Hulus new Catch 22...

If the flak were as thick as they show it, none of the planes would ever return.

Yes curious lack of losses!

philo426

Started watching the new Hulu Catch 22 series and I love the B-25s JU52 and FW 58 but found sonething rather odd.Complete lack of Luftwaffe fighter interception of the American bombers.YoYo just weather's the flak,drops the bombs and tells the pilot to head for home.The waist and tail gunners never fire a shot!

Well, Catch-22 was a novel, not a documentary, and Heller didn't really describe any fighter attacks in the story.  Flak was mentioned, and if I remember correctly, it was a flak burst that mortally wounded Snowden.  That event isn't depicted directly, either, just as flashbacks Yossarian has, until in one of those flashbacks, Snowden reveals his "secret", as Heller wrote.

Yes artistic license and faithfulness to the book makes sense

not a Documentary!

the Baron

 

 

philo426

Started watching the new Hulu Catch 22 series and I love the B-25s JU52 and FW 58 but found sonething rather odd.Complete lack of Luftwaffe fighter interception of the American bombers.YoYo just weather's the flak,drops the bombs and tells the pilot to head for home.The waist and tail gunners never fire a shot!

 

 

 

Well, Catch-22 was a novel, not a documentary, and Heller didn't really describe any fighter attacks in the story.  Flak was mentioned, and if I remember correctly, it was a flak burst that mortally wounded Snowden.  That event isn't depicted directly, either, just as flashbacks Yossarian has, until in one of those flashbacks, Snowden reveals his "secret", as Heller wrote.

 

I just finished reading "The Bridgebusters" (Thomas Cleaver, 2016) which is an account of the 57th Bomb Wing in which Heller served in the 321st squadron.  Apparently, that is fairly accurate.  At the time Heller was there flying out of Corsica, German air opposition had been largely withdrawn back to defend Germany after the fall of Rome and the Italian 2 Gruppo Caccia was the only ANR fighter unit active in the defense of northern Italy.  The Germans concentrated their flak guns, many of them mobile, around the targets in the Brenner Pass with (in November) 435 heavy weapons (and untold number of smaller cannon).  The B-25s lacked oxygen equipment, so could not fly much higher than 15,000 feet.  This made attacking targets a very dangerous enterprise.

"In February of that year (1945) a flak map with flak positions shown as red dots had a solid red line half an inch wide running from Verona to Innsbruck."

Gary

The series pretty much captured the feel of the book and the movie, which is unusual in todays remakes.   I never looked into the accuracy much, since the theme was a parody, much like how MASH was produced, which, all in all, made a good movie and series.

Yes I do like it!Funny to see Kyle Chandler acting so nasty when he usually plays the good guy!