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While the mascots on the conning tower are overdone, as is the menacing voice of the German sub commander, the rest of the stuff sure looks factual to me.
Tom Hanks became a war historian after being in Saving Private Ryan. As the Executive Producer, I'm sure he took great care to get the details right, but a movie is still a movie. Gotta be something to amp up the drama in a drama.
The German U-boats often engaged on the surface against our Navy. Their deck gun was the famous 88, one of the most versatile and powerful cannons of the war. The 88 had a longer range than any of our own deck guns of our Destroyer Escorts, and their gun crews were very adept; it was common for a U-boat to surface after it torpedoed a freighter and sink it with the deck gun if the torpedo had failed to sink the ship.
While the Germans preferred night attacks, they would attack during daylight if they thought it would be successful. If they had to fight it out with an escort, they would, and they had the tactics and gear to do it.
Before radar, even a surfaced submarine had a lot of low-visibility advantages at long range. Their torpedoes and the 88 gave them that long range.
Until the U.S. entered the war, the Brits didn't have enough escort ships to cover a convoy very well, so they depended on aircraft for scouting. The 88 was an effective anti-aircraft weapon.
But the Destroyer Escort was much faster and more maneuverable than a sub. If a DE could close the range, it could get the upper hand.
Commander experience also counts in a sea battle.
During the Battle of the N. Atlantic, Hanks' portrayal of an officer nearing the end of his career without ever commanding a ship was very common. The Navy was top-heavy with officers who had never returned to sea duty after their hitch at sea as junior officers.
The seasoned sea commanders all went to the Pacific first. The fight in The Atlantic got the left-overs in both the ships and the men in them.
And our crews back then were all green. By the time we entered the fight, the German sub commanders had been in combat for 4 years or more, and their crews were all battle-ready veterans.
A comparison to Das Boot can never be accurate. By the time Das Boot began, as was mentioned in the first scene, the convoys and their escorts had already turned the tide of battle in the North Atlantic.
Greyhound is set at the time when America first joined the battle, years earlier.
But our Navy was preparing for a fight in the Pacific, and that's where all our Navy's best men and ships went during those early years. By 1944, our ship-building ability had turned the tide. Our navy had more and better fighting ships and better crews by then.
...and by 1944, the Germans knew they had lost their war at sea.
Last edited by banjomike; 05-30-2020 at 04:17 PM..
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Quote:
Originally Posted by banjomike
While the mascots on the conning tower are overdone, as is the menacing voice of the German sub commander, the rest of the stuff sure looks factual to me.
Tom Hanks became a war historian after being in Saving Private Ryan. As the Executive Producer, I'm sure he took great care to get the details right, but a movie is still a movie. Gotta be something to amp up the drama in a drama.
The German U-boats often engaged on the surface against our Navy. Their deck gun was the famous 88, one of the most versatile and powerful cannons of the war. The 88 had a longer range than any of our own deck guns of our Destroyer Escorts, and their gun crews were very adept; it was common for a U-boat to surface after it torpedoed a freighter and sink it with the deck gun if the torpedo had failed to sink the ship.
While the Germans preferred night attacks, they would attack during daylight if they thought it would be successful. If they had to fight it out with an escort, they would, and they had the tactics and gear to do it.
Before radar, even a surfaced submarine had a lot of low-visibility advantages at long range. Their torpedoes and the 88 gave them that long range.
Until the U.S. entered the war, the Brits didn't have enough escort ships to cover a convoy very well, so they depended on aircraft for scouting. The 88 was an effective anti-aircraft weapon.
But the Destroyer Escort was much faster and more maneuverable than a sub. If a DE could close the range, it could get the upper hand.
Commander experience also counts in a sea battle.
During the Battle of the N. Atlantic, Hanks' portrayal of an officer nearing the end of his career without ever commanding a ship was very common. The Navy was top-heavy with officers who had never returned to sea duty after their hitch at sea as junior officers.
The seasoned sea commanders all went to the Pacific first. The fight in The Atlantic got the left-overs in both the ships and the men in them.
And our crews back then were all green. By the time we entered the fight, the German sub commanders had been in combat for 4 years or more, and their crews were all battle-ready veterans.
A comparison to Das Boot can never be accurate. By the time Das Boot began, as was mentioned in the first scene, the convoys and their escorts had already turned the tide of battle in the North Atlantic.
Greyhound is set at the time when America first joined the battle, years earlier.
But our Navy was preparing for a fight in the Pacific, and that's where all our Navy's best men and ships went during those early years. By 1944, our ship-building ability had turned the tide. Our navy had more and better fighting ships and better crews by then.
...and by 1944, the Germans knew they had lost their war at sea.
Surface attacks against an escorted convoy only happened at night. A daylight surface attack from a sub against an allied destroyer was suicide. And so was blasting the bridge of a destroyer with a sub's flak gun, at any time of day.
Surface attacks against an escorted convoy only happened at night. A daylight surface attack from a sub against an allied destroyer was suicide. And so was blasting the bridge of a destroyer with a sub's flak gun, at any time of day.
Okey doke.
Since we are taking about a movie here, I don't want it to become a prolonged historical argument in the movie subform.
Watch it if you want, or not.
As a Navy vet, movies like this are one of my favorite genres. Hanks is one of my favorite actors.
The average age of a WW II destroyer commander was 34.
Hanks is 63.
I guess you can headcanon that early in the war before the US fully mobilized those older commanders went out before they were relieved of duty as the tides of war changed
Yup. But Hanks is playing a guy who's about 20 years younger than Hanks' own age.
Tom can pull it off very well, too. He was too old to be the right age of the guy he played in Saving Private Ryan, but Hanks has the ageless quality a few stars have. He probably won't show his age until he's in his 80s, like Robert Redford.
Personally, I suspect he bought the book rights to the Good Shepherd, the book used for the Greyhound screenplay, just to have when he grew too old to do a typical action roll any more.
The Greyhound is not a Destroyer. It's a Destroyer Escort, a smaller ship that was about the size of a Coast Guard Cutter.
During the convoys, the Navy assigned a Destroyer to be the flagship of the group, but the Escorts did most of guard duty, because of their speed. A convoy escort was typically 1 Destroyer w/ 3-4 Escorts.
The convoys grew larger over time, so their guardians increased too. The British Corvettes, smaller than the DEs, were often part of a group, along with Coast Guard Cutters, and Polish Destroyers that escaped the Germans.
Escorts were also assigned to guard the aircraft carriers and battleship's attack fleets in the Pacific. They did a lot of pilot rescue there too.
The Captain of an Escort would have been even younger than a Destroyer's Captain, and would have lower rank.
Last edited by banjomike; 06-01-2020 at 04:11 PM..
Yup. But Hanks is playing a guy who's about 20 years younger than Hanks' own age.
Tom can pull it off very well, too. He was too old to be the right age of the guy he played in Saving Private Ryan, but Hanks has the ageless quality a few stars have. He probably won't show his age until he's in his 80s, like Robert Redford.
Personally, I suspect he bought the book rights to the Good Shepherd, the book used for the Greyhound screenplay, just to have when he grew too old to do a typical action roll any more.
The Greyhound is not a Destroyer. It's a Destroyer Escort, a smaller ship that was about the size of a Coast Guard Cutter.
During the convoys, the Navy assigned a Destroyer to be the flagship of the group, but the Escorts did most of guard duty, because of their speed. A convoy escort was typically 1 Destroyer w/ 3-4 Escorts.
The convoys grew larger over time, so their guardians increased too. The British Corvettes, smaller than the DEs, were often part of a group, along with Coast Guard Cutters, and Polish Destroyers that escaped the Germans.
Escorts were also assigned to guard the aircraft carriers and battleship's attack fleets in the Pacific. They did a lot of pilot rescue there too.
The Captain of an Escort would have been even younger than a Destroyer's Captain, and would have lower rank.
There's not a lot of point to debating the actual age of an actor versus the age of the character (which we don't actually know yet). That's not quite as silly as protesting actors playing characters of different sexual orientations, but it's close.
It's probable that in the story as told by this movie this commander does not get the job by any normal, expected means. That seems to have been hinted in the trailer.
Yes that is what I was thinking
Not like reality of “Saving Private Ryan”....
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