Interesting movie about Bosnia

Ivan Rapkinov

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not really an ATF topic; but thoguht a few of you might be interested, especially in light of AATF being in the works.

Harrison's Flowers was not a movie I thought I would like, but my fiance wanted to watch it so.... :rolleyes:

It starts with a Pulitizer prize winning photographer going missing in Bosnia/Yugoslavia circa 1991 or so, and his wife going and looking for him. Pretty standard plot fare.

What made this movie stand out is the portrayal of urban warfare, from a OOTW point of view - the photographers basically roam the battlefield (in a particularly disturbing scene, they watch as genocide is carried out, using their cameras as shields) at will.

It also has a large amount of tanks, APCs, jets, artillery etc that never seem to come to mind when studying the Bosnian conflict - it really does bring to light Krulak's Three Block War.

The best scene is probably the night attack on the hotel, which happens to be were the Bosnian's had set up their artillery...

anyways, sorry for the off-topic thread, but if you have an interest in modern warfare, in the urban, COB, sense, then this movie is a real eye-opener, especially in terms of the role of the press, and how hard it actually is to police a battle area of civilians.

plus it's one of the only movies on Bosnia I've seen (the other being the oscar-winning No Man's Land, though in that, the Bosnians came across more as guerillas than an army, and in Harrison's Flowers both sides are portrayed as effective combat forces.)

edit: it's actually more about the Serbo-Croat conflict in 1991 than the Bosnian war - but the points above still stand. Be interesting to see if AATF can simulate the mix of ally/civilian/enemy running about in a city fight ;) :D
 
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KG_Norad

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Thanks for the quick review. Good movies about modern warfare are few and far between! I welcome any kind of post that relates to the topic of modern warfare here in the general ATF forum....after all you never know who might get inspired to turn an idea into an ATF Topic/Scenario etc... :D

Michael
 

Dr Zaius

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I spent six months in Bosnia back in early '96. That was during the very first rotation of US forces in the region and it was an eye opener for me. The damage to the cities was far heavier than one might imagine. There was quite a bit of armor involved, as the Slavonski brod tank factory was one of the largest in the former Soviet Union. I believe most of the armor was used in an infantry support role, and for demolishing individual homes. Many houses had a shot through the side with a single tank round.

It was a very interesting six months and I learned a lot. Thanks for the heads up on the movie.
 

Faustus

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Maddog has it right that in Bosnia there were a lot of mechanized assets but mostly used in the infantry support role. Typically Bosnian Muslim and Bosnian Croat forces were about one fifth mech, and Bosnian Serbs were about one third mech. These are broad generallizations. There were regions where the Bosnian Croats in particular were all leg with almost no mechanized resources.

The movie being discussed covers a period of the War for Croatian Independence during which the use of mech forces was at its peak. In particular, during this period, the Yugoslavian National Army (JNA) conducted a mechanized sweep through the newly declared independent Croatian state in order to try to save the Serb refugees from the Ustache (Nazi) militias who were fighting for Croatian independence. Once international pressure forced the withdrawal of the JNA, the level of mechanization dropped off significantly.
 
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