Which era of warfare gets the most accurately depicted in movies or other media?

[todofwar]

1 hour ago, Racescort666 said:

I would like to take this time to point out that a siege was usually a several month affair while the invading army attempted to starve out the fortress. This could be something that many people are willing to give a pass on because who wants to watch an army surround a city and just sit there? 

I agree with @tater, there is literally no reason to have something wrong that I can find out in 5 minutes by searching google or wikipedia. Those kinds of mistakes are unacceptable if a movie is being marketed as even remotely historically accurate. 

Also, with deference to the OP, how does everyone feel about calling 1200 AD - 1800 AD the Renaissance? That would be kind of taking some liberties with the timing though.

I always found that term odd since so many other areas had such a golden age during what we call the "dark ages", and without a dark age it's hard to have a Renaissance. Maybe post Gengis Kahn (PGK) would work? 

[Racescort666]

1 minute ago, todofwar said:

I always found that term odd since so many other areas had such a golden age during what we call the "dark ages", and without a dark age it's hard to have a Renaissance. Maybe post Gengis Kahn (PGK) would work? 

I almost suggested changing 400-1200 to Dark Ages too but decided against it since it basically refers specifically to Europe. In that vein, "The Renaissance" also refers to Europe but there was a lot of technological change at the time especially when it comes to warfare. I like the abbreviation PGK.

[tater]

3 hours ago, wumpus said:

From what I understand that it took the French a good hundred years to realize they couldn't do that (possibly because communications were *that* bad.  Knights discounted rumors of such disasters since they "knew they weren't true".  Also, unless your enemy were viking raiders or roman legions (Swiss pikemen didn't use shields) or other *professional* soldiers, I suspect that attacking cavalry rightly guessed that the shield wall wouldn't hold against a full charge.  Could *you* hold a shield while several hundred pounds of horse crashes against it?  All the while knowing that if the guy to the left or right breaks, you are certainly dead?

It's not if I can stand still in the face of a charge, that's a morale, routing issue, really, a game of chicken. Its if the HORSE will do so. Horses are not cars. Training a horse to jump when it cannot see the other side of the wall is certainly possible, but they are not entirely stupid. Could you ride a hose at a gallop into the side of a house, or would the animal turn? I'm saying the horse would turn.

[todofwar]

8 minutes ago, tater said:

It's not if I can stand still in the face of a charge, that's a morale, routing issue, really, a game of chicken. Its if the HORSE will do so. Horses are not cars. Training a horse to jump when it cannot see the other side of the wall is certainly possible, but they are not entirely stupid. Could you ride a hose at a gallop into the side of a house, or would the animal turn? I'm saying the horse would turn.

And of course, add some spears with decent reach and you now are asking a horse to run full gallop into a bunch of very pointy objects. 

[wumpus]

1 hour ago, Racescort666 said:

I agree with @tater, there is literally no reason to have something wrong that I can find out in 5 minutes by searching google or wikipedia. Those kinds of mistakes are unacceptable if a movie is being marketed as even remotely historically accurate. 

 

Dammit.  I might have to switch back to google (I've been using duckduckgo, I tired of having Big Brother know *everything* about me.  I've assumed that the high likelyhood of duckduckgo actually tracking me was offset by the searches would be sufficiently similar.  They aren't).

Ask duckduckgo: "https://duckduckgo.com/?t=lm&q=how+long+did+a+battle+take+during+the+middle+ages&ia=web" nope.  "https://duckduckgo.com/?t=lm&q=lengh+of+battle+middle+ages&ia=web" none.

https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=how+long+did+a+battle+take+during+the+middle+ages first hit: "The Battle of Agincourt lasted about 3 hours, not including time chasing down troops, while the Battle of Hastings lasted 8-9, including finishing off the troops that still remained loyal even after Harold's death. The Battle of Tours consisted of the 2 armies of Charles and Abd Al Rahman camping by eachother for a period of 6 days, where short skirmishinng took place, and then fighting on the 7th, which took a single day and then ended when Charles sent a scouting party to loop around the army during battle and free prisoners/cause disarray at the camp, which as expected drew some Muslim cavalry back to camp to deal with them, which was mistaken by the other soldiers for a retreat, and trying to calm the chaos Abd Al Rahman was surrounded and killed, the Muslims all retreated back to camp and left the next morning, so that was 1 day of fighting and 6 days of not much else."

Of course, this was pretty much in line with my guess, but it looks like a guess was only needed due to my privacy settings (I've also been wrong in "how many liters in a US barrel of beer").  I also have to wonder when the clock starts for Agincourt:  I thought there was a relatively long time of skirmishing/jockeying for position before Hank V had the arrows loosed.  Three hours could go either way, but I'd probably be mildly surprised if it lasted three hours from the initial archery volley.  The battle was basically decided when the knights churned the mud into a quagmire (and thus hadn't a prayer of getting to the archers).  But It might have taken the knights a while to respond to the original volleys.

[Slam_Jones]

9 hours ago, KerikBalm said:

So that excuses a bayoneet lunge from 100meters away (like Halo2's sword flying), tanks crashing through walls well faster than a human's sprinting speed (early tanks moved at walking speed or slower), the ability of tanks to drive on the wing of a plane, and then have the plane fly them around?

The general inaccuracy of the way the vehicles handle, aim assists that allow shots to hit routinely that would almost never hit....

I rest my case

 

Oh man, making a game FUN instead of REALISTIC?  What are they thinking?!  Battlefield has never been a Simulator, it's always been a game... Expecting realism from them is like expecting realism from superhero movies.

That said, I'm fairly certain EVERY type of combat we see in media is dramatized and balanced to be exciting to watch.

For example, as mentioned earlier in this thread, sword fights were decided very quickly, especially in areas where Metal armor is less common.  In those cases, one strike is all that is needed to win the fight.  But, as Hollywood tells us, that's not very exciting to watch.

 

So as far as OP goes:

"Which era of warfare gets the least accurately depicted?"

All of them, most likely.

Edited December 12, 2016 by Slam_Jones

[todofwar]

14 minutes ago, wumpus said:

Dammit.  I might have to switch back to google (I've been using duckduckgo, I tired of having Big Brother know *everything* about me.  I've assumed that the high likelyhood of duckduckgo actually tracking me was offset by the searches would be sufficiently similar.  They aren't).

Ask duckduckgo: "https://duckduckgo.com/?t=lm&q=how+long+did+a+battle+take+during+the+middle+ages&ia=web" nope.  "https://duckduckgo.com/?t=lm&q=lengh+of+battle+middle+ages&ia=web" none.

https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=how+long+did+a+battle+take+during+the+middle+ages first hit: "The Battle of Agincourt lasted about 3 hours, not including time chasing down troops, while the Battle of Hastings lasted 8-9, including finishing off the troops that still remained loyal even after Harold's death. The Battle of Tours consisted of the 2 armies of Charles and Abd Al Rahman camping by eachother for a period of 6 days, where short skirmishinng took place, and then fighting on the 7th, which took a single day and then ended when Charles sent a scouting party to loop around the army during battle and free prisoners/cause disarray at the camp, which as expected drew some Muslim cavalry back to camp to deal with them, which was mistaken by the other soldiers for a retreat, and trying to calm the chaos Abd Al Rahman was surrounded and killed, the Muslims all retreated back to camp and left the next morning, so that was 1 day of fighting and 6 days of not much else."

Of course, this was pretty much in line with my guess, but it looks like a guess was only needed due to my privacy settings (I've also been wrong in "how many liters in a US barrel of beer").  I also have to wonder when the clock starts for Agincourt:  I thought there was a relatively long time of skirmishing/jockeying for position before Hank V had the arrows loosed.  Three hours could go either way, but I'd probably be mildly surprised if it lasted three hours from the initial archery volley.  The battle was basically decided when the knights churned the mud into a quagmire (and thus hadn't a prayer of getting to the archers).  But It might have taken the knights a while to respond to the original volleys.

I would love a wargame that went more into the multiple day aspects of ancient warfare. Positioning, reinforcing camps, harassing supply lines, scouting to figure out enemy position, trying to bring in supplies or raid supplies from the area you're in.  

30 minutes ago, Slam_Jones said:

Oh man, making a game FUN instead of REALISTIC?  What are they thinking?! 

Next you'll tell me they left some things out of KSP!

Side note, I do sometimes think people on this forum dock KSP for lack of realism a little too much. Maybe that's because other people start to think we should be able to do everything in KSP in real life. 

Back to this topic, I started it mostly because of all the talk of "realistic space wars" on this forum (I may have started one of those threads myself....) had me wanting to point out that warfare is never really that accurate in movies, and military science is incredibly complex in any era. Even the wars in 2000 BC were very sophisticated affairs involving supply lines, literally cutting edge technology as better alloys were developed, introduction of horses and all that entailed, more access to metal and its incorporation into more and more aspects of military equipment, etc. 

[tater]

1 hour ago, Slam_Jones said:

Oh man, making a game FUN instead of REALISTIC?  What are they thinking?! 

At the risk of entirely derailing the thread, realism and fun are as related as turnips and orbital mechanics. You can have a spacecraft with turnips aboard or not, and it doesn't affect the orbital mechanics (assuming the mass of turnips is replaced with something else).

Take the Age of Sail. I'd love to see a sailing game that was accurate for frigate (or even unrated ships below that, like sloops of war) cruises. I want to take prizes, chase sails, etc. There are games, but they invariably decide online multiplayer is "fun" and throw all realism out the window. Ships that move at 25 mph when they should be lucky to make 5 with clean bottoms under fighting sail. No real work on the realities of sail handing, and consequences. They all tens towards the player as every single crew member, instead of player as captain. A realistic game would be immensely fun to me. That doesn't mean it has to be impossibly hard to play, that's all a UI issue. Heck, the sailing master can be modeled. You tell him to lay her alongside the chase at pistol shot on the larboard tack (via an interface on a chart). He makes that happen---but the actual sailing, tacking, everything, is as realistic as possible. You don't need to micromanage doing it, the captain doesn't reef the sails, the guys aloft do, he just orders things.

[wumpus]

On 12/9/2016 at 6:52 PM, todofwar said:

I think the issue with war games is there is a strong perception about what should be the most effective unit. For example, Lord of the Rings and other similar films/books have us thinking cavalry are the be all end all of military units. So, developers try to match those expectations. Or they make units under or overpowered to balance the game, regardless of how powerful things might be in real life. 

They convinced plenty of horses to gallop into lines, but those warhorses (especially the destriers noted above) extremely expensive.  Don't forget that horses are by nature a herd animal, and stampeding away from some things and possibly into others is in their nature.

But my understanding of what really happened during the historical "charge of the light brigade" the cavalry was holding the horses at far less than a gallop (whatever they could maintain formation in) and adjusting that formation on the fly when somebody (or their horse) ate a cannonball.  Eventually the horses had enough and broke into an uncontrolled gallop *into* cannonfire ("cannon in front of them").  I've also heard of horses being ridden to death, so tend to assume that they can be convinced to do dumb things.

I'm fairly sure a destrier (or other horse used by "heavy horse") that wasn't sufficiently trained to charge a shield wall was useless (to slow and hungry to be a medium horse, but can't be a shock troops mount, might be used to plow fields).  But such horses were rare and expensive and hardly the only cavalry on the field (light cavalry was ideal for eliminating forces that ran away after the shield wall collapsed).  Life was hard if you were an infantry man facing either type of cavalry.

[wumpus]

1 hour ago, todofwar said:

Next you'll tell me they left some things out of KSP!

Side note, I do sometimes think people on this forum dock KSP for lack of realism a little too much. Maybe that's because other people start to think we should be able to do everything in KSP in real life. 

Thankfully, the devs included great modding hooks.  Not sure if principia (the real gravity mod) allows ion thrusters to work "the way they should", but pretty much everything else can be tweaked into reality.  I think we should thank both the modders and the devs that they don't have to force everything to be 100% realistic (time acceleration is completely unrealistic, and the lack of which would destroy KSP as a game).

31 minutes ago, tater said:

You don't need to micromanage doing it, the captain doesn't reef the sails, the guys aloft do, he just orders things.

Somehow, the game you described would descend into complete micromanagement (as oppose to keep an eye on the grog levels and number of lashings to avoid a mutiny).  Like Eve (the MMO), I'd expect to spend more time in a spreadsheet than in the game.  I think it has more to do with the various tribes of gamers than anything to do with the games themselves.  

Although it looks like Sid Meir's "Pirates" (2006 edition) showed up on mobile a few years ago and should still be available (the 1987 game is available on gog, but I don't see the 2006 one.  Don't count on something that old working from Steam).  Sid Meir games seem to have more micromanaging than I like (or you are asking for) but I suspect that they are as good as they come.

[tater]

3 minutes ago, wumpus said:

Somehow, the game you described would descend into complete micromanagement (as oppose to keep an eye on the grog levels and number of lashings to avoid a mutiny).  Like Eve (the MMO), I'd expect to spend more time in a spreadsheet than in the game.  I think it has more to do with the various tribes of gamers than anything to do with the games themselves.  

Although it looks like Sid Meir's "Pirates" (2006 edition) showed up on mobile a few years ago and should still be available (the 1987 game is available on gog, but I don't see the 2006 one.  Don't count on something that old working from Steam).  Sid Meir games seem to have more micromanaging than I like (or you are asking for) but I suspect that they are as good as they come.

Nah, I'd see it like a really awesome version of Silent Hunter, only with sailing vessels, not subs.

Edited December 13, 2016 by tater

[Red Iron Crown]

12 minutes ago, wumpus said:

Although it looks like Sid Meir's "Pirates" (2006 edition) showed up on mobile a few years ago and should still be available (the 1987 game is available on gog, but I don't see the 2006 one.  Don't count on something that old working from Steam).  Sid Meir games seem to have more micromanaging than I like (or you are asking for) but I suspect that they are as good as they come.

I've been getting my piratical fix from The Pirate: Caribbean Hunt, it's on Steam but I've been playing the mobile version on Android. F2P but not P2W (though I haven't tried multiplayer, might be more so there). @DuoDex will tell you its sailing model is awful, and I would agree that it's really abstracted, but it's enough to make for an enjoyable pirate experience for me. The other aspects of the game are pretty decent (though I miss the swordfighting from Pirates!).

I'd echo @tater's desire for a full on Age of Sail-style realistic combat sim that takes advantage of the greater CPU and GPU horsepower available now. No idea what size the market is for it, though.

[tater]

It's necessarily a single-player thing for the most part. I suggested a sort of multiplayer for Silent Hunter (I was very involved in modding SH4) that involved a single player game that would tap other people who happened to be playing their own single player games to take on the role of an adversary. This would work for sail, too.

So the game would have full, and good AI for the enemy (and neutral, since that's a big deal in both worlds). Here's how it works:

I'm playing my own career, doing whatever when my game pauses, and throws me a pop-up window to accept adversary play (I can turn it on or off at any time---say I'm actually seeing a target, and want to play MY game right now). I accept in this case. I would only receive the pop-up after the other player's opponent AI has detected the player. I could be spawned in as captain of a merchant, or an escort (or anything else around).

You are stalking a convoy in a sub (or frigate in the sail version), trying to sneak up without being noticed. In the sub case to sink something, in the frigate case to pick off a prize from the edges. in our example as you got close to one of the merchants, and are either spotted by an escort, the merchant, or the merchant has signaled an escort that you are there. So as the player of the aggressor in this case, the ships might all be AI, or maybe the merchant is a player, or maybe the escort is a player. Maybe ALL the ships are played by people, you have no idea. I've played online scenarios in IL-2, for example where some planes are players, others are AI. It makes all the difference in the world if you know that even ONE enemy might be AI. In any game with AI, you quickly learn how it behaves, and play to hat unconsciously. As soon as you are unsure, everything changes.

[DuoDex]

1 hour ago, tater said:

At the risk of entirely derailing the thread, realism and fun are as related as turnips and orbital mechanics. You can have a spacecraft with turnips aboard or not, and it doesn't affect the orbital mechanics (assuming the mass of turnips is replaced with something else).

Take the Age of Sail. I'd love to see a sailing game that was accurate for frigate (or even unrated ships below that, like sloops of war) cruises. I want to take prizes, chase sails, etc. There are games, but they invariably decide online multiplayer is "fun" and throw all realism out the window. Ships that move at 25 mph when they should be lucky to make 5 with clean bottoms under fighting sail. No real work on the realities of sail handing, and consequences. They all tens towards the player as every single crew member, instead of player as captain. A realistic game would be immensely fun to me. That doesn't mean it has to be impossibly hard to play, that's all a UI issue. Heck, the sailing master can be modeled. You tell him to lay her alongside the chase at pistol shot on the larboard tack (via an interface on a chart). He makes that happen---but the actual sailing, tacking, everything, is as realistic as possible. You don't need to micromanage doing it, the captain doesn't reef the sails, the guys aloft do, he just orders things.

So. Another one on the list of potential alpha testers for my non-existent game

[tater]

2 hours ago, DuoDex said:

So. Another one on the list of potential alpha testers for my non-existent game

It's age of sail, and matches my requirements roughly? Where's the kickstarter  . heck, Im playing KSP on mu iMac right now, but I'd build a new gaming rig for the right game (my PC rig is ancient, though it's OK with SH4).

[magnemoe]

8 hours ago, wumpus said:

Somehow, the game you described would descend into complete micromanagement (as oppose to keep an eye on the grog levels and number of lashings to avoid a mutiny).  Like Eve (the MMO), I'd expect to spend more time in a spreadsheet than in the game.  I think it has more to do with the various tribes of gamers than anything to do with the games themselves.  

Although it looks like Sid Meir's "Pirates" (2006 edition) showed up on mobile a few years ago and should still be available (the 1987 game is available on gog, but I don't see the 2006 one.  Don't count on something that old working from Steam).  Sid Meir games seem to have more micromanaging than I like (or you are asking for) but I suspect that they are as good as they come.

Don't have to, sail handling would take time, time would depend on number of crew and how many doing the job, with upper and lower limits and limited return. 
If not fully crewed  you would have to prioritize, slower sail handling or slower reload on guns. 
Either an full sail setup or tweaking should be possible. Could also leave tweaking to AI officer, 
Remember an strategy game there my cargo ship was chased by an pirate, it was faster but I could go higher up against the wind and get away.
Realism was a bit ruined in that I controlled multiple ships and could send an warship to capture the pirate.  

[kerbiloid]

Also when they show a galley, the oarsmen and the drum never match the rhythm of each other.

(In "Game of Thrones" s2e09, in the beginning of Blackwater Battle, they even don't try, just playing kinda hardrock.)

Edited December 13, 2016 by kerbiloid

[todofwar]

4 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Also when they show a galley, the oarsmen and the drum never match the rhythm of each other.

(In "Game of Thrones" s2e09, in the beginning of Blackwater Battle, they even don't try, just playing kinda hardrock.)

The importance of things like trumpets and drums and banners have kind of gotten lost in the age of rapid communication, and of course modern battlefields are a little less congested than pre modern battlefields. Back then, the drum beat told you whether you were marching or charging, trumpets could say GTFO very effectively, and sometimes the only way you knew you which way to stab was to check the nearest banner. 

[tater]

1 hour ago, todofwar said:

The importance of things like trumpets and drums and banners have kind of gotten lost in the age of rapid communication, and of course modern battlefields are a little less congested than pre modern battlefields. Back then, the drum beat told you whether you were marching or charging, trumpets could say GTFO very effectively, and sometimes the only way you knew you which way to stab was to check the nearest banner. 

Yeah, fog of war is something pretty much every game destroys, and given how critical information/communications is as a force multiplier, it ruins virtually every gaming attempt with supposedly historical basis. Another reason multiplayer is usually awful in terms of realism. Every troop with GPS sat nav, and perfect comms with everyone.

[wumpus]

2 hours ago, tater said:

Yeah, fog of war is something pretty much every game destroys, and given how critical information/communications is as a force multiplier, it ruins virtually every gaming attempt with supposedly historical basis. Another reason multiplayer is usually awful in terms of realism. Every troop with GPS sat nav, and perfect comms with everyone.

I'd be shocked silly if anybody made a game based realistic fog of war and it succeeded.  Scott Manley had a series about "children of a dead Earth" and came to the conclusion that while it looked great (especially to any KSP playing wargamer), the results were far too random for his taste.  I'd suspect the results of actions with such vague information "you see a large force with many men and few horse behind x hill" and equally vague orders (or more like "take these men and attack", but no additional management that couldn't be done from your tent) would have similarly random events (simply due to the "garbage in"/"garbage out" thanks to the noise on your input and output).

This is one of those cases where clear cut realism is unlikely to be fun at all.

[kerbiloid]

That's how the Ancient Rome occupied a half of world while its army most of time was ruled by random politicians. They had better foretellers.

[magnemoe]

2 hours ago, tater said:

Yeah, fog of war is something pretty much every game destroys, and given how critical information/communications is as a force multiplier, it ruins virtually every gaming attempt with supposedly historical basis. Another reason multiplayer is usually awful in terms of realism. Every troop with GPS sat nav, and perfect comms with everyone.

LOL even the dead speak, I played PvP in elder scroll online and was killed on an hill in front of an enemy stronghold, rest of our force was killed or had to redraw. I found I was in an perfect position to report the enemy actions and movements. 
As I was still on chat and team speak this was easy, waited with resurrecting at own keep until the keep stopped being an important enemy staging area. 
One of the cases there dying was an good career move, downside I did not get any XP for it. 

Map exercises is wargaming the the military uses for officer training and it dives the groups into multiple rooms, with the referees giving the result. Today this is mostly computer driven to keep speed up and cost down but wonder if they split off groups on the same side in the start or if this came after radio?

[magnemoe]

24 minutes ago, wumpus said:

I'd be shocked silly if anybody made a game based realistic fog of war and it succeeded.  Scott Manley had a series about "children of a dead Earth" and came to the conclusion that while it looked great (especially to any KSP playing wargamer), the results were far too random for his taste.  I'd suspect the results of actions with such vague information "you see a large force with many men and few horse behind x hill" and equally vague orders (or more like "take these men and attack", but no additional management that couldn't be done from your tent) would have similarly random events (simply due to the "garbage in"/"garbage out" thanks to the noise on your input and output).

This is one of those cases where clear cut realism is unlikely to be fun at all.

In an modern or Scifi setting I don't see much issues, its an joke that the blue force tracker the US was implemented as the generals wanted to know the position of their own forces as well as they knew the doing map exercises. 
You will know your own forces position and the enemy you watch. 
Anything historical would not work, 
Add that in an realistic setting your minions are smart, the AI controlling soldiers tend to be more stupid than old bread and its true. Always fun to have huge forces standing still being slaughtered as they can not respond to air attacks or naval bombardment, standing still is the best response. 
An group of expensive mobile AAA units decides to go charge maginot line fortifications simply as they can see it. The winner was the heavy bombers who nuked my own well build and manned maginot line as some enemy infantry manage to infiltrate it in an stupid suicide attack, this made the bombers react and hit them. 

Only thing worse would be close air support from the death star. 

[tater]

Well, I used to play games with fog of war---they were board and miniatures games, sometimes with one of us playing as ref, to maintain FOW. They were really fun.

Some would use dummy chits, others we'd have 2 boards set up.

Fifth Frontier War (traveller) was one. You'd also have to plot you moves turns in advance (1 week turns) to account for communications delays.

Another traveler game we played was Striker (miniatures) for typically all unit actions.

I've wanted something on the computer for ages, because it's such an ideal mechanism to play ref. When I played Empire: Total War, I would array my forces, then move my POV from "god's eye view" to about general head height (I think I could usually only get it maybe a meter above that level), and I'd try and command the forces by moving along the lines and directing from that POV. I'd swing around and far my own forces to send the general and guard down the line, or to switch to other local commanders sometimes if I had them. It would be easily possible for the game to have LOS rules, with smoke, etc obscuring, and have setting to only show what is known by the overall commander while preserving "god's eye" viewpoints, too. You could have a runner abstraction, such that when, say, the right side of the line makes contact, they send a runner, and then the appropriate time delay later, those units (to the extent they are known at the time the runner left) appear on the player's view. The local AI would still do what their standing orders were (you could set those ahead of time).

The same would be true in age of sail. Before an engagement you set standing orders, then if you need to improvise, you make new orders (drag the desired course to whatever for the fleet), but the game then abstracts the hoisting of signals, and some units obey, and others miss the signals.

I think this sort of thing is very enjoyable.

The idea of space combat that seems random seems---realistic to me. Anyone expecting otherwise is delusional. Real outcomes are like this. Imagine the feeling of British Battlecruiser skippers a few minutes into Jutland.

[78stonewobble]

On ‎10‎-‎12‎-‎2016 at 6:29 PM, tater said:

OK, can properly type now (daughter got off laptop, I had been drinking coffee and typing on phone).

There was a time when this was more acceptable. Movies made in the 1950s often use surplus US equipment as German, for example. I remember one where the German fighters were in fact (quite real) P-47s. Nowadays, this is entirely unnecessary due to CGI. If anything I'm getting more, not less picky as there is no excuse for using the wrong aircraft, for example, since it's animated anyway. 

This will become more and more true, not less true. I'm really thinking about this as a primary thing going forward since the models have to be made anyway, so I won't give a modern movie a pass for using the wrong model now since it literally takes 5 minutes with google to pick the right one, which is a pretty low bar for a 100 million dollar movie to be held to.

Go back to movies where muzzle-loading cannon almost universally shoot magical, exploding rounds, when they could CGI balls skipping through the ranks, instead (but dumb moviegoers expect all artillery to explode). Heck, they do this with medieval combat in film/TV---they have to have catapults always shooting things on fire for the same reason, hits need to "explode." It's really distracting when you know better. 

I don't disagree here, but as technology improves, the excuses for doing this really wrong become fewer and fewer. If you need to have your animators build 20 different vehicles for a film anyway, having them build 10 wrong ones because they look cooler than what they should be is pretty inexcusable to me. There was a WW1 airplane movies a few years ago... seeing the trailer made me not see the movie, because all the German planes were Fokker DR1s. If I ever see it on TV maybe I'll watch some of it.

It depends, obviously. a movie with a great, and "realistic" story (both from a historical and/or from a personal perspective) can survive technical issues for the greater truth of the history or experiences, obviously. Some stories get very derailed for me when technology is wrong, though. Pearl Harbor is an example of a movie I cannot abide on multiple levels... just watch Tora, Tora, Tora! instead.

You do have a point that it certainly should be easier to get right these days with CGI, tho I am one of those who prefer models or actual props.

Say what you will about Pearl Harbor... I love that cork scene.

I get what you mean tho... I do watch alot of trek and I can barely go a quarter of an episode before saying: "No, that's not how XYZ works!"... but I still love it to bits... I guess I'm just better at ignoring it or not letting it affect my enjoyment as much.  

...

For supposedly decent representation, though it certainly get's some things wrong... I like Master and Commander.