Enemy at the gates

This movie SUCKED. It would have been better if they would have just told the TURE story of the sniper duel instead of hollywooding it up and making it crap.
 
Problem is that even the "true" story is murky because they cannot positively identify the German sniper. And that's a strange thing when it comes to the German army.
 
holloywood wanted to make money rather than making it accurate. just look at Troy, how unaccurate from the actual sstroy is.

probably the truth is less beautiful, therefore attracting less customers, eg. the girls.
 
what do you expect?? its hollywood, of course they are going to use artistic license.
they couldn' stiick to a story if they were paid
 
For most items of accuracy, "Enemy At the Gates" does a very poor job. It seems to try to tell a tale of vastly superior technology (Germany) vs primitive technology (the USSR). Germany has tanks and Russia doesn't. Germany is well equipped with machine guns and Russia fights with rifles not enough of them. Germany has aircraft and Russia doesn't. Etc, etc, etc. Now there were times when the Red Army was undersupplied, but that was also often true for the Germans too.

The biggest advantages that Germany had were better trained, more experienced soldiers and better commanders. Technologically, Russia was better in some areas and Germany was better in some. No overwhelming advantage to either side. And Russia always had more tanks at their disposal than Germany.
 
ya, very strange when i saw soldiers with half-capacities rifles cahrging at machiengun posts

when i saw it the first word that popped into my head was: sucide

in fact, the soviests rarely charged during those months of fighting, they fought defensively, and never retreated, they employed flank and other tactics of advance to recapture areas of the city

for example, mamalv hill changed hands 4 times a day.

the reality was that if charging was done, it was done with some form of tactic and staategy and soldiers are armed with submachineguns
 
Ok, here we go. I have read in a very authoritative source, (Antony Beevor, Stalingrad) that the supply situation for the Russians in Stalingrad itself was so severe that soldiers did, in fact, have to pick up rifles from dead comrades as they were not given one at the beginning of the attack. Later on, as it became clear that the German axis of attack was directly at Stalingrad and that the Russians could hold the ribverbank, the supply situation was somehat improved. However, General Batyuk's 62nd Army, which was responsible for holding the west bank of the Volga, was never given a high priority for supplies and weapons. They got only as much as could be given to ensure that the Germans would not take the ferry landings.
As for Konigs, well, I hate to tell all of the movie fans out there this, but he never existed. There are no records of any German sniper being sent to Stalingrad specifically to duel with Russian snipers, and there is no reference that this ever occured at anytime during the war. According to the book and movie, Konigs was sent from Berlin, but in reality, Berlin never sent any snipers anywhere for this type of mission. There is a rifle scope in a military museum in either Moscow or Volgograd (memory short circuit) that is supposed to have belonged to Konigs, however, there is absolutely no evidence to back that up. Both William Craig and Antony Beevore agree that the story was the creation of a Russian propagandist.

Dean.
 
exactly. If the History Channel would quit featuring 'historians' that talk about this then people might quit believing it.

Taking both sides together here were thousands of snipers, of varying skill levels, fighting in Stalingrad throughout the long course of the battle. It's been sometimes called a 'sniper's battle' for good reason. The chances of Zaitsev encountering one, or several, of the many German snipers in that battle is not that hard to imagine. It doe'snt mean he went up against some nazi 'uber-sniper'...
 
Heh both Germans and USSR were _very_ good at creating propaganda. I guess we'll never know the truth. Maybe there was such a duel, but German records were destroyed because the German sniper lost. Maybe it was just a story to bolster Russian morale. Either way, the book, on which the movie was based, "War of the Rats" is very good, unlike the movie which was so-so.

Oh, another war movie that didn't have a love story was Black Hawk Down. No bull love story, straight action and street fighting, very gritty.
 
I don't think the Nazis actually went out of the way to delete records of people who went to fight but didn't quite do their job right.
However, it's concievable that the German sniper was a Soviet creation.
The Nazis were good with keeping records.
The Soviets were good story tellers.
 
the_13th_redneck said:
I don't think the Nazis actually went out of the way to delete records of people who went to fight but didn't quite do their job right.
Click to expand...

I'd agree, though I might say these hypothetical records could have been destroyed during the war, as were many records.
 
The chances of such records being destroyed by the Germans are between slim and none. The Germans were meticulous record keepers and archives dating from WW II exist to this day in various German cities.
Perhaps I did not make myself clear: The German high command NEVER sent a sniper anywhere to kill someone. Such decisions were left to local commanders and it is highly probable that one of Sixth army's divisional commanders or Ops officers could have ordered his snipers to take on the Russian snipers. But the name and circumstances as told in the movie are fiction.

Dean.
 
If you had read much about the Russian during WW2 and some of their methods. If any troops fell back from their position they would be made to lead the attack to retake this position so every one learnt very quickly that retreat was not an option. the other thing they used as a punishment was they would send these offenders to lead the attack through the German minefields, and they would send wave after wave till they break through.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top