Korvessa  | 13 Jan 2025 10:40 a.m. PST |
Watched the movie last night.
Was it my imagination or did it seem like the flim makers couldn't decide if the tail gunner on the dive bombers faced backwards or forwards?
It looked to me like in several scenes the gunner faced the same direction as the pilot. |
| Shagnasty | 13 Jan 2025 11:24 a.m. PST |
Hey, CGI! At least this "Midway" gave Dick Best credit for very important work. |
| TheOtherOneFromTableScape | 13 Jan 2025 11:24 a.m. PST |
The rear gunner was also the navigator and could stow the guns and face forward to navigate. During a dive attack the gunner faced forward and kept the pilot informed to the altitude so he could concentrate on aiming, flying, releasing the bomb and not crashing… |
 John the OFM | 13 Jan 2025 11:37 a.m. PST |
Well, that was very informative. I did not know. |
| Korvessa | 13 Jan 2025 12:30 p.m. PST |
I am in the same boat as John
Thanks for the info |
 enfant perdus | 13 Jan 2025 12:55 p.m. PST |
I really enjoy the film and think it's well done, partly because they get so much of that stuff right. It also makes it stranger that, while including the USAAF contribution (hooray!), they show an entire squadron of B-26s and no B-17s when there was actually a squadron of B-17s and only four Marauders. Just a weird choice. |
| BuckeyeBob | 13 Jan 2025 5:38 p.m. PST |
YouTube link cockpit at 7:30 and rear gun position at 12:50. Didnt realize the rear gun position allowed flight control of the aircraft in case the pilot was incapcitated. |
| Shagnasty | 13 Jan 2025 8:13 p.m. PST |
I didn't know that about my favorite WW II naval aircraft! |
 deadhead | 14 Jan 2025 1:21 a.m. PST |
Not one single Wildcat in the film. The Dauntless and Devastators go up against the Zeros with no support whatsoever. I enjoyed the film and it was far better than the Charlton Heston version |
| panzerCDR | 14 Jan 2025 4:32 a.m. PST |
I liked/enjoyed the movie as well though I also thought that the American fighters should have been included. It was a CGI effort for the dive bombers and torpedo bombers. How much harder/expensive would it have been to put in a Wildcat? Oh well, maybe the NEXT attempt . . . |
| Red Jacket | 14 Jan 2025 10:24 a.m. PST |
I enjoyed the film as well, however, I do not let that detract from the Charlton Heston version. Based upon what they had to work with, the earlier film was pretty good, historical inaccuracies and unnecessary politics aside. |
| Inch High Guy | 15 Jan 2025 5:52 a.m. PST |
I have a love / hate relationship with that film. They completely botched the dive bombing tactics, dive bombers nosed over in series, not in a gaggle. Without an interval between aircraft, subsequent aircraft would be caught in the bomb blast of the lead aircraft. The producers GROSSLY over-represented the effectiveness of Japanese anti-aircraft fire. Over the entire battle, Japanese AAA accounted for only two U.S. losses, the rest were interceptions from Zeros (which were quite effective) or fuel starvation, which was MUCH higher than one might think. The definitive work on the battle is "Shattered Sword", well worth the time to read and full of surprising analysis and revelations. There is even a "what if" analysis which considers a successful Japanese landing on Midway. |
| Inch High Guy | 15 Jan 2025 5:59 a.m. PST |
If anyone is interested, here is my review of "Shattered Sword": link |
paints 
