I don't care what anyone says about this movie being unrealistic or making no sense from a military stand point ....if you were a kid in the early 80s this will always be part of your childhood as one great movie on HBO ....Everything about it is nostalgic!
@@r3d5ive87SERE…and they only teach survival, evasion, resistance, and escape (no one does, honestly). A pilot would’ve been taught defensive tactics to keep alive, not run guerrilla operations behind enemy lines.
He has my 2 favorite lines in the movie. That one, "I NEED A DRINK." and when he's telling the kids about how the war started and what the situation is, and he's asked if the USA has any help, "600 million screamin' Chinamen." "Last I heard there were a billion screamin' Chinamen." "There were."
Before you call this scene unrealistic or unbelievable, understand that the Taliban did this in 2012 to Camp Bastion. 30,000 Marines and British forces, including Prince Harry, were stationed at the base. 15 Taliban fighters in US uniforms infiltrated the base and destroyed 6 USMC Harriers, damaged 2 others, damaged a C--130, and destroyed a few fuel bladders and damaged hangars and other installations. The Marine pilots and aircraft maintainers fought on the ground to defend the flight line until British quick reaction forces could arrive, and the Marines fought to defend and scramble two helicopters to provide support.
As far as a movie goes, seemed pretty plausible, especially since this was the early 1980's and those troops wouldn't have had half the tech we have now. The only thing that didn't make any sense was the pilots trying to launch those planes. Really wouldn't have had any chance to get off the ground. Other nitpick was that I would have thought they would have raided the base a bit more and grab some gear/supplies. They probably would have had some amount of time before reinforcements could react.
Love the Colonel planning the attack and the kids having no idea what the terms mean. He has to understand that he's not dealing with regular troops and that these kids have no formal training. Not exactly his peer group.
Do you think this movie hasn't had an effect? I saw a news article recently about the war in the Ukraine that stated civilian resistance fighters were spray painting "Wolverines" on the side of Russian tanks and APCs they had destroyed. The concept of freedom and resistance is international!
divide and conquer, split them up and they make their own cells , becoming a bigger pain in the ass . plus the food/supply issues . but having more cells means it's harder to pin down the group because they operate Independently
He was not a Marine he was US Air Force, Former F-15 pilot. So what 1Manuscriptman said was illigitmate. The reason they did not take the others is that they don't have the food and to many people draw too much attention.
"Let me take this slide out here and with my Sharpie... there. Perfect. They are going to be so butthurt when they see this. I'm like the MVP of this raid right now."
I have seen this clip so many times. Heck, I saw the movie when it was in the theaters. That’s how old I am. But reading through the comments I learned a couple of things that I wasn’t aware of before. I always wondered why that Russian jet tilted its nose up like that, and I just now learned that it was a VTOL aircraft. It didn’t even dawn on me (excuse the pun) until now. Additionally I never noticed that Aardvark tricked the Cubans and got them into an exposed position to be mowed down by his fellow Wolverines. I wish I had learned this stuff so many years ago. Thank you my fellow RU-vidrs for teaching this old dog some new tricks.
Truly the beauty of the RU-vid comments, when I finish a movie, and there’s a particular scene or moment or character that stands out, to see what plenty of other people (most of which are far smarter than I am😆) have to say about it, I learn an entire new perspective!
Grew up in a small town during that time. Saw it in the theater when it first came out. I know who my crew was if all hell broke loose. We all had guns, and trucks and knew our way around the countryside because we were raised that way. This movie is one of those that is hard-wired in my brain. Wolverines!
People do not realize that the plane and pilot that LTC T blew were the 5th MIG that got him. The planes were at the compound because he was a war hero and the planes were part of a mobile morale uplift program, traveling the conquered areas.
@@michaeltubbs4606 It functioned. Calling it successful is giving it far too much credit. It lasted 15 years in service, but only because the Soviets couldn't put together a better naval aircraft to work on their limited carriers. Like the Harrier, it was slow, but it suffered from even smaller range than the Harrier and a much, much lower ceiling. Its theoretical maximum payload wasn't horrible, but that presumed that it took off from a full runway. From a carrier, it couldn't handle more than a few hundred kilograms of weapons. It was complex with little automation, unreliable, and not terribly maneuverable. In short, it was a waste of resources that the Soviets expended just to keep up with the West, and it arguably put them further behind.
@@BritanniaPacific So? The US Marines are, basically, part of The US Navy, and Marine aviation squadrons often operate(d) from land in US conflicts. If the Soviets needed VSTOL aircraft in this theatre, then they easily could have been deployed as such. Use in forward areas was part of the mission profile of the Harrier.
It is a pity that this film was not shown in our country in those years. I am sure that we would have suffered from abdominal pain caused by loud laughter for a week.
This movie is one of the best of alternate history. Whilst it’s scenario is unlikely it’s brilliant at portraying what would happen if America was invaded by USSR. And the struggle of guerrilla fighters
Yet you have the flag of an anti-American force that wanted to invade and destroy the USA as your profile picture. Unless - wait, were you rooting for the Russians and Cubans in this movie?
Matthew Smith Uh, no, dipshit, it's literally a battleflag flown over troops that were marching to kill and enslave Americans. It's about the most anti-American flag that's ever existed. Just because you have a snake (the wrong kind of snake, by the way, further proving your idiocy) and a "Don't Tread on Me" does not change the fact of what the flag is.
Matthew Smith 1) Yes. States rights to slavery. Idiot. 2) Yes, they did. But unlike the inbred, backwards South, they didn't declare war in an effort to keep them. 3) And? That's somehow supposed to make it OK for the vast majority of Americans slave holders, who were white? 4) The only proper thing to do with a slave is to free them. Instead, the Atlantic Slave Trade, particularly in the USA, tortured, raped, and murdered them by the literal boatload, stripping them of their heritage and creating a race based hierarchy that still affects people today. 5) You already brought up that point, you inbred, perhaps if your mother and father werent also brother and sister you'd be able to remember things better. 6) Yes they did. Because while the USA was already on a slow process to end slavery peacefully, the South, per usual, stomped their feet and cried, throwing a tantrum and declaring war, so President Lincoln had to force that medicine down your throats with the emancipation proclamation. Don't act like it was some noble choice of the South to end slavery when your inbred ancestors were still fighting tooth and nail to kill Americans so they could keep it. We should all just be thankful that a bunch of dumb hicks with no money are absolutely incapable of standing up to an actual civilized force. And I'm not a liberal, you inbred waste of grits, nor am I from the North. Also, my state never had slavery, not once in our history. But keep yapping on like you know anything when you proudly wave the banner of America's enemies and call yourself a patriot.
It was that guy's twin brother that ran the prison camp,that guy that swayze shot at the end,the one that said "he was a hunter"and that a wolverine was a "small vicious animal"....
After so many years, thanks to War Thunder, I can finally identify those jets. Soviet Navy Yak-38s, VTOL fighters just like the Harrier. Why they're sitting in an inland prison camp is beyond me, and I'm still confused about how one seems to tip backwards for some reason. I do now realize that the Colonel is throwing the grenade into the forward engines, the vertical ones.
It would fit part of the philosophy for VSTOL planes to be deployed into forward areas where proper infrastructure to run regular jets doesn't exist. In terms of housing them in a prison camp: it is easier to secure one compound rather than two. And, the prisoners can serve as a deterrent to the US bombing the compound to take out the jets for fear of killing the prisoners. That sort of practice is commonplace in a lot of conflicts through history.
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. John 3:16, Ephesians 2:8-9, Romans 4:5, Jesus Christ is the only way, KJV.
If I was that guy I would have used the ejector seat the second I saw him lob that grenade into it . A fighting chance at life is better than a certain death any day .