Inaccuracies in Bastogne and the Breaking Point?

Well, I never saw the 1965 film "The Battle of the Bulge," so I can't comment on it.

But weather conditions are part of historical record, and there's no question the weather finally cleared in Bastogne on December 23, making it possible for allied cargo planes to drop supplies. Temperatures were still bone chilling, but the sun did appear from time to time.

And yes, as anyone who has visited Bastogne (like me) can tell you, there is flat terrain in the Ardennes. It's forrested, but it's not the Alps - or even the Alpine foothills.


Here's an overhead shot of the Mardasson Monument outside of Bastogne; it'll give you an idea of what the terrain is like -

http://footage.framepool.com/shotimg/qf/698562930-mardasson-memorial-bastogne-star-shape.jpg


In the documentary I've linked below, you can see Bill Guarnere and Babe Heffron (at 43:45) visiting the Bois Jacques; they even point out the town of Foy in the distance -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6j_nop4wh0


In both cases you'll have to imagine a deep layer of snow covering the area, but otherwise both links indicate how close the "Band of Brothers" series came to replicating the locations around Bastogne.

The movie, "The Battle of the Bulge" is accurate insofar that there was a German offensive in the Ardennes in December 1944, and that the American army in that sector was caught completely unawares. Otherwise, it's pretty much a Hollywood war movie. Watch it for entertainment but not as a documentary.

As far as using M47 tanks is concerned, the producers did what they had to do to depict large masses of armor. There just aren't enough King Tiger tanks, or any other German (not Nazi, German) tanks for that kind of shot. You'll see that kind of substitution in many, many war movies. Eventually, we see either replicas or conversions, built using other vehicles. The Tigers in "Kelly's Heroes", for example, are built on Yugoslav tanks. The Zeroes, Kates and Vals in "Tora! Tora! Tora!" were built by modifying North American Texan trainers (for the Zeroes) and Vultee BT-13 trainers for the others. And the StuG in BoB is built on a chassis cobbled together from two surplus Soviet tanks. I've seen it at re-enactments, as well as in the series, and it looks pretty good.

With the advent of computer-generated graphics, it's possible to do more and better work, but there's still something to be said for using the "real" thing.

The bigger the government, the smaller the citizen.

Hollywood is NOT the place to go for Historical accuracy