So, I have been enjoying the recent TV romp SAS, Rogue Heroes.

Obviously, it's a bit overegged. The characters are a bit more extreme than they were, and the story has been made as exciting as its needed for today's short attention span audience. I get that. It was still fun. And mostly accurate. With a very reasonable selection of period vehicles.

Until the last episode.


I had to do a double take when I saw a dingo MRAP driving around a German airfield..... but the icing on the cake, almost as a nod, no, a homage, to the travesty that is "Battle of the Bulge", was the use of an M48 Patton, as a German tank.



I kid you not....


An M48.


And to rub salt into the wound, they not only festooned it with gear as if it was an Abrahms rolling into Iraq, they also painted a Balkan Kreuz (German Cross marking) on the glacis plate....

The glacis plate.....


No German Tank had a Balkan Kreuz painted on the glacis....



(The main reason I'm so f---d off about this, is that today, there is no excuse, for not having either a restored period vehicle, or a decent replica. )

As you were...

Henk............Don't blow a gasket because things aren't historically correct, go and paint something that is historically correct.

Wayne

I quite enjoyed it but could have done without the sex,I,m not a prude but I supose that,s standard for today and the cursing got a bit boring since they only seem to know one word and I know Paddy was a bit of a wild man but I think they went a wee bit over the top.Still it will do till something better comes along.I do,nt think Stirling would have been very imprest or todays SAS.
PS it was to see Jock get a bit of credit as he seems to be a bit forgoten these days and Stirling always credited it as being his idea
Pete

So there you go...........As always... To each his own...........

Wayne

Oh, I enjoyed it. I know Its not a documentary. Its just the combination of an M48 (or M60, probably an M60 on reflection), with a Balkan Kreuz painted on the glacis, got me.

Namaste

I'm only surprised it wasn't a swastika!

I always thought one of the best representations of the LRDG was the old black and white film ," Sea of Sand" with Michael Craig, John Gregson and Richard Attenborough . The strongest swear word in that was "bloody" !

Alan

I haven't watched as I tend to avoid the BBC. Such a travesty was predictable, 100% no excuse these days. Stuff like that annoyed me as a child when I saw 'Battle of the Bulge.'

I re-watched it a couple of weeks ago.
Brilliant movie!

Here here!
I always felt that film was overlooked and forgotten in favour of the equally good Ice Cold in Alex. I particularly remember the scene where Percy Herbert gets left behind in a rearguard post. But don't forget even that film, although only made thirteen years after the war ended, had an Afrika Korps M3 half-track.
Although not in the same league I was also impressed as a kid with the original Sahara, with Humphrey Bogart - somewhat far-fetched but very entertaining.

The BBC series ? Watchable and entertaining but not a classic. Why did Paddy like firing off ammo into the sky all the time - were their supplies that readily wastable? It seems you can only be tough on T.V. these days if you "F" your way through it. The Patton in the last episode did take me out of the moment - surely for such an inactive scene they could have built a replica out of even basic materials on top of a functional chassis.

David

They could have CGI’ed it quite easily and possibly cheaper than renting and modifying a real vehicle.

They did that fur Kellys heroes and Saving Private Ryan but they were Hollywood blockbusters

Yes but today's T.V budgets can be astronomical - the recent dreadful "Rings of Power" has been said to be budgeted at a billion Dollars for two series. Don't know what the BBC budget is but if they can go to a couple of thousand I'll knock a Panzer up for them out of MDF.


David