Patton 360: The Complete Season 1

I would like to express my appreciation for the newsreel footage of General Patton and others displayed in this production. Watching and listening to the audio and video of General Patton delivering a speech to the troops was my first experience of seeing and hearing the man. Much has been said of the man's voice being high pitched and his language being vulgar, but I was favorably impressed. The General's temperament and foibles were adequately conveyed in the encounters in field hospitals. but some tragic events occurred during the campaign in Sicily that were labeled as massacres.The American temperament was considered too passive and timid for an effective combat soldier, and General Patton attempted to motivate his troops and harden them for the carnage that was to come, but his rhetoric was considered responsible for inciting unnecessary violence. I also believe that the final reason for Patton's removal from command was misstated as his combative attitude toward Soviet forces, which isn't understated, when it appears that it was more a political decision stemming from his employment of former Nazi Party members in his post-war administration of Bavaria.I applaud your inclusion of very graphic images and film footage of engagements and the aftermath of battle. Civil war Union General Sherman stated that "War is all Hell" and on numerous occasions expressed the opinion that it must be horrible in its execution to discourage its being prolonged. Confederate General Lee commented that "It is a good thing that war is so terrible lest we should become too fond of it". A philosopher named George Santayana said "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it". By revealing the horror of war this production actually discourages war.Boy, was that same introduction before each segment annoying. Thanks be for the remote control and fast forward. The monologue was generally quite good, but the computer generated images (CGI) rather than more actual footage was a bit much. Some elements had to rely on CGI to demonstrate events and concepts, and they did so convincingly. After all, one does not want to film a tank firing while facing the gun or a napalm bomb impacting on enemy vehicles while in the target area. Likewise, the release of bombs can be recorded from inside the aircraft routinely, but the images created by CGI displaying the underside of the aircraft during the bomb release safely conveys the concept of observing from below.My greatest complaint would probably be the repetitious use of stock footage from actual events and CGI. As the narrative unwinds one sees the same image of a vehicle being hit while the description of events is supposedly happening in North Africa, Sicily, Italy, France, Belgium and then Germany. General Patton certainly got around, but a burnt out hulk making a cameo appearance in several locations reprising its destruction becomes boring. The scenes recounting almost incessant fire and maneuver from ships, tanks, artillery, mortar and small arms could be a bit irritating or unnerving, even though most of it is in CGI.As a former "tanker", I was most disturbed not by actual footage of events and their aftermath as I was by CGI images of flames superimposed on images of people and vehicles. The actual footage of exploding ordinance, burning vehicles and even the extermination and concentration camps did not offend me even remotely as much as CGI flames. Anyone who has neither experienced nor observed the tragedy of a tank on fire is unlikely to experience my visceral reaction and utter revulsion at depicting flames on a tank. Tank fires are probably the most universally shared nightmare of tankers of all nations, and adding CGI flames struck me as gratuitous violence.

The "season" covered all the high's and low's of Patton's military career during WWII. Some of the CGI was re-used in a few episodes, but it wasn't too obvious. It's a nice documentary to add to your WWII collection, especially if you're a fan of Old Blood and Guts himself.

What I liked about Patton 360 is the fact that my father was in Patton's 3rd Army. I was hoping to catch a glimpse of him in the footage of the Metz battle. Unfortunately, I didn't, but I'll watch it again to see if I can spot him! By the way, the reason is that our Dad had written to our Mom and told her about the filming and to look for him in the movie reels theatre's showed at the time!

In the tradition of Dog fights and Battlefield 360 a great program. Score another winner for the History Channel.

If you can get past the moving backgrounds used, it is an excellent piece of history. Very informative and accurate. Would recommend this product to anyone interested in military history. However, the background added is distracting and really detracts from the visual experience. Whoever decided to add them, made a terrible decision, they add absolutely nothing to the presentation. Wish there was a way to get rid of this.

Watch the first episode and you're hooked to get through them all asap.I don't know why it's called the complete season one...it's the Complete SERIES. It's ends with the death of Patton.Extremely well made. They used archival footage and tossed in some very good computer graphics to fill in gaps and brought back many of the actual men who served under Patton for new interviews as the events unfolded. Very well done and presented. I must say too, enjoy this and this type of series while we still can. Those brave men who served in WW2 are now in their late 80's to 90's, 10 years from now, this series will be impossible to make as there sadly won't be any survivors left.If you are a war buff, a patriot, a historian or just want to watch some GOOD....get this DVD set. This is a Strong 5 star rating.

I stumbled upon this set while browsing through Amazon and bought this set right away. I don't have cable and miss getting to see some of the tremendous programs that the History channel has to offer. This set is fantastic!My only complaint is how it is produced. For me, the constant flow of "special effects" take away from the overall program. After watching for a bit, you DO get used to it, but I don't like the style of the production. It would have been extra special had they had interviews from German combat survivors.It breaks your heart to see combat vets who are 80+ still weep about lost friends. War is hell, that's for sure.

As the grandson of a solider who served under Patton this review maybe a little bias. First of a few months ago I was watching  Battle 360: Complete Season 1 [Blu-ray ] on demand and I said to my roommate who was also watching it, " I really wish that they made a series on Patton and the European ground war. I found this a little while late. The series is extremely well made and is well above History's Normal standards. The series followed General George S. Patton and the units he commanded, from the Operation Torch landings in Morocco in 1942, through the campaigns in North Africa and Sicily, and in the battles across Northwest Europe. The only thing that is misleading about the package and online description is that is the only season of the show.

Overall not a bad set of dvds, I did learn a some new things that I had not been aware of before, but the endless repeating and recapping was an insult to intelligence and annoying. Obvious the dvd producers think my time is not important. If you can endure the endless idiotic recapping, not too bad.

I found it extremely boring. I watched only 15 mins. of it. Very disappointed.

Très intéressant

Wish History Channel would do more series like these.

hifirst let me admit that I have not seen the third dvd when I write this.butunless u think that the german soldiers and officeres were incompetent idiots, and the americans were supermen, dont buy thise dvds.the first dvd were okay, but the second were so (us are supermen)that I could not stand listening to it, and muted the tv, andonly looked at the pictures, with are beautiful cumputer animated, plus some great reinacment pictures of soldiers and equipment.but all of the stories are told from the americans side of wiew.there are many interwiews with american weterans, but none with germans. that gives the storys a wery onesided wiew,that only tell of the battles that the american won.