Band of Brothers

[inexile]

Anyone ever seen this series? I got the box set for Christmas and didnt think it would be my cup of tea but I have to say its absolutely brilliant.

[anto1208]

Yea loved it very sad when it ended stuck into OZ now fantastic

[Louth4sam]

Two very good series that are on my list of future downloads. Downloading the first series of Dexter at the minute and gonna get cracking into that before i watch anything else.

[pete]

Two very good series that are on my list of future downloads. Downloading the first series of Dexter at the minute and gonna get cracking into that before i watch anything else.

Band of Brothers is imho the best TV series or mini series probably ever made. I have the box set too & one of the few DVDs I will watch several times. The box set is only E30 now & is a steal.

Watched the first series & Dexter is a great show. Highly recommended.

[Aberdonian Stu]

Yeah the series was a pleasant surprise. The book reeks so I was stunned by how they managed to basically cut out all the gushing rubbish in the book and made a great series.

[jebus]

Loved the series alright. I'd second getting into Oz by the way.

Plus I hear they are making a Vietnam follow up to Band of Brothers, anyone here anything on that? Unless they show Easy Company shooting heroin and burning villages it will be ridiculous to be honest

[pete]

Plus I hear they are making a Vietnam follow up to Band of Brothers, anyone here anything on that? Unless they show Easy Company shooting heroin and burning villages it will be ridiculous to be honest

Do you mean The Pacific (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0374463/) ?

[jebus]

Do you mean The Pacific (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0374463/) ?

Must be alright, I heard Vietnam, which I found odd, given that Spielberg is obsessed with WW2 and not the Vietnamese war

[OwlsFan]

Band of Brothers is imho the best TV series or mini series probably ever made. I have the box set too & one of the few DVDs I will watch several times. The box set is only E30 now & is a steal..

As a WW2 buff I enjoyed the series but the best series ever was the Sopranos imho.

[KevB76]

Anyone ever seen this series? I got the box set for Christmas and didnt think it would be my cup of tea but I have to say its absolutely brilliant.

Brilliant series, never grow tired of watching it again and again :)

[Billsthoughts]

excellent series alrite and survives repeated viewing...

[the 12 th man]

I believe the budget for making it was huge but you can see they used it well.

Agreed about repeated viewing.

[Mr A]

The book reeks so I was stunned by how they managed to basically cut out all the gushing rubbish in the book and made a great series.

Yeah, Ambrose gets totally caught up in hero-worship and gushes on about how only the democracies could produce such soldiers, which is just total balderdash really, as the Russians and especially the Germans produced some remarkable units also.

[pete]

I believe the budget for making it was huge but you can see they used it well.

I think i heard $100m or $10m per episode.

[shakermaker1982]

As a WW2 buff I enjoyed the series but the best series ever was the Sopranos imho.

Nah the Wire - then the sopranos! :D

[the 12 th man]

I think i heard $100m or $10m per episode.

That's an incredible amount of money for a TV series. I hope they make the one mentioned elsewhere about Vietnam .

[DannyInvincible]

Bit late to the game, but started watching this last week and have been thoroughly enjoying it so far. Am about half-way through the series. Some great stories. Having watched the first two season's of Homeland recently, I've been really impressed by a younger Damien Lewis in his role as Major Winters; maybe more so than I was with him as Nicholas Brody.

[Crosby87]

Bill Guarnere died a few weeks ago. One of the last left.... Heard him in an interview podcast last year. They seemed to really get his personality right, all **** and vinegar, still saying "Japs" all these years later... had no love for modern day Germans either.

[OwlsFan]

I suppose the thing that hit me about it was how relatively few casualties the "band of brothers" had during the war. If that was the German or Soviet equivalent, the casualty rate would have been around 80%.

[Mr A]

For one thing- they served a relatively short time compared to their equivalents from those nations.

But they did suffer heavily:

"Of about 2000 men who jumped into France, 231 were killed in action, 183 were missing or POWs, and 569 were wounded — about 50% casualties for the Normandy campaign."

Taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/506th_Infantry_Regiment_%28United_States%29

Since a lot of the series is based on guys who survived it may give a false impression.

In the Ardennes for the 506th Regiment:

"One third (about 200 men) of the battalion was destroyed, but in the process had taken out 30 enemy tanks and inflicted 500-1000 casualties."

I know some German units had over 100% casualty rates as replacements flowed in and became casualties also. As a direct comparison the German paratroopers at Crete suffered heavily, but I can't find good enough numbers for a percentage.

[Mr A]

Some interesting stats on this page: http://www.angelfire.com/ct/ww2europe/stats.html

Scary one: 80% of Soviet males born in 1923 didn't survive WWII

[BonnieShels]

That's amazing. Angelfire still exists!

Seriously though, that's a frightening stat.