Patton 360

The WW2 battles of General George S Patton, from North Africa, to Sicily, to France, Belgium and Germany.

Using a similar format as the producers used in Battle 360 - the WW2 history of USS Enterprise - an examination of the WW2 history of George Patton. Quite interesting and edifying, covering many lesser-known battles and campaigns as well as the well-known ones. In addition to seeing the bigger campaign picture we often see the fighting at platoon level. Interviews with living veterans of Patton's battles adds a human touch to proceedings.

Good use of CGI, though the graphics do feel a bit basic.

Good narration that doesn't paper over Patton's flaws.

However, it's not all good. The 'experts' that are wheeled in to provide an analysis of Patton and his tactics are largely just cheerleaders, providing empty platitudes. Particularly irritating was the US Army Sergeant Major who had absolutely nothing useful to say the entire series, yet said a lot. Everything he said was just superficial gung ho nonsense. After a while I mentally shut him out, and this helped relieve the irritation.

The other annoying thing was the repetition of previous information. After every ad break spot the producers would take about 2 minutes to recap what we had already learned. Pads the series enormously.

Take out the cheerleading experts and the recaps and we would have had a series of about 6-7 episodes, instead of 10, with no annoying bits, and an almost perfect documentary series.

I've seen the movie "Patton" countless times, but this series so far (after viewing two episodes) takes Patton's battles and breaks them into fine details. It's interesting to view how difficult things were for him, far more than depicted in the movie.

The movie opens up after the U.S. defeat at Kasserine Pass. The first two episodes of this series, however, goes way back before that, showing the triumphs and difficulties that Patton had in North Africa before and after. It details Kasserine Pass, and several other battles with great graphics, and accounts from soldiers still alive today.

To date the series has been more about Patton's military tactics, feelings and actions as a soldier, rather than him as a personal man. So, don't take this series as a documentary on Patton solely. It's about his battles, and what he had to do to help win the war.

There isn't much about Patton's family background or his home life but that's okay. Nobody gets as well known as Patton because he was a good husband who collected stamps or something. His family in Pasadena, California, was well to do and he married into the local aristocracy. That's enough.

It's a finely detailed description of the battles Patton was involved in, beginning with the 1942 landings in Morocco. There is some combat footage, most of it from elsewhere, and several talking heads with often fascinating anecdotes. (The first night ashore at Morocco was very cold and the men made mattresses out of crushed corn flakes boxes and covered themselves with the flattened cardboard containers.) There is a good deal of footage and still photos of Patton himself, sometimes smiling, usually frowning. (He practiced that baleful scowl in front of the mirror.)

On his dash through France, Patton's forces were brought to a halt by a shortage of fuel. The documentary keeps referring to it as "PATTON'S fuel." But it belonged to the Allies, not to Patton. And in "The Struggle For Europe," the prominent Australian correspondent Chester Wilmot suggests that Patton managed to bootleg some of the fuel destined for Montgomery, without caring that it might be needed elsewhere. The film makes it sound as if Patton were being robbed, and I found that (and other sleights of rhetorical legerdemain) irritating. It's supposed to be a topical biography, not a hagiography.

And the series is marred by the same pointless directorial decision to always show some sort of motion on the screen, as if aimed at an audience weaned on MTV. If an aging survivor tells a tale, the background sparkles with dots and lines that come and go like a Fourth of July display. Few shots last longer than a few seconds. And the narrator's intonations ("supersegmentals") project a contempt for the enemy, as does the writing itself many times. American soldiers may "draw back" or "withdraw" but the Vichy French "lose heart and retreat." So far, in the first episode, it's as much a "Life of the Saints" as a biography. Commentators agree that Patton was destined to be a soldier. Patton's father is quoted approvingly, something like, "I've got the power; now you get the glory." As if there were glory in mutual destruction. Patton's son served in Vietnam and said -- whether he meant it or not -- that he "liked to see the arms and legs fly."

I obviously don't think Patton deserves quite the adulation shown by some of the military talking heads. He entered the war just at the time the Allies were beginning to win and the Germans beginning to be overwhelmed. No question about his intelligence or his bravery, but what would he have done in defense? It was a question he never had to answer. Robert E. Lee was a great general. In some ways, Dwight D. Eisenhower was a great general, even though he never was at the head of a tank column. As an historical figure, Patton seems incomplete, and sometimes vain to the point of fanaticism.

He believed that one must keep the enemy on the run and thus justified his obsession with attack. (His Naval counterpart was Halsey, colorful figures both.) But what would Patton have done if he'd found himself on the defensive or, worse, having to withdraw? Would he have been clever as his counterparts on the battlefield? Or would he have begun issuing orders like, "Retreat not one millimeter," as the aggressive enemy leader did?

The Germans were expert at withdrawal under fire. Before they retreated from a defensive line, they had marked every important position for mortars and artillery. Before leaving, they even planted mines in the bottoms of fox holes that they themselves had just occupied. There is no reason to either believe or disbelieve that Patton would have been so adept at retreat.

Patton was a successful warrior, known for his tendency to kick butt and get things moving. We'll never know if he'd have been quite as skilled at other kinds of warfare, as Rommel and Kesselring were. The Allies took Sicily but not before the Germans managed to slip the cream of their troops (plus their equipment) across the Strait into Italy. The Japanese were adept at secret withdrawals too, at least at Guadalcanal and the Aleutians, where their disappearance came as a surprise to the American troops.

Not to belittle the series. It's surprisingly candid both about the battles and about Patton's character. Some of the talking heads are permitted to express their disgust as well as their pride in having served with him. The reserved Bradley didn't like him much. But there's no doubt about Patton's singular ability to handle certain kinds of tasks. And the film gives us details of unspeakable trauma in battles that most of us have never heard of -- Troyen, for instance. Despite its weaknesses it deserves applause.

Clearly piggybacking off the original Battle 360 (the story of the aircraft carrier Enterprise), this is a shallow attempt at a cash in on it's contemporary's success.

There was obviously very little to no real research done about the stories that it wants to tell. And considering this is an alleged documentary, it is beyond disappointing, it is actually quite insulting to the servicemen involved.

It is clearly a quick, cheaply put together effort, that makes no attempt to engage you like the first series.

I would strongly recommend watching the first Battle 360, however quit while you're ahead. There are so many more informative, interesting, and educational documentaries that you could spend your time watching rather than this.

A thoroughly second-rate presentation of history, and a sad example of how history is presented in the common media. Apparently the only way to get people to watch history is to flash historic pictures, depict action with often inaccurate video-game quality graphics, provide a general commentary liberally splashed with superlatives, and intersperse the presentation with brief "I was there" comments and third-rate "experts".

The big feature of this (and similar) series is the CGI which purports to show what the commentary is describing. Unfortunately, much of the graphics are inaccurate, inconsistent with the dialog, or just plain wrong for the situation. An example is commentary describing GIs slogging their way through mountains against a dogged enemy defenses, yet the accompanying CGI shows tanks rushing across plains with no resistance. Also, the use of the same few pieces of CGI over, and over, and over again in each episode eventually causes one to begin ignoring the graphics altogether.

In addition to the CGI, is the constant barrage of historical pictures thrown onto the screen, often too quickly to be understood. While a potentially very helpful part of the presentation, the inaccuracy of so many of the photographs destroys much of the good they could do. Many of the period pictures have nothing whatsoever to do with the commentary. For example, in the Messina episode, the commentary describes how dangerous the German "88" was. Unfortunately, of the six quick-flash pictures shown, only three are certainly of the 8.8cm FLAK gun (the others appear to be a late ware 12.8 cm anti-tank gun, a 10.5 cm field howitzer, and something which may not even be a piece of German equipment).

The personal comments come from three sources. First are "historians" -- and this is in quotes, since many of the individuals are total unknowns in the field of history, often with a single coffee-table book to their credit. Second are veterans who were present in or near the action described. Unfortunately, many of their comments, while potentially interesting, are not applicable to the immediate subject, and too often serve only to distract from the current history. Third are current military personnel. While well intentioned, only one or two of these people appear to have any actual knowledge of the history presented, and simply provide comments which anyone with a grain of common sense would already know.

Interspersed all too rarely in the presentation are brief descriptions of specific weapon systems. These are the one decent thing in the programs. A weapon which is being described in the dialog is presented in the video equivalent of a text side-box. The details are reasonably (and unexpectedly) accurate as is the associated graphics. Unfortunately, these ten to fifteen second presentations are too short to give the viewer even a marginally adequate understanding of the equipment.

The series concept has great potential, unfortunately, it in no way lives up to that potential. The only way to effectively watch these shows is with someone who knows the history and can fill in the massive holes in the commentary and explain what to ignore.