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Fascinating weapons, actual real-life veterans, and other incredibly accurate war movie moments.
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00:00From super popular graffiti that was very much present around the time of a world war,
00:05to the many different ways weapons were presented in various showdowns.
00:10And after already showing you two other lists full,
00:14I'm Gareth, this is WhatCulture, and here are 10 more insanely accurate war movie details.
00:20Number 10. Actual Blitz Survivors Can Be Seen, Battle of Britain
00:25Boasting a stacked cast with the likes of Michael Caine, Laurence Olivier, Christopher Plummer,
00:30and Ian McShane all popping up at various points,
00:341969's Battle of Britain focuses on the titular World War II events,
00:38which saw the British protect their country from the Nazi Luftwaffe.
00:42And during the Guy Hamilton-directed film,
00:45various civilians are seen sheltering from the Blitz in London Underground stations,
00:50with extras obviously being needed for these particular moments.
00:53What you likely didn't realise is that many of the folks pretending to be Brits escaping the air raids
00:58were actually real survivors who experienced these horrific bombings in reality.
01:04Unsurprisingly, the memories of those terrible attacks during the filming of these scenes
01:08led to some of said extras asking to be excused for a moment as they composed themselves.
01:14Even just pretending to relive these events must have been an ordeal, right?
01:17It's a small detail for sure,
01:19but one that makes these specific World War II London Underground shots
01:23feel that little more authentic once you know of them.
01:26Number 9, Killroy Was Here, Greyhound
01:30Recognised by many as one of the world's very first memes,
01:34a little piece of graffiti found itself popping up all over the world
01:37back during the time of World War II.
01:40The words, Killroy Was Here,
01:42were usually found alongside a doodle of a little bald dude,
01:45with a large nose popping over a wall and his fingers hanging onto it.
01:49And this distinct artwork was often drawn onto the walls of the places
01:53various members of the United States military were stationed.
01:56And sure enough, during the Tom Hanks starring 2020 war film Greyhound
02:00about the World War II Battle of the Atlantic,
02:03Killroy was seen very much being there at one point.
02:06Look closely at the radar on one of the ships as Hanks' commander, Ernie Krauss,
02:11prepares to engage some enemies at night.
02:13And you'll be able to clock little ol' Killroy keeping an eye
02:16on the surrounding military personnel.
02:18It's an easily missed detail,
02:20but one that turns a hugely tense sequence
02:22into one that feels slightly more authentic
02:25once you catch one sneaky World War II serviceman's
02:28highly accurate little scribble.
02:31Number 8, A Handy Hammer Nearby, All Quiet on the Western Front
02:35Easily one of the most harrowing and shocking depictions
02:38of World War I to land on screens in recent memory.
02:41Netflix's All Quiet on the Western Front follows Paul Balmer,
02:46a young German soldier who finds himself being thrown into the brutal reality
02:50that was this world-changing war.
02:52A decent amount of time is spent within the German trenches
02:55on the Western Front during the war picture.
02:58And it's during one of these explosive sequences
03:00when a machine gunner is shown blasting away at the enemy in front of them.
03:04What you may not have spotted as the camera pans away
03:07from the rapid-firing weapon was the assistant machine gunner,
03:11or more specifically, exactly what said helper had in their hand.
03:15As spotted by one eagle-eyed viewer on our movie details,
03:18a Reddit page that came in very handy when it came to this list,
03:21said assistant actually appears to be holding a little hammer.
03:25Far from being something that was used to do a little DIY mid-battle,
03:29that small tool would be used to hammer away at mud and other things
03:32that could potentially jam the machine at any point.
03:35It was the assistant machine gunner's job to keep those bullets firing,
03:39and that meant providing ammunition
03:40and also keeping the gun as clean as possible,
03:43in these often rather hellacious conditions.
03:46Now I want to know really quickly,
03:47what is your favorite battle scene in a movie of all time?
03:51Is it something from All Quiet on the Western Front or something else?
03:54You let me know in the comments section down below.
03:57Number 7, Loading Up for Battle, 1917.
04:00Keeping with weapons used during World War I for this next entry,
04:04Sam Mendes' outstanding British epic known as 1917
04:07contained some of the most jaw-dropping sequences ever to show up in a war movie.
04:12But perhaps just as impressive as the visual of George Mackay's
04:16Lance Corporal Will Schofield sprinting across the battlefield,
04:19or a flare-lit town,
04:21is one quite cool detail when it comes to the rifle he's seen using throughout the picture.
04:25Said weapon, a Lee Enfield rifle, was a 10-round gun,
04:30one that could be reloaded one bullet at a time or with a 5-round charger.
04:34Will is actually found reloading the weapon using that latter method at one point,
04:38before going on to fire out a grand total of 9 shots over the course of the movie.
04:43But how could one fire off a further 4 bullets if only 5 had been loaded?
04:47Well that's simple folks,
04:49it's because these weapons were typically always half-loaded,
04:52with one clip of 5 to save the mag spring.
04:55With the troops then only opting to chuck in another clip when they were preparing to head into battle.
05:01An accurate detail pointed out by another eagle-eyed person on our movie details.
05:06So thank you.
05:07Number 6,
05:07A Bruised Elbow From Being Prone For So Long,
05:10American Sniper
05:12There's a moment there in the 2014 war biopic known as American Sniper,
05:17a movie which tells the real-life story of the deadliest marksman in American history,
05:22when the aforementioned Chris Kyle figures out he's dining with a secret militant by glancing at his elbow.
05:28Here Kyle spots a rather familiar bruise slash mark,
05:31and quickly starts searching for evidence to prove his theory correct.
05:35And why did the sniper recognise this particular marking?
05:38Because it was one that he himself actually boasted too.
05:41Jumping back to a little earlier in the movie,
05:44Bradley Cooper's Chris is seen having a cuddle in bed with Sienna Miller's Taya Studebaker,
05:49with his own elbows looking almost as bruised as that bloke's at dinner.
05:53These particular marks tend to end up on the elbows of military personnel
05:57who spend a ton of time lay in a prone position with a rifle in their hands,
06:01with that part of their bodies usually rested on the ground and getting a little banged up over the ears.
06:06But simply, these shooter's strawberries are just a part of a shooter's life.
06:10Thank you for watching this video today, and if you're enjoying what you're watching,
06:14then hit that subscribe button down below for more WhatCulture videos in your life.
06:19Number 5. A Number of Accurate Weapons – Jojo Rabbit
06:22Towards the end of the routinely funny and sometimes quite devastating Taika Waititi comedy war film Jojo Rabbit,
06:30the titular Hitler Youth member finds himself in the middle of a war zone as the Allied forces attack Nazi
06:36Germany.
06:37And the surreal visual of tons of children running into battle against these troops
06:41was likely enough to distract viewers away from a pretty fascinating and actually quite accurate detail
06:47during this climactic showdown.
06:49You see, as pointed out by an R Movie Detail user, of course,
06:53The various weapons the kids are seen picking up and firing throughout this sequence
06:57are all either outdated, cheaply made, or even foreign ones.
07:01With this being a nod to the fact Germany were very much running out of materials
07:05as World War I reached its conclusion.
07:07So in the end, they were forced to arm their troops with anything they could get their hands on,
07:12something the director-writer, who also plays the most flamboyant Hitler you'll ever see,
07:16brilliantly alludes to here in a surprisingly subtle way.
07:20Number 4. A real-life pilot is playing himself, Black Hawk Down
07:25Ridley Scott's 2001 tale of a helicopter crew being shot down in the middle of Mogadishu, Somalia
07:31certainly did not mess around when it came to casting its collection of soldiers.
07:36But joining the likes of Ewan McGregor, Josh Hartnett, Tom Sizemore, Eric Banner,
07:40and even a young Tom Hardy in Black Hawk Down
07:43was another figure who actually also acted as a highly accurate detail.
07:47One of the pilots seen trying to survive in this volatile environment went by the name of CW4,
07:53Keith Jones, with that particular soldier even earning himself a silver star for his brave actions
07:59during the Battle of Mogadishu.
08:01But what you perhaps didn't realise during the picture is that Jones is actually playing, uh, himself,
08:06reliving a rescue mission that he actually executed in real life back in 1993.
08:11You can only imagine how surreal it must have been for a person who genuinely went through
08:16the Black Hawk Down incident to repeat that particularly intense day again,
08:21only this time in front of a camera and surrounded by some of the top actors of their generation.
08:26But Jones did a superb job of playing himself,
08:29and the real-life hero deserves to be saluted for his acting efforts too.
08:33Number 3, A Blast From Nowhere and Other Tank Details, Fury
08:37As one of the prior versions of this very list already highlighted,
08:422014's Fury contains some pretty accurate details,
08:46including the use of a sweetheart grip.
08:48This particular entry will be focusing on the real stars of the show, however,
08:53that being the impressive tanks present in the World War II war drama.
08:56As noted by an actual real-life military tank expert, Nicholas Moran,
09:01during a compelling Insider video, one specific scene during David Ayer's movie about the American
09:07crew of an M4 Sherman absolutely nails a few things when it comes to accuracy.
09:13Firstly, the moment a blast from a German Tiger I suddenly catches all of the crew off-guard
09:18is absolutely spot-on, with Moran explaining how the vast majority of tanks that were destroyed
09:24had no idea that the enemy was there.
09:27Infantry would typically be a huge help for moving tanks,
09:30as they would have better vision and be able to spot danger before those in the vehicle would.
09:34But in most cases, the moment these tanks would realize an enemy is nearby
09:38was when they were initially fired at,
09:41with it also being classic for the first or last tank in the row
09:44to be hit first during this sort of ambush.
09:47Just like what happens in the movie.
09:49The person driving the German Tiger I eventually opting to use their initiative
09:53and break out of the smoke to take the fight to their enemy,
09:56was an example of Orthrag's tactic.
09:58In other words, not waiting for orders and using one's own individual initiative
10:03to make a decision in the moment.
10:05This was encouraged by the German army at the time,
10:07meaning the Tiger I's movements here were also quite accurate.
10:11The Sherman crew only stopped firing at the Tiger when they can clearly see it's very much on fire too,
10:16something Moran again felt was correct.
10:18With it being said that you continue firing at a tank until it burns or changes shapes.
10:24Put simply, Fury got a lot of its tank warfare completely right.
10:282. How to really get a long-range radio working.
10:31We were soldiers.
10:33You gotta lick it before you stick it.
10:35According to one of the many lovely commenters on one of the prior versions of this list,
10:40that's a rather popular saying within the military,
10:42with the referring to the act of lubricating the rubber ring found on the connector of a handset,
10:47before sticking it into a long-range radio system to get it to work properly.
10:51And as pointed out by another member of the WhatCulture community, we thank you.
10:56One who claims to have been signal in the army.
10:58That very act is actually on show during the 2002 Vietnam War movie, We Were Soldiers.
11:04Keep an eye on one of the people working on the long-range radio
11:07as Mel Gibson's Lieutenant Colonel Hal Moore jogs up to the team with a bunch of troops he's training.
11:12And you'll just about catch one of the teams sticking their pinky in their mouth for a moment.
11:17He then goes on to rub his saliva on the inside of the connector for a handset,
11:21before plugging it back into the radio,
11:23seemingly getting it to work via this well-known method.
11:26The average person would likely never spot this lick-and-stick moment,
11:30but those who have served were quick to praise a rather accurate radio beat.
11:341. Submarine Interiors Were Massively Accurate
11:38Das Boot
11:39Classed by many as one of the greatest war movies ever made,
11:43Wolfgang Petersen's dive into German submarine warfare by the name of Das Boot,
11:47a project that has been released both as a feature and TV miniseries over the years,
11:52is both incredibly intense and insanely accurate in places.
11:56With so much of the epic and routinely bleak drama going down within a German U-96 sub,
12:02Peterson felt it was vital that the project created as accurate a version of those interiors as
12:08possible. And that's exactly what they were able to do in the end. After the writer of the book the
12:12production was based on, Lothar Gunter Buchheim, handed the team a bunch of reference photos he'd
12:18actually taken himself of the U-96. From here, the filmmakers crafted highly accurate submarine sets,
12:25with Peterson even going as far as to state that every screw was an authentic copy of the ones that
12:30were used throughout World War II. After all that hard work was put into creating an accurate
12:35feeling submarine, though, Buchheim would later comment on how he felt the actors involved were
12:39overacting at times, feeling their reactions were unrealistic based on his experience as a U-Boat
12:45correspondent. When it came to many of the non-living elements seen in Das Boot, however,
12:50it's safe to say the classic war movie knocked it out of the park.
12:53Or the sea. Or something. Bye-bye.
12:56Bye-bye.
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