"Danger Close: The Battle of Long Tan" Topic

Great trailer! Though didn't we just discuss the lack of helmets on cinematic heroes? Skimming real pics of the encounter reveals nary a one. YouTube link

Why is it that 20th century ANZAC troops were rarely, if ever, issued helmets?

Helmets are for wimps?
Funding for helmets diverted to didgeridoos?
Command decision regarding helmets was made after having too many "shrimp on the barbie"?
I have no idea and am just making stuff up?
Does look like it will be a good movie, though.

Too hot to wear them or too Macho?

The trailer looks good.

Helmets are a visually-obvious round thing in the jungle, and really mess with your situational awareness.

Russian troops are pretty notorious for only wearing helmets under direct orders, and needed to be re-ordered before every attack.

When I was a young Captain, I was volun-told to put together a farewell presentation for our Brigade Commander. When gathering his history I discovered that during his tour in Viet Nam he was noted as a new 2LT as having the platoon with the lowest head injury rate in his battalion – because he forced them all to wear helmets whenever they were out of a bunker.

I personally don't enjoy wearing them but they are effective. It's hard to argue with facts more Soldiers going home safely.

So for my modern wargame armies, unless they are Special Operations Forces, they have helmets.

Also yes it does look like a good movie.

This may or may not be connected but the great Barry Humphries
once wrote this little poem:

"Australian born,
Australian bred,
Long in the legs,
Thick in the head."

Maybe helmets are superfluous?

Story goes that when the British Army introduced the steel helmet in 1916, the powers that be noted an increase in head injuries and there was serious concern that a sheet of steel over your head could worsen any impact.

Then the penny dropped. These head injury folk would not have survived without their helmets' protection. But now you have a lot more head injuries…….

The trailer looked very We were soldiers down under.
And I know it's not a big budget movie, but some of that CGI didn't look good at all.

Hopefully they'll stick to the true events a little more than in the "We were soldiers" film.

If anyone is unaware of the facts see
battleoflongtan.com

Looks interesting

Joe

It agree with what COL Scott and Lion said. Regardless the "ANZACs" as always preformed effectively and bravely again. Now as far as helmets go, it is proven they could save your life. At least from schrapnel, fragmentation, some secondary missiles, etc. It rarely would stop a bullet, back then. And generally even today.

But is some cases, depending in the mission, you may not wear a helmet. E.g. on many patrols, you just wear a soft cap, flop hat, etc. depending on the mission. So if the ANZAC leaders decided that it was a lower probability of getting some sort of indirect fire, etc. Then going in with soft caps, flop hats etc., will do.

Saw this the other day. Really nice and mostly accurate. Some reviews said the heroism was overblown, but no it's all pretty much exactly what actually happened. Kind of like how people didn't believe the last scene in Fury, even though Audie Murphy actually pulled it off in real life. Truth is stranger than fiction..

The NVA troops are way too heavily built/fat, in real life they lived off a pound of rice and some fish every day. the Aussies had a realistic mix of overweight and what today would be considered underweight (but for the '60s was normal and healthy, glamour muscles don't actually help you in a firefight) troops.

Weapons and combat were well done, although at one point an NVA soldier is firing an STG44, although these did get supplied to the North I seriously doubt a regular NVA unit would have one. Also the sidearm that Major Smith uses at the end of the battle is a US issue Colt government, should be a Browning Hi Power. Apparantly the gunfire was CGied in, so bolt actions not visible and you don't get things like the M60 belts flapping while firing, I actually didn't really notice these things though, real gun fans might.

Also there was very little attempt to be PC or "woke" like a lot of movies now. Although the dedication at the end is to ALL the troops that died at Long Tan, I felt it should have just been dedicated to the Aussies because the North Vietnamese were fighting for an evil cause, that once ultimately victorious, ruined the lives and murdered many many free Vietnamese people.

Yep, we WERE fighting for freedom. Sue me.

Yes, generally US and ANZACs troops were more well "muscled", etc. that most of the VC/NVA. Then as well as today. For a variety of reasons, of course.

When I served with a US M113 Mech Bn in the ROK, Jan'84-Nov'85. Generally US troops were clearly larger overall to both ROKs and Nork Troops. But the ROKs were generally some tough little SoBs then and as they were when deployed to Vietnam during that war.

And yes, regardless of what was going in DC, etc. Most US, "ANZAC" and ROK troops overall fought very well and served their nations. When called upon to do so.

On a tactical level what happens in the halls of where the elected civilians officials do business 1000s of miles away. Generally has little to do with the Rifle Sqd or Platoon in a firefight. As I was told. It is a matter of survival … Kill him before he kills you …

I just watched Danger Close, and rather enjoyed it. Being a Yank, I would not know how historically accurate it might have been, but the actor playing Harry Smith seemed to at times bring his Ragnar character to the fore with his moodiness and crazy looks. But overall, I rather liked the film.

I watched it a while ago. It was 'ok'.

I think it should have been a miniseries of maybe 4x50m episodes rather than a feature film.

I felt the characters were not developed enough so we never cared when someone got hurt or killed.

The action was adequately done and the actors looked the part.