Dam Busters

Originally posted by centurion
One needs to be careful with this film

Quite right, in fact some caution is inevitably required. . . . . . . . .I would like to think the assembly in MLU is somewhat better informed though and unlikely to accept the various media outputs without consideration and question.

Public release films, be it Hollywood, Pinewood, Elstree or wherever, are made to the same rules since the days of silent B&W.

Rule No.1 (or #1 for the N. American continent):
Make money at the box office.

Everything else is subservient to rule 1. Historical detailed accuracy tends to be both unexciting (in media terms) and expensive. The reader may therefore deduce where this comes in the ranking.

One effect of the raids was to give credibility to Barnes Wallis's theories and ensure the development of the tall boy and grand slam bombs. The impact (in all senses) of the former of these on both massive concrete reinforced V-3 super gun launch site in France and the U-boat pens should not be understated.

Not to forget Tirpitz of course. However, here's another strategic gaffe, the pens were well known from PR overflights during construction and of obvious application to a schoolboy let alone a photographic interpreter; so why wait until the build is complete and the concrete well hardened necessitating the invention of a specialist weapon to defeat them?

Perhaps Mr. Harris was far too busy elsewhere with carpet-laying. . . . .
:
Makes you think, doesn't it?

R.