If the Allies intelligence was so great, since they seem to know when and where the meeting was to occur, why did they not just bomb the the building? It would be much simpler than to train 12 criminals, whose behaviours were suspect.
shareWell now...that'd be an AWFULLY Dull movie now, wouldn't it?
NM
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Well it does make the whole movie kinda silly...
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1. The Tallboy was NOT a precision weapon. It was used to bust damns and the only requirement was that it had to hit the river reasonable close to the damn where is would then tumble onto the target.
2. Was the Mosquito a precision night time bomber? I don't think so and blowing up the Chateau was not the point if the Generals had time to make it into the air raid shelter.
"I Hate Trolls"
All what you said and don't forget, even in modern warfare ie 'precision airstrikes' there are real examples in recent history when 'precision' still didn't get the job done. Memory is failing me now but when we (US) bombed terrorist dudes hide out (if this helps any: in the after action pix, he looked like John Belushi after a night of hard partyin' ?) he survived.
And, as evidenced with the bin Laden hit, nuthin' guarantees success 'up close and personal'. The Army had no use for any of these guys so why not risk them rather than chance loosing pilots/good aircraft ? It was a win/win for the military.
The Allies didn't send in an air strike to take out the Château in The Dirty Dozen, because:
1. there would be no guarantee that the targeted generals would not have survived in a bomb shelter. bombing the Château may have been plan B.
2. someone in the French government decided that they did not want the architecturally important Château destroyed. these decisions were followed many times for important buildings in Europe during WW2.
3. that would take away the need for an interesting movie screenplay.
"only one food for the rest of my life? That's easy, cherry-flavored Pez. No question about it."
Actually, the more I think about it, why not have the air strike 45 minutes after the dozen land at the Chateau. That way you can kill two birds with one stone, heh-heh-heh. I'd tell Maggot that he could be the one to give the signal from the radio room just to see his maniacal smile but in all seriousness I'd just have the transport pilots give the radio signal. After all, in 45 minutes either they succeeded in their mission or they got killed / captured and you have to use your last chance.
"I Hate Trolls"
I won't argue against a bombing being ineffective, but I got the feeling this was a secret mission, hence no dog tags and using expendable soldiers. Otherwise, why not send in more men? surely, there's more than a dozen qualified criminals in the military. Or why not send in Navy seals? lolz
shareRemember, at the time this movie takes place, France was still occupied by German forces (the raid takes place the night before D-Day). The chateau was well within French boundaries, which would make a bombing mission a very dangerous venture. The Germans didn't have any really decent large bombers during the war, which means using a captured German bomber would not have guaranteed destruction of the chateau. Sending an American bomber would have alerted coastal forces and put every officer in France on high alert, possibly allowing the officers to escape before the bomber reached it's target, or for the bomber to be shot down first.
As for why they did things the way they did: everything about this mission was unofficial because it was a violation of the Geneva conventions. The chateau was not an official military target (George Kennedy's character even says it has no strategic value) and the Army brass new there would be civilians present. The reason they had prisoners pull of their mission was because they needed disreputable people to do their dirty work for them.
The Allies bombed lots of places in France before, during, and after the invasion with minimal regard for collateral French civilian casualties. There's no reason why an air raid would be so remarkable as to tip off that the invasion was soon about to begin.
Nor is bombing a concentration of German Army personnel in any way a violation of the Geneva and Hague Conventions as they exist5ed at the time.
The only possible reason for not bombing it was that bombers were already tasked with higher priority targets and none could be spared for this one. As I recall, the idea for a unit of condemned men pre-dated the selection of the target.
The real reason, of course, has already been mentioned. It’s just a plot device to give a reason to form and deploy the Dirty Dozen.
The only possible reason for not bombing it was that bombers were already tasked with higher priority targets and none could be spared for this one.
"Bomb-proof" shelters are fairly massive structures, like the submarine pens at Brest and other locations. This clearly wasn't the case.
Quite frankly, this target could not have been very important or they would have sent a force of better disciplined, better trained, more experienced men - Commandos or Rangers - to improve the likelihood of a successful outcome.
But would Rangers or Commandos be okay with coldbloodedly killing civilians? It's one thing to drop bombs on a location from a distance, it's another thing to look someone in the eye while you shoot them.
Once again, the Army Brass used soldiers because they wanted antisocial types with little qualms about killing.
Yes. Ordinary soldiers killed civilians who were in the way all the time during the war. Do recall that the mission is to kill senior military officers and their staff. They'd be the majority of the people in the shelters. Nor are they killing them face-to-face. They're blowing up a bunker.
share"Bomb-proof" shelters are fairly massive structures
Or, they're just sufficiently deep basements or sub-basements
A great deal more than that. The submarine pens had several meters of concrete.
The entire London Underground was essentially a bomb proof shelter
The Underground tunnels were quite deep, yet still vulnerable to direct hits, of which there were several incidents.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air-raid_shelter#Underground_.28tube.29_s tations
you couldn't count on getting a *direct* hit on the perfect spot on top of the bunker but not on top of the chateau
Why would they care about hitting the chateau? Other targets in France were bombed without much worry about collateral damage and a couple of dozen servants and girlfriends/mistresses/prostitutes wouldn't cause anyone to lose sleep back then. A twelve-aircraft squadron of Lancasters each with a bombload of 12,000 pounds could drop as many as 144,000 pounds of bombs. If they could load up with 500 pounders, that's nearly three hundred weapons. Guided by Pathfinders, they should be able to dump that in close enough vicinity to the chateau by mid 1944 that at least one or two would hit the shelter. More aircraft means more chance of hitting.
http://www.taphilo.com/Photo/Pictures/Lancaster/index.shtml
The collateral damage was not the point of the missing the chateau comment. The extra layers of stone work etc. between the bombs and the ultimate targets was.
The underground shelter reduces the vulnerability to *direct* hits. And an air strike could not give very good odds of scoring that direct of a hit. Therefore an air strike would be unlikely to do any good. The damage to the chateau grounds that would be more likely (or even just the fact that it was being specifically targeted) would figure to be enough for the staff officers to stop congregating there, so you wouldn't get a second chance at that high concentration of targets.
An infiltration raid would have better odds of inflicting the specific personnel casualties that they were looking for. The down side is the likely extreme casualty rate in that infiltration force.
And an air strike could not give very good odds of scoring that direct of a hit.
Three hundred five-hundred pound bombs give you very good odds indeed and they won't notice something as comparatively flimsy as a big country house.
The damage to the chateau grounds that would be more likely (or even just the fact that it was being specifically targeted) would figure to be enough for the staff officers to stop congregating there
Who cares? The attack happens the evening of 5 June 1944. After the morning of 6 June they aren't going to be having leisurely little conferences with their girls close to the new front lines. They'll be at their headquarters trying to stop Eisenhower's armies.
In the novel it's explained that the bombers of the RAF and USAAF were busy elsewhere. The high command didn't really give this mission much priority because they didn't think it would work, didn't know for sure whether the generals would actually be there or not, and had need of their bombers for other missions. Actually, in the novel the generals AREN'T there; only one came that night, the rest were due the next morning. So the boys only killed one general. They didn't blow the place up, either.
Here's to the health of Cardinal Puff.
A bombing mission over Brittany wouldn't have given anything away, if anything it would have attracted attention away from the airborne drops over Normandy going on at the same time. I assume that there were no unallocated air assets available or they were afraid the generals would survive in a bomb shelter, and also it would have eliminated the reason for making the movie.
shareWWII bombers were lucky to get within 1/2 mile of a target. So you send 100's of them. Besides radar picks them up and they either go to a shelter or away from the building. I'm pretty sure the German's had a plan for an air raid.
shareAgreed. There were numerous records of bombers who didn't just miss their targets, they hit the wrong towns entirely.
And with the chateau being used to house high-ranking officers, there would have been plenty of German anti-aircraft emplacements around it to pick off any planes that dared try to attack. And by 1944, the German anti-aircraft was getting pretty good. The Allies lost a lot of bombers to anti-aircraft fire. Many bombing missions returned with fewer than half of their planes.
And as someone else mentioned, there was an awful lot of concrete and stone in that chateau, so if everyone had retreated to the underground shelter for an air raid, and if the bombers actually hit and destroyed the chateau, it still would have had very little effect on the shelter below. Granted, everyone could possibly have ended up trapped in the shelter, but the air raid probably wouldn't have actually killed any of them, except for the house staff and the soldiers who were left above.
Then you would'nt have sat back! and enjoyed this great movie right?
If we accepted your view on thousands of movies based on fiction,,,which most are! think of all the "Greats" we would miss? ie,,Casablanca for one? and how about " For whom the Bell Tolls"? what classics? strictly fiction, but great entertainment just the same?
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Because it was in WW2. They didn't have the precision drone strikes we have today.
I know a brilliant example of that:
During the occupation of Norway, the Germans took control over the heavy water plant at Rjukan (in order to construct the atomic bomb).
A group of Norwegian commandos flew in and blew up the tanks. However, after two months, the Germans had rebuilt the whole thing.
So the Americans decided to bomb it.
The result:
After a massive air strike, all they had accomplished was to damage some of the exterior and kill and injure a lot of civilians, plus material damage to the local town.
If you find that interesting, you should watch this series:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3280150/?ref_=nv_sr_1
This sentence has nothing to do with what I just have written above.