So last night TCM ran the Director's Cut of Lawrence of Arabia. I had to watch it. When battle scenes showing belt fed machine guns were shown, I noticed the Arabs were firing British Vickers guns. This would be historically accurate. But, when scenes of the Turks shooting belt fed machine guns appeared, they were firing US Browning 1919A4s. In one of the final battle scenes, the Turks were shown trying to mount a French Hotchkiss machine gun on its tripod. Both of these cases would be incorrect. With the amount of time and money spent in making this film, I would have expected a more accurate portrayal of the weaponry used by all sides. The Turks would have used German Maxims, MG08s and MG 08/15s. Both of these belt feds would have been available for portrayal in 1962 when this move was made.

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Originally posted by MG34_Dan:
The Turks would have used German Maxims, MG08s and MG 08/15s.

The Ottomans were chronically short of MGs of all types throughout WW1. They went into the start of the war in 1914 only having a small number of MGs in total, consisting of commercial Maxim MG09s, Schwarzlose M07/12s, and Hotchkiss M1900s. The arrival of additional MG08 and MG08/15 machine guns as aid from Germany was slow going.

(For example, at the start of the Gallipoli Campaign in April 1915, the defending Ottoman 5th Army - consisting of 5 divisions and associated additional units - only had 34 total machine guns.)

quote:

Originally posted by MG34_Dan:
In one of the final battle scenes, the Turks were shown trying to mount a French Hotchkiss machine gun on its tripod.

They didn't use the updated M1914 Hotchkiss as featured in the film, but the Ottomans did field the predecessor M1900 Hotchkiss MG during WW1, having ordered around 100ish from France in the years before the outbreak of WW1.

They had also purchased a handful of armored cars and small naval vessels from France in the prewar period, which came armed with additional mounted M1900 Hotchkiss MGs.

There's an example of a captured Ottoman Hotchkiss machine gun in the British Imperial War Museum.


The Browning M1919A4 is pure fantasy, though. That's an American MG that wasn't even in production during WW1. The closest that the Ottomans could have fielded would have been the Bergmann MG15, a vaguely similar WW1-era air-cooled LMG from Germany.

I tried to scrape pictures from IMFDB of the Turk belt feds, but was unsuccessful. I'll try a different approach to get the pictures. Let's see how this works.

Considering LoA was made in '62, they did a pretty good job.
Lots of leftovers from WW2 laying around there too.

quote:

Originally posted by MG34_Dan:
So last night TCM ran the Director's Cut of Lawrence of Arabia. I had to watch it. When battle scenes showing belt fed machine guns were shown, I noticed the Arabs were firing British Vickers guns. This would be historically accurate. But, when scenes of the Turks shooting belt fed machine guns appeared, they were firing US Browning 1919A4s. In one of the final battle scenes, the Turks were shown trying to mount a French Hotchkiss machine gun on its tripod. Both of these cases would be incorrect. With the amount of time and money spent in making this film, I would have expected a more accurate portrayal of the weaponry used by all sides. The Turks would have used German Maxims, MG08s and MG 08/15s. Both of these belt feds would have been available for portrayal in 1962 when this move was made.

Sometimes being knowledgeable can interfere (maybe just a little) with your ability to appreciate a film. I remember an ornithologist who said his skill in identifying birds (both by sight and sound) interfered with his ability to appreciate a film with outdoor scenes. As you know, many films are shot in locations other than where the events depicted actually occur. So he would hear or see a bird in a background scene, then realize the bird could not possibly be in the location depicted in the film. He said it drove him crazy.

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Originally posted by Fed161:
I remember an ornithologist who said his skill in identifying birds (both by sight and sound) interfered with his ability to appreciate a film with outdoor scenes. As you know, many films are shot in locations other than where the events depicted actually occur. So he would hear or see a bird in a background scene, then realize the bird could not possibly be in the location depicted in the film. He said it drove him crazy.

Which reminds me of a Youtube video I recently saw, discussing how many bird calls in movies are loons, but loons don't live in most of the locations where that call is heard in films.

Interesting, occasionally find myself doing the same, looking at scenes and finding incorrect things, but for the most part, just tune that stuff out because it's a movie not a historical recreation of events and getting things perfect just isn't in the cards or really IMO necessary, the gun used does properly convey the message abut the events.

Still, the info supplied about the real events is interesting, now on to the boids...

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Which reminds me of a Youtube video I recently saw, discussing how many bird calls in movies are loons, but loons don't live in most of the locations where that call is heard in films.

Occasionally you'll hear a Pygmy Nuthatch, LOL

Charlies Angels - Pygmy Nuthatch, not!