WWII Air Force Expert Rates 8 Dogfights In Movies | How Real Is It? | Insider

I understand that USAF mandates continuous masking while flying any plane at any altitude

Ftr the 332nd did shoot down 3 ME262s.

The flight characteristics point you made is accurate👍🏼
The aerodynamics and weight issue along with any shots hitting the drop tanks( even though we are told they were also self sealing) is better jettisoned😂

The kamikaze attack in Eternal Zero lines up with the low angle attack tactic the Japanese actually used, fly in low below radar than pitch up and climb to 1,500ft and dive sharply so that even if the plane is damaged or the pilot is killed the speed and inertia would carry the plane into the target. Kamikazes that weren't spotted at long range usually weren't detected till about 5,700 yards so not a lot of reaction time aswell. A article entitled "“The Most Difficult Antiaircraft Problem Yet Faced By the Fleet”: U.S. Navy vs. Kamikazes at Okinawa" talks about it in more detail.

The Battle of Britain was a great film except for the 1960's husband & wife drama. The German piliots in france, English sitting around in chairs ready to scramble. Pilot getting sick from stress very realistic.

The Kate torpedo bomber sank
all the ships at Pearl Harbor. As a dive bomber it sank the Arizona blowing up forward magazine. Coral Sea sank Carrier Lexington, Midway Kates put three torpedos into carrier Yorktown. Burning & listing American sub had to finish her. Just after Pearl Harbor Kates sank a British Battleship & a Cruser off Malaysia. Best Torpedo bomber early in the war. Easy prey to F6F hellcats, & Corsairs
later battles.

I’m just surprised Hollywood hasn’t tried to convince us (yet) there were women flying aces in the two world wars. Only a matter of time I guess.

Battle of Britain movie had so many WW2 aces from both sides in advising roles, was always going to be more accurate.

In the dogfights for the movie Dunkirk & Battle of Britain the depiction of the Luftwaffe is not accurate since the planes depicted are not BF-109’s

red Tails most unrealistic movie ever seen, .50 cals rip wings instant but 30mms do nothing? i see

Review is spot on... Hollywood is so full of $h! T

This guy really knows his stuff

Sometimes the best things about old movies is you couldn’t fake it you kinda had to do it if you wanted to film it 😂

Sometimes the best things about old movies is you couldn’t fake it you kinda had to do it if you wanted to film it 😂

Couple fun facts about the stuka sirens. There was no way to turn them off. The pilots had to just fly around with them blaring the entire time (somewhat comical if you ask me.) Also the sirens were abandoned later in the war. The psychological effect waned over time and it just advertised the presence of the bombers.

I hear the US government painted the nose of the Tuskegee airmen planes red to make them easy targets for the enemy. So the Tuskegee guys would just shoot the enemy down.

Yes! Battle of Britain is his #1! It is my favorite aerial combat movie. One thing was a crying shame, however. The Me-109 strafing scene set in France near the film's beginning involved a very complicated special effect. Meticulously set ground explosives were to portray the German fighters’ rounds hitting the airfield. The timing was off on the fighters’ passes, and they did not hook up with the exploding RAF Hurricanes. Of course, such a take was a ‘one shot’ deal. Many may not notice such, but I did.

The original midway movie was better.

I'm not a professional pilot. I have a lot of time in airplane games and combat games. I'm not going to pretend to be an expert in how humans react to combat in the air - I don't have the agency of a single life to lose.

But what he said at the start of a universal truth:
Nobody getting shot STAYS in the same position while getting shot while in a maneuverable craft.

You tilt and roll - anything other than sit still.
Even if you were dumb enough to keep the same heading, entry-level players will still roll sideways in the misguided idea that doing barrel rolls makes it harder to hit you.

Red tails is a sucky movie.

WW2 expert wasn't there, debunked 100%

It is sad, that you forgot the Dark blue world movie. About czechoslovak pilots in RAF, they did blow a real train.

Red Tails was horrendous. The HBO original movie "The Tuskegee Airmen" was a great movie.

it still to this day amazes me how many american people have not heard of the battle of britain. i mean, i get it, but i would have thought it was one of the most pivotal moments in history, as the luftwaffe had not been beaten before so devastatingly. this was their finest hour.

I've been to Maxwell, AFB in Montgomery, AL. Last place my mom's second husband was stationed before they divorced. Often I'm skeptical about the "expert". This guy really knew his stuff though.

Very good information, thank you. Well done.

I’d like to see your analysis of Hurricane!

I remember that Memphis Belle sequence being very scary when I watched it as a kid, especially when the German fighter cut the American bomber in two. Now it looks so goofy, you can almost see the strings, lol.

I'm quite surprised the dogfight scenes from Final Countdown weren't covered :P

In both Red Tails and Memphis Belle, the allied fighters were at the same altitude as the bombers. I believe they were actually five to ten thousand feet higher, so they would have an energy advantage over the Germans.
I got to shake the hand of a Tuskegee airman at an airshow a couple years ago. He was 100 years old I believe. Nice guy. I thought they were given B or C versions of the Mustang but he confirmed he had a D model.
Another Mustang driver I met half a century ago told me about how he chased down a Me-262 one day. The '262 would be low and slow when it was going to land, and he knew this, so he kept following at full throttle and low altitude as the jet slowed. Cutting back on the throttle to get more time on target, suddenly flak came up from the ground and the jet accelerated away and the Mustang went back to full throttle. After repeating this two more times the guy realized that he was being suckered over AAA, so he broke off.

Pearl Harbor unrealistic? Now there's a suprise... :) More seriously, a great analysis. Re Dunkirk, while shooting down a Stuka while gliding was highly implausible, I thought the amount of ammunition Tom Hardy's Spitfire was able to expend was as unrealistic.

I'm going to correct him on the WWII Carrier hit by the SBD. Yes, that did actually happen. (No, he wasn't that low when he dropped the ordnance. That was where he pulled out just above the deck.) Yes, the pilot even admitted he did that. The History Channel covered that in one of their series. The pilot aimed at the big red circle at the stern, and the ordnance dropped on top of an A6M2. He ended up having to dodge shells fired into the water, also known as water columns on the other side, trying to get away. (This is also an extremely dangerous thing to fly into). Everything else he was basically spot on. I'm a WWII history buff, and I'm still learning more about it 15 years later.

Great presenation!!

CGI for WWII aviation is awful. It looks like garbage. Michael Caine was in Battle of Brittain, and his voice was heard in Dunkirk. That voice is so recognizable!

What makes Red Tails so utterly disgusting is that George Lucas felt it was necessary to lie about the Tuskegee airmen to make heroes of them. All the unreal and unrealistic BS meant to portray these guys as supermen is merely Goebbels-level propaganda, though for a better cause. No lies need to be told to show us the Tuskegee men were and are worthy of the utmost respect. To feel the need to embellish is to insult them, merely a subtler form of racism.

it interesting that 3 high scores were British or co British films Dunkirk UK/US film Battle of Briton British and the "Memphis Belle" was US /British production made in the UK

The computer generated dogfights and general flying are shite, totaly unrealistic. Watch older films like Tora Tora Tora or Battle of Britain with real aircraft. Far better with real pilots. The Dunkirk film was a joke. That scene with the JU87 impossible. Redtails a none starter. Me262 was 100 mph faster than P51. Mustang totaly outclassed by this formidable jet.

Die ersten spitfire hatten noch vergaser und deshalb bei roll Manövern öfter Zünd Aussetzer 🎉😂

This guy really knows his stuff. Not just the technical aspects of flight and the different airplanes but also the history of air combat.

I really liked Midway. They kept very accurate in terms of actual historical events and just embellished action sequences for more visual flare.

IIRC in Memphis Belle the co-pilot was desperate to get a combat kill, so had arranged with the tail gunner that he'd say he was out of ammo to give the co-pilot an excuse to go back there

Ngl, kinda disappointed with medway. The overall historic accuracy was pretty great from what i could find looking up specific events like the exploding carrier and even the fleet movements. Little disappointing the way they hollywooded the flying. Still an awesome movie though

Memphis Belle has good aspects,

Battle of Britain was superb depicting wwll air force and dogfights! Real planes were solid! The classic movie was 12 o'clock high, Memphis Belle, real battles in the Air!

Battle of Britain was superb depicting wwll air force and dogfights! Real planes were solid! The classic movie was 12 o'clock high, Memphis Belle, real battles in the Air!

Dunkirk and battle of Britain were very accurate, the cockpit scenes and call moments, attack out of the sun rules of dogfight; short burst shoot ahead of target 2_3 seconds,

Pearl harbor was too Hollywood, but good popcorn, id prefer flying leathernecks or devotion or Red tails, Midway was real! But use throat mics, SBD was nearly real! The attacks were nearly realistic!!! Jinkin did happen?

I saw one of the 109s from that film at an airshow in July. Powered by a merlin engine.

Very clearly explained. Thanks 🙏