re: "Masters of the Air" | WWII Miniseries | Apple+ Trailer

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The US industrial might was amazing.

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It really was. Toward the end of the war it took less than 2 days to build a bomber.

I thought it started a little messy but has found its stride. Characters are shaping up a little better. Enjoying it a lot. Initial judgment is that it would be a great effort in its own right, any hesitancy is because it'll be compared to two arguable masterpieces.

It's not BOB obviously, but the dialogue during the Norwich bombing scene was very Winters-Nixon like.

Just finished the first two episodes.

Loved them thus far. Obviously a lot of character setup but still good episodes.

And I love that in both episodes, Barry Keoghan, who is playing a New York born character of Irish decent keeps yelling that he’s really Irish when he really is an Irish actor.

Thought that was funny.

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nicholastiger: the British would do nightime runs and drop bombs blindly with no way of knowing if they actually hit anything

the usa pilots went during day to hit actual targets to help ground troops and making sure supplies were able to get to britain - I think that was the whole deal with the bar fight

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BuckyCheese: The map showing their next mission tells me they are being pretty loose with reality. From England to bomb some in Germany and then ending up in Algeria is well beyond the range of a B17 iirc.

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I haven't watched any episodes yet (I will catch up Sunday evening after the Lions beat the 49ers), but these descriptions remind me of a recent book I read called The Bomber Mafia by Malcom Gladwell. It covers the development (at Maxwell Field in Montgomery, AL) of the US strategy of precision daylight bombing (made possible by the Norden bombsight) to target infrastructure and production, vs the British strategy of nighttime area bombing to break the morale of the enemy, which was an incredibly dumb philosophy considering that the Nazis failed to break British morale using the same tactics earlier in the war. The book covers the failed Regensburg/Schweinfurt mission (the map Buckycheese mentions above). It's an easy read, recommended but I'm not sure how much of this material is covered in other books since these are well-covered topics.

As a side note, Albert Speer said the mistake the US made in the Regensburg/Schweinfurt mission was not striking again soon after. He believed that the US strategy was the correct one and repeated strikes on the ball bearing factories would have worked.

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The US plans had been conducted against the background of several ominous developments in German ground and fighter defensive organization. During 1943 the emphasis had shifted increasingly to concerted action against daylight raiders. Even though the British raids over Germany were still more numerous, the US precision raids were of much greater potential consequence for the German war industry. The first raid on Schweinfurt had come as a particular shock to the German high command, who regarded the ball-bearing industry as their Achilles’ heel. After this first raid, Albert Speer, the armaments minister, had predicted that if the raids continued at such levels the German armaments industry would come to a standstill in four months.

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From wiki: After the war, Minister of Armaments Albert Speer was asked by both British and American interrogators which air force had a superior bombing strategy. The exact wording of the question was "Which, at various periods of the war, caused more concern; British or American heavy bomber attacks, day or night attacks, and why?". In both cases, Speer replied: "The American attacks which followed a definite system assault on industrial targets, were by far the most dangerous. It was in fact those attacks which caused the breakdown of the German armaments industry." Speer went on to say that on three occasions, a relatively small number of bombing raids (on ball bearings and on the dams in 1943 and on oil and transport in 1944–1945) nearly collapsed the German war machine. That this didn't fully happen was largely thanks to Harris diverting planes from those tasks to his area bombing operations. Intercepted German intelligence from 1943 to 1945 made clear that the American destruction of oil and transportation facilities had a vastly greater impact on the fighting ability of the Wehrmacht than British area bombing operations.

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Gladwell also mentions the source of Britain's dumb bombing strategy, Winston Churchill's buddy and scientific advisor, Frederick Lindemann, who seemed to be a real a-hole.

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From wiki: Following the Air Ministry Area bombing directive on 12 February 1942, Lindemann presented in a paper on "Dehousing" to Churchill on 30 March 1942, which calculated the effects of area bombardment by a massive bomber force on German cities to break the spirit of the people. His proposal that "bombing must be directed to working class houses. Middle class houses have too much space round them, so are bound to waste bombs" changed accepted conventions of limiting civilian casualties in wartime". His dehousing paper was criticised by many other scientific minds in government service, who felt such a force would be a waste of resources. Lindemann's paper was based on the incorrect premise that strategic bombing could cause a breakdown in German morale. Despite this, his arguments were used in support of Bomber Command's claim for priority in allocation of resources.

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This will be next to watch after we finish watching "For All Mankind". We are on season three now.

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The Bomber Mafia by Malcom Gladwell

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Excellent book as well as his Revisionist History podcasts on the same subject. It is three episodes I am pretty sure were in the 2021 season.

They are portraying actual people

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enjoying the show, however, Austin Butlers acting is horrific. In BoB and Pacific the acting felt real. The characters felt real

This acting is pure drama. There is absolutely nothing real about Butlers acting and his dialogue. It feels like I’m watching someone sling theatre acting

“Let’s rack Em up and knock ‘Em down boys”

BoB never had a line that cringey with such cringe delivery. It just completely takes you out of the moment being authentic

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A lot your cirticisms (which are incredibly warranted) are on the writers. I think Hollywood writing simply is borderline retarded now.

Band of Brothers also just absolutely nailed the cast at an all time level.

Also, most of the actors in that show were American, and basically evryone but Butler in this show is from fricking London.

Basically, everyone in the new show sound like they are acting with a tennis ball, which they may actually be. I just don't know.

What is clear though is that the acting and writing and direction of Band of Brothers is just in another universe than this show.

Am I the only one or is the lack of crude language taking anyone else out of the show?

It’s a military show and I’m expecting every other word to be “mother fricker” and “cock sucker”, but there is hardly any cursing.

When the guy’s puke splashes on the pilot in the first episode and he goes “gosh darnit!”, took me completely out of the show.

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Also, most of the actors in that show were American

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What? 75% of the cast of BOB was from Great Britain. It was filmed in England for the most part.

Off the top of my head, the only characters in BOB that were played by Americans were:

Nixon
Guarnere
Randleman
Perconte
Sobel
Malarkey
And Dale die (forgot who played)

Almost everyone else was from Great Britain or Europe, including the extras and the small part characters