Nothing ruins a historical war fiction novel than....

[wodin]

it's Aug 1941 on the East Front, and first Panthers are mentioned, and I thought give it the benefit, maybe a typo meant Panzers..but then Tigers mentioned next...oh hum...end of book there and then.

I hate bad research in historical war fiction..hate it..

Infact I can't get my head around this sort of thing...you go to all the effort to write a novel but seem to know nothing much about the subject matter..why bother?

[warspite1]

Yep, that's pretty irritating, although its worse when that happens and the book you've bought is supposed to be historical fact......[:(]

[demyansk]

I agree, I only read non fiction and still find problems.

[Orm]

ORIGINAL: wodin

it's Aug 1941 on the East Front, and first Panthers are mentioned, and I thought give it the benefit, maybe a typo meant Panzers..but then Tigers mentioned next...oh hum...end of book there and then.

I hate bad research in historical war fiction..hate it..

Infact I can't get my head around this sort of thing...you go to all the effort to write a novel but seem to know nothing much about the subject matter..why bother?

Hear, hear.

[Orm]

Perhaps you could name the author so I could avoid him?

Edit: Or have you posted a review to read on your site? Goes there to check.

[Zorch]

ORIGINAL: demyansk

I agree, I only read non fiction and still find problems.

Perhaps you're living in an alternate reality?

[Massattack]

I totally agree. Verisimilitude in both historical fiction, and movies is so important. Nothing destroys the
drawing in of the reader/viewer so much as an aberration. What might appear a minor or unnoticed error to the uninformed
becomes rather more glaring to us history nuts! Wrong tanks in Battle of The Bulge, wrong aircraft in Japanese
colours in Tora Tora Tora, etc. I recently read an otherwise quite good historical fiction book which mentioned
one of it's lead characters reading the morning newspaper in March 1940, headlines "Another night of
heavy bombing over London"............

[Kuokkanen]

Check this frak out from Sword Woman and Other Historical Adventures

Such men I had never seen. Like him I had slain, they were tall and massive with red or yellow hair and beards and fierce light eyes. But they were not clad in mail from head to foot like the Crusaders. They wore horned helmets and shirts of scale mail which came almost to their knees but left their throats and arms bare, and most of them wore no other armor at all.

Robert E. Howard is overrated.

[MrsWargamer]

Was reading a book on the Battle of the Bulge, I think written by an American author. Seemed ok, until the book has photos of Patton tanks.

Ruined it for me immediately. Credibility right in the garbage can.

[DeepBlack]

If ignorance is bliss then knowledge is agony?

[Platoonist]

ORIGINAL: wodin

it's Aug 1941 on the East Front, and first Panthers are mentioned, and I thought give it the benefit, maybe a typo meant Panzers..but then Tigers mentioned next...oh hum...end of book there and then.

I hate bad research in historical war fiction..hate it..

Infact I can't get my head around this sort of thing...you go to all the effort to write a novel but seem to know nothing much about the subject matter..why bother?

I recall going through something similar when reading horror novelist Stephen King's book, The Dead Zone.

When the lead character Johnny comes out of of coma, he finds he has been cursed with a psychic gift when he grabs his doctor's hand. He sees the doctor's memories of the 1939 invasion of Poland, complete with a German Tiger tank gunning down civilians. A vehicle which of course, did not enter service until late 1942. Not to mention that someone who was a child at the time of the invasion likely wouldn't to be able to differentiate a Tiger from a Lynx.

I went ahead and finished the novel anyway. It wasn't a war novel and I figured WW2 armor probably wasn't Stephen King's strong suit to begin with.

[Rebel Yell]

ORIGINAL: wodin



Infact I can't get my head around this sort of thing...you go to all the effort to write a novel but seem to know nothing much about the subject matter..why bother?

Because people don't know what they don't know.

[Anonymous]

[Deleted by Admins]

[RangerJoe]

It is also a fault of the editing staff, proof readers, and such who don't know the subject. I read where someone had actually tracking down information that had been recited and referred to by many knowledgable and respected people but found it to be incorrect. Someone stated something that was in error and the others repeated it, referencing the work that had the error but no one actually went to the original source.

[Kuokkanen]

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

It is also a fault of the editing staff, proof readers, and such who don't know the subject. I read where someone had actually tracking down information that had been recited and referred to by many knowledgable and respected people but found it to be incorrect. Someone stated something that was in error and the others repeated it, referencing the work that had the error but no one actually went to the original source.

Example: one US Army general claiming that Sherman (or American tanks in general) is not meant to fight enemy tanks. When generals make mistakes (or opinions?) like that, wouldn't it be fair to give novelists some leeway.

[MrsWargamer]

But the Sherman WASN'T meant to fight enemy armour. Sadly it was a doctrine, that wasn't well thought through.

[Rebel Yell]

And here we have a perfect example of people not knowing what they don't know.

Myths of American Armor

[76mm]

I recently read a book by a well-respected WWII historian, and throughout the whole book he kept referring to the 7.5 mm guns on the German tanks. "Missed it by that much".

[RangerJoe]

ORIGINAL: 76mm

I recently read a book by a well-respected WWII historian, and throughout the whole book he kept referring to the 7.5 mm guns on the German tanks. "Missed it by that much".

That is probably because Americans usually use the mm for guns while the Germans would use cm for guns. It may not have been the historian, it may have been a proofreader or an editor.

[RangerJoe]

ORIGINAL: MrsWargamer

But the Sherman WASN'T meant to fight enemy armour. Sadly it was a doctrine, that wasn't well thought through.

Too true. It was supposed to be the tank destroyers job. Patton understood that but others did not. It was only when the Sherman had a higher velocity gun that it did better attacking enemy tanks.