Movie/Documentary Recommedations

As I was laying around on the sofa last night, recovering, I came across this movie: Age of Heroes. I’ll paste in the clip below. I found this pretty interesting, it’s supposed to be based on a true story. You can actually get quite a lot out of it. Once you get past the essential movie-ness of it, and the fact it of course stars Sean Bean, there was obviously a good tactical adviser on set.

It’s a World War II movie, and it starts with a version of a break contact (runaway version), with a man down, and an impromptu hasty ambush. Once the movie gets to the commando part, there are little vignettes of training, focusing on PT. They even do rehearsals before going on their mission.

In the action as part of the mission, you see peeling, fire maneuver, bounding overwatch, meeting with an agent, preparation for the raid on an infrastructure target, reprisals against population by the Regime (Nazis), designated marksman overwatch, and other such tactical gems if you keep your eyes open while watching it.

Age of Heroes trailer:

 And now to the real point of the post: Watching this movie maybe think of the Telemark raid, also in Norway during World War II. There was in 1965 movie made of this raid, ‘Heroes of Telemark’, but it really misses the mark. I found this documentary series by Ray Mears, The Real Heroes of Telemark, and there is so much priceless information in this, that I won’t bother listing it: just watch it!

I think that what this brings home is the importance of both PT and mental toughness. The recce group on this raid was made up of local Norwegians with a background in cross-country skiing and hunting on the Hardanger Vida. I actually exercised on the Hardanger plateau while in the British Army and it is an amazing place.

This shows that with training you can take people who are made of the right stuff, and in relatively short order prepare them for such a mission. But of course these guys trained their whole life by being out doing real outdoorsman stuff. Real hunting qualifies; fat-ass truck/ATV and blind hunting does not. That goes to my major issue with the so-called hunters as Resistance fighters.

Excellent survival &resistance operations tips. Watch on:

Real Heroes of Telemark Part 1: Recce Team & Survival

 Real Heroes of Telemark Part Focusg on Arctic survival

 Real Heroes of Telemark Part 3: The Raid

Till Valhalla!

Max