MovieChat Forums > The Green Berets (1968) Discussion > Good movie, but lousy choice of equipmen...

Good movie, but lousy choice of equipment

posted 17 years ago by EuroNYC7
8 replies | jump to latest

While the weaponry (M-16s, M-1 carbines,etc) furnished to the Green Berets and their Vietnamese allies "was on the money", as were the choppers, airplanes,etc - in fact, all things U.S., there were bloopers aplenty regarding the enemy equipment. For one, take the VC/NVA guards protecting the NVA general that was about to get wisked by John Wayne and company; they were armed with Springfield (or perhaps Mauser bolt-action) rifles? If this were in the 1950s, that would have been plausible, but in 1967/68?? If not AK-47s at least Siminov SKS semi-auto carbines. An M1 Garand semi-auto rifle, barnished in standard Soviet wooden finish and a few cooling slots drilled in on the foregrip would have passed for an SKS. Surely, in 1968, there were still plenty of Garands in Category-II or III stockpiles, and the Army authorities assisting in the production could have just as easily provided them! In another part, when Aldo Ray and Raymond St Jacques are watching the bridge, I suddenly see what appears to be a (gulp) camouflaged early 1960s Ford F-100 crossing it -come on now!! I'm sure the Army base had to have a few Dodge 3/4ton WC trucks from WW-II laying around somewhere. Such a vehicle in NVA markings would have been acceptable since there was some US equipment in Communist Chinese stocks supplied to the North Vietnamese, which had been originally captured from General Chang Kai-Chek'S Nationalist Chinese Army back in 1949. I get the impression the producers of the film were attempting to convince the public how "backward" the enemy was; I'm sure back then,however, certain movie-goers must have seen enough real-life news clips of VC/NVA fighters in Vietnam carrying the ubiquitous Kalashnikov or driving Zil 5-ton trucks on the Ho Chi Minh trail(which closely ressembled our WW-II era Studebaker 6x6's- exported to the Soviets under Lend-Lease in World War II - which I feel, AGAIN, the Army could have provided from stocks to emulate a Russian Zil-151 crossing the bridge) to take notice of these flaws in the movie.

[–] sstovall-1 17 years ago

Don't forget that Hollywood doesn't usually get a hold of sizable numbers of 'enemy' weapons until after the wars they are used in. Since this movie was made in 1967/68 (during the Vietnam War) they used what they had in large enough numbers to equip that many extras. As far as heavy equiment/vehicles those were usually bought surplus by Hollywood at that time, and they may not have had anything else handy. Remember, people weren't so detail oriented about the movies they watched then, it was more about the story, the message, and the actors than it was about realism.

"I'd resent that if I were sober."
Lt. Col Henry Blake

[–] jconn426 13 years ago

Greetings from the future!

Have to agree with the other poster. It would have been nice to see AK's or at least some mock-ups, but they were hard to come by. Commie forces used various weapons including bolt-actions. Weapons have a funny way of showing up where you least expect. I recently saw a photo of an M-1 Garand that was captured in Iraq!

Want to see a real travesty? Watch "The Commancheros", set in the 1840's/50's, and featuring pistols and rifles that didn't come out till after the Civil War!

===
And He has on His robe and on His thigh a name written:KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.

[–] matt-282 13 years ago

I notice that too every time I watch The Green Berets over and over again. Almost none of the Viet Cong/North Vietnamese soldiers are armed with automatic rifles or any rapid firing sub-machine guns. They all have single-shot or bolt-action rifles of World War II orgin. Unlike later Vietnam movies (Go Tell the Spartans, Apocalypse Now, Platoon, Full Metal Jacket among many others), the enemy VC seem to have no automatic weapons (save for one action shot of a VC soldier firing an assault rifle in the air after being hit by a motar explosion during the camp battle scene). They seem to rely on sheer numbers from multiple troops of fire rather then automatic weapons fire from few troops against the US/ARVN troops.

I agree that Hollywood warehouses did not have hardly any AK-47s for use as props during 1967, but to have almost no automatic weapons for the VC and NVA in this movie does not seem plausable at all.

[–] kb01 13 years ago

I recently saw a photo of an M-1 Garand that was captured in Iraq!

It's amazing how many WW2-era Lend-Lease weapons are still floating around the world.

When I was in the US Army, I served on several peacekeeping rotations in the Balkans. For every AK we confiscated at a checkpoint or cordon & search, we probably found a dozen US small arms, mostly consisting of Thompson SMGs and M1 Garands. We'd also see the occasional '03 Springfield in the mix too.

It wouldn't surprise me at all if the same WW2-era weapons were also sent to the middle east, SE Asia, and Latin America to various US-friendly dictators in the 50's & 60's.

Even today, it's very common to see either regimes or guerrilla fighters around the world with woodland or 5-color "chocolate chip" desert camo BDUs, US Army TA-50, and M16A1s. I'm guessing the stuff was sent by the crate-load all over the world in the 1980s.

[–] gheilers 11 years ago

Syria was still using surplus Panzer IV tanks into the late 1960s. Israel was still using AFVs based on the Sherman tank, well into the 70s.

[–] rb_mcgee 13 years ago

This is an old gripe against "The Green Berets" and many other old war movies. I get it; I'm a detail junkie myself. The usual defense of the producers of TGB is "they just couldn't get real VC/NVA weapons." That settles it for most folks.

But another poster in this thread used a great word regarding the AK: "ubiquitous." Right!!
The Soviets were practically giving weapons away in the 1960s to regular client nations and anyone else who they thought they could influence. Just a guess, but back circa 1967, you probably could have bought a few dozen AKs for $50 each from somewhere like Egypt or --hell, using a non-U.S. middle-man-- from N. VN itself! Same deal probably for light MGs or any infantry weapon. Yugoslavia seemed amenable to Western moviemakers in the late '60s; surely they would have sold some Soviet weapons (or some copies that they built themselves). OR, just buy them from the Soviets! It's not like light-weapon technology was classified! I'm sure they would have welcomed the dollars!

Now someone explain to me why the VC would plant elaborate boobytraps (like killed Peterson) at random places ('cause surely guys exfiltrating from a snatch mission don't use regular paths) in what is supposedly a safe rear area (where VC brass conduct their trysts) .... oh, sorry, that's another thread!!

[–] 13 years ago

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[–] Foster (878) a year ago

In the trivia section it mentions that in the 60s Many VC /NVA used bolt action weapons from WW2 because they were available---- The SKS did not show up until the mid to late 60s and then not so many "officers or non-coms" --- The AK47 was not prevalent until the 70s

N Viets did not do much with China until after the US left, their favorite supporters were The USSR and to some extent Cuba