of these questions. We gathered a group of shooters to fire both a Rifle No.4(T) and a Bren MkIII (in our case a MkI Bren fitted with the shorter barrel of a MkIII). The shooters come from a range of experiences ranging from successful competition shooters to myself (who hasn’t shot a long range competition in 18 months) and Rich (who hasn’t fired a rifle at significant ranges in over a decade). We fired at two ranges 100 yards and 400 yards, with the latter representing the scene from the film, at representatively sized targets. We used 174gr PPU .303 ammunition in all weapons except the 7.62x51mm L4 (which does not directly factor into the results of this experiment).
Can You Easily Single-Load A Bren
In the morning before the shoot the group of shooters carried out familiarisation of the handling and Normal Safety Precautions (NSPs) for the Bren. It was then that we discussed the part of the scene where the sniper single-loads a round into the chamber. It was decided to test this question using a L54A1 Drill Purpose Bren held by the Vickers MG Collection and Research Association’s collection.
Rich demonstrates single-loading a cartridge into the Bren’s breech with an L54A1 Drill Purpose Bren
In the video you will see that this was possible but it was easily fumbled. It was possible to accidentally nose the round into the gas piston or to drop it though the action, out of the ejection port. It is imaginable that in the stress of combat it might prove difficult – but it is certainly possible to single-load the Bren in this way.
Measuring up: working out the Figure of Merit (Rich Fisher)
Is the Bren More Accurate Than a Rifle No.4(T)?
In short, no. We found that the average figure of merit value showed that the No.4(T) was more accurate at both 100 and 400 yards than the Bren. The caveat to this is that our data set for 400 yards was incomplete with some misses and off paper hits meaning only partial groups were recorded.
At the range
In terms of measuring the accuracy of the weapons we worked out individual shooter and group average Figure of Merit values. We explain how this was done in the video (with reference to this video from Rob of BritishMuzzleLoaders). The raw data can be seen below:
First we have the the raw data for the Rifle No.4(T) at 400 yards for all shooters combined input into the Figure of Merit (FoM) spreadsheet which calculated the FoM and group size and generated a grouping diagram:
Rifle No.4(T) at 400 yards
Below is the raw data for the Bren Mk3 at 400 yards for all shooters combined input into the Figure of Merit (FoM) spreadsheet which calculated the FoM and group size and generated a grouping diagram:
Bren MkIII at 400 yards
Below is a summary of the FoM and group data for each shooter with the various weapons as well as an averaged value:
Summary of the data showing individual shooters and averages
Tom’s group for the No.4(T) at 400 yards was off paper and not recorded, the data for Kev, Matt and Rich on the MkIII was partial due to misses and shots off paper – this is perhaps somewhat indicative of the advantage the No.4(T)’s scope gave over the Bren’s iron sights at 400 yards.
What would we do differently if we have the chance to repeat the experiment?
It would be useful to replicate the firing of the No.4(T) and Bren again to rectify the partial data we recorded at 400 yards. It would also be useful to fire the Bren mounted on a tripod rather than off the bipod. This would provide a useful control comparison with human factors effecting the weapon minimised. We had hoped to do this on the day but did not have the time. It may also be beneficial to enable each shooter to have 5-10 rounds to get on target and compensate for wind etc. and then shoot their representative five round group.
Sniper Bren: the sniper takes aim with ‘the Bren on single shot’
Why Does the Sniper Do This?
So why does the sniper do this in the film? Firing from the bipod would theoretically provide a more stable shooting platform than an unsupported rifle. There was, however, plenty of sandbags for him to take a supported shot with the No.4(T). There has been some suggestion that it was believed that the Bren was a more accurate weapon but data from service trials and our experiment show that it was not superior to a scoped, accurised rifle. The scene was probably a result of cinematic license, the sniper had previously been shown to be able to hit anything he had thus far aimed at so having him swap to “the Bren on single shot” gives an added weight to the scene and the action of single-loading rather than firing from the magazine adds to the technical theatricality of the scene depicting the sniper as a capable expert.
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The Armourers Bench 