Battlefield (1995–2004) User Reviews

Balanced, Respectful, and Detailed Historical Presentation

[dsnicol · 10/10 · 17 July 2006]

This series is an exceptionally superb telling of a history that still is often told with the same type of propagandistic bias found in newsreels of the 1940's and 1950's. The text of the series, and the wonderfully even-toned yet captivating narration, gives a mood of relaxed academic instruction without strident interjections. For those who like history presented in a thorough, balanced, and entertaining manner, this series is exactly what you are looking for.

The series does what it says: a firm focus on those factors affecting the battlefield. Political events are ignored, except those which had a direct impact on tactical considerations. This limiting of scope allows an even greater detail of the battles themselves to be revealed. Instead of a rehash of broad details of battles such as Stalingrad, and how it was a German blunder; we get a complete account of WHY the battle occurred, WHO was involved, WHAT happened and with a full detail of the men, units, and equipment used by each side.

Thankfully, there is a refreshing lack of bias in this series. There is no stupid narration talking about "Nazi tanks advancing". A respectful and accurate "German tanks advancing" is used instead. After all these men were, in the main, courageous and skilled soldiers just like those of any nation. They were fighting for their homes and nation just as surely as the British or the Soviets, and the fanatical excesses of the Nazi party were far from their minds and intentions. Similarly, we don't hear of any "Communist Hordes" repelling invasion. The Soviet armed forces, just like the German and British, and spoken of in factual, academic terms. In all cases, national tendencies and superiorities are detailed in a factual, detailed manner, almost as if a Martian were explaining true human history.

This is a war documentary that is actually soothing in its sonic presentation. The historical film is not presented with blaring explosive noises. The soundtrack is a brilliantly composed piece that creates an ambient effect to background the film and narration, with well-timed moments of change and progression and the story unfolds. The overall effect is one of peering through a portal of time to see what happened, while a unbiased professor elaborates on all the fascinating things we see occurring. This is an ideal way to understand History.

A masterpiece of documentary

[ridsouto-757-693859 · 10/10 · 22 August 2013]

It's an absolute must-watch for anybody interested in military history, tactics, etc. Very well executed, it provides a very thorough introduction to the circumstances leading to the battle, explains the different phases of the battle itself and finally addresses briefly its consequences.

Sure, there's a lot of information left out, but what can you expect? It's a documentary, not a complete academic study. It gives you as much info as reasonably possible for a 2 hr piece. And it does so keeping a good pace, in some cases almost as an action movie.

Outstanding work.

About as good as we can expect it to get.

[rmax304823 · 9/10 · 22 May 2009]

A respectful, adult, and logically laid-out presentation of strategic battles of World War II. An absence of talking heads is refreshing. The price paid for the distanced view this series takes is a lack of dramatic impact, but there's plenty of that elsewhere. Most viewers of any maturity will understand the human suffering behind the events that unfold on the screen.

The narrative script seems devoid of prejudice. The war is treated as dispassionately as an historic chess game. There are no easy shots taken, no heart-wrenching footage of the concentration camps, no scenes of old Russian women sobbing over frozen bodies, no familiar Chaplain praying over a dying man on the deck of an aircraft carrier. Moving as this kind of footage is, we've already seen them.

Yet the series isn't chary of descriptions of relevant personalities and their conflicts with others. The notorious rivalry between Montgomery and Patton, for instance, is noted, but treated even handedly.

The narrative is put out in a reasonable manner that establishes continuity and contributes to our understanding of all sides of the conflict, and the sections are clearly labeled -- "The Leaders", "Order of Battle," "The Men," and so forth. And there is an abundance of maps. I can't remember another series that offered so simple and clear an explanation of strategy.

Very nicely done stuff.

The world's greatest battles explained

[Rich-315 · 4 April 2001]

For too many years battles have been described in vague form with little heed to tactics, weaponry or the men involved. This series seeks to redress that with an overwhelming concentration of what happened within the battle and why. Pivotal battles such as Stalingrad or Normandy are well analysed and explained in laymens terms so that you do not have be a military nut to understand the events. The series assumes that its audience does not have a military background and so gives a run down on the military hardware used and the consequences of that. There is no distraction with first person testimony or an attempt to shock the viewers with horrific images and narration as that was so well done by The World At War. Instead we are offered an insight into the tactics and thinking of the military commanders and politicians with the use of computer graphics and maps. Having said that there is little on offer here for people with only a passing interest in history. The slow methodical pace does mean that it is unlikely to appeal to anyone outside of the history sector. Still, if you are interested you will emerge from the programme having learned something.

Strategy in WW2

[damakuc · 9/10 · 22 January 2011]

If history were presented in the "Battlefield" series format, I would have undoubtedly like it much more...

The series manages to strike a very good balance of introducing the key impacts in major battles of WW2. It does not want to reduce the battle to one single trigger, instead it focuses on the prelude, people, weaponry and tactics/strategy.

The latter is a favorite part of mine, as this was usually the key ingredient missing in many other popular historic presentations. The series devotes a significant amount of time to this part, making much more sense of why did the great generals behave the way they did.

As I grew up in the "computer game" generation, this series made me remember of the endless number of strategy games I've played, and in particular, of the game "Civilization".

The graphics and music background are not high-tech, however, IMHO this only reduces any distractions and makes you enjoy this series even more.

A must see for WWII Scholars & especially for people interested but not altogether knowledgeable.

[TheEmulator23 · 9/10 · 2 August 2009]

This is an extremely well done series. The only complaint I have is the god-awful music throughout. It's terrible & the same in every single episode I've seen. Now that I've gotten that out of the way, I have absolutely nothing but praise for this fantastically knowledgeable & well put together series. There is so much about this that is both factual & entertaining at the same time. I would tell everyone to watch this superb series but especially those interested in WWII. Even for Historians of the era or Wannabe historians such as myself who know a ton about the period, there is still information that is quite interesting. I will say that those who just have a passing interest in WWII might not want to watch this as it's generally pretty in-depth for it's 1 hour 37 minute episodes. Give this a try, just ignore the bad music & learn.

Wonderful Series

[Venge · 8/10 · 12 November 2019]

I've really enjoyed this season, particularly the first 4 featuring Tim Pigott-Smith as Narrator. What is most enjoyable is the way each major battle is broken down into well organized segments, such as "Prelude to Battle", "National Leaders", "Weapons", etc. There is a lot of original footage, though some does tend to be reused, sometimes several times in the same episode.

If the show has a flaw, it is that each episode seems overly long, and sometimes the material has to be stretched to fit all that time. The worst example I encountered was in Season 5, Episode 2 "El Alamein", when the same information was repeated not just once, or twice, but sometimes three times. It was clear that the writers didn't have enough material concerning the relatively small battle at El Alamein, so had to simple repeat, repeat, and repeat again. It got quite tiresome.

Otherwise, it is a very interesting series that I have enjoyed tremendously.

Best documentary series I've ever seen

[kenny-40471 · 10/10 · 31 January 2020]

I have watched every single one of the Battlefield series and I feel it is the very best I've ever seen. The maps and graphics are spectacular and the narrator Tim Piggott Smith's voice draws you in and keeps you interested and captivated. The music is also great as well.

Immersive and tactical

[garyjames22 · 8/10 · 23 February 2019]

I very much enjoyed the series. The 12 episodes of the Vietnam war were brilliant. Every episode goes into great detail to explain every aspect of the scenario.

One mark against it though is that you tend to notice their choice of words either Americans and Allies. Americans won this battle, Allies won that. Never the Australians beat the enemy back or The British tore through the lines. The narrator would say Allies on that point.

Anyway put that aside and it's brillaint and a modern retake on it all would be great

Best overall WW2 documentary series.

[roondogbb · 10/10 · 4 July 2021]

WW2 dochmentaries today usually fall into the genre of hypotheticals and conspiracy, such as "What if Hitlar won the battle of Britain" or "Did Nazi Germany have Alien technology" very weak garbage when compared to documentaries that are trying to be historically accurate as one could be and without the need of being sensational (as is common these day).

Battlefield is a series of documentaries that were released over a period of 6 -7 years. They covered in depth many battles in both the European theatre of war to the Pacific theatre if war. Events included are "The battle of Britain" , "Operation Barbarossa" and "The battle of Leyte Gulf to name a few....

Each rougly 2 hour episode works of a similar formate. Introduces the battle and its significance in the strategic sense in the war. The tactics used in order to carry out the battle. The leaders and commanders are given some background each episode. Then information about the battle as it progressed. Using maps on screen and historical footage....

The only negative I can give this documentary is that sometimes it can appear a little repetitive if you tend to watch a lot of episodes in close succession. This is because the backgrounds of leaders is often repeated over again in an identical fashion. Yet this is a small negative. The narrators of the documentary series are British men and are excellent and have an air of academic seriousness. Unlike perhaps some American documentaries.

Anyone interested in WW2 should watch this series

[oms_holyman · 10/10 · 17 August 2023]

As someone who has been a student of WW2 history for over 40 years and has seen all sorts of documentaries about the subject this is my go-to series and also the series I recommend to anyone who is starting out on learning about that conflict.

This was the first and as far as I have seen the only series that goes into in depth into the backgrounds of the battles, covering the 'leaders', causes of the battles, soldiers and weaponry and also into the battles themselves and while many other series are good and do often have additional bits of information which broaden the pictures, whenever I watch them I always feel more like they are skimming the subject to fit it into the limited time allowed rather than really getting into the subject.

In part this series was lucky to have been created at a time when the work of Bletchley Park and other secrets of the war were being released to the public and if you watch documentaries before this time, even the good ones you really notice the difference between the apparent genius of certain commanders and the realisation they had many advantages due to the code breaking efforts of the allies.

This series is now 30 years old and while new information comes out all the time this still stands the test of time as a great record of that conflict and I honestly don't know why it became so abandoned which is a huge shame. If you search religiously you can still get much of the series on DVD but you have to be careful not to get the chopped up shortened versions which miss out on a major advantage this series has over others in the depth it goes in to on each battle. Luckily 27 of the 30 episode can be found on youtube and as a show to their popularity most episodes have been watched millions of times.

Great show to display the tactical side of the war,....But.

[jon-weiss · 8/10 · 2 March 2020]

I have seen a wide variety of WWII documentaries, and this is among the very best, but what happened to Season 3?

Great For Insomniacs, As A Cure

[verbusen · 7/10 · 16 May 2006]

I am a huge military history buff and I frequently watched "Battlefield" when it first aired on PBS in the 90's (I think this was PBS's last attempt to provide new programing for it's straight male audience). At first I was in heaven and would watch this series with relish; but than I noticed something significant. As ardent a fan I am of military history, I frequently would fall asleep while watching this program. The reason I think is the droning music used and the monotone British narration. Think about it, a 1 1/2 hour long program with only one soft voice speaking and very repetitious music softly in the background. Add on to that, they would do a very long pre-battle segment to the actual discussion of the battle and it would be well into 30 minutes into the show (going back 2 years in history before the battle!) and I would many times be asleep before the actual episodes topic! It's now on the channels that show commercials and in shorter segments so I doubt you would succumb to this effect because the commercials will break up the monotony, but I swear to G, I would absolutely have the hardest time staying awake while watching this show. I did like the Battlefield episodes concerning Vietnam because it made the military conflicts more coherent with its pretty computer graphics showing the forces involved. It's worth watching but just be aware of the sleep factor and do not play this show while driving.

Ridiculously long-winded

[grantss · 5/10 · 12 May 2023]

A documentary series on the key battles and campaigns of World War 2. For each episode we see the key commanders involved, main weapons, key units, strategy and tactics, the development and history of key factors to that point and the history and outcome of the battle.

Absurdly long-winded. Each episode really only had about 30 minutes of material on the battle/campaign yet I guess the producers felt the general running time of each episode is 90-120 minutes so they had better fill it. Each aspect of the campaign has its history traced back as far as it will go, often to World War 1, every commander gets a several-minute bio (and there's heaps of commanders), tangential history is discussed. So much unnecessary filler.

Clearly the producers were aiming for quantity rather than quality or they thought that quantity equals quality (at least in the viewers' eyes).

It also doesn't help that I already have a very good knowledge of the subject, making the padding even more unnecessary and boring. Even for less knowledgeable people this format is not great as you keep wondering when they are going to get to the relevant stuff.

This issue is also caused in part by the fact that there is no continuity between episodes. If the series was a chronological look at the major battles of WW2 you wouldn't need most of the background stuff as the previous episodes would have provided it. Instead we have battles in random order with no dependence between them, so the background to one battle gets repeated in a related (historically but not related in the series) battle.

To crown it all off we have narrator Tim Pigott-Smith droning on endlessly. David McCullough or Sir Laurance Olivier he certainly is not. On that note, for the definitive, and an infinitely more interesting, documentary on WW2 watch The World At War instead.

On the plus side, all the detail you need is there. The problem is wading through all the endless filler to get to the good stuff.

The Definitive World War II Battle History

[jacksflicks · 11 April 2001]

"Battlefield" is a masterful rendering of military history. It somewhat arbitrarily presents World War II as a series of battles. This is slightly misleading, since the "Battle for the Rhine" as two tapes are titled, was actually a campaign made up of battles such as Arnheim, Bastogne and the Bulge, which lasted from the D-Day landings to the fall of Berlin. Of course, the totality of a war cannot be explained this way, but "Battlefield's" perspective is narrowly focused on the operational aspect of the war.

Each battle is broken into two tapes, "Prelude" and "The Battle"; each of these is broken into sections comparing leadership (politicians, generals), men (soldiers, sailors, airmen), arms and strategic situations, addressing their respective strengths and weaknesses. The campaigns are illustrated with war footage and punctuated with dynamic war maps. This analytic approach may seem dry to someone looking for a war-as-hell or human interest perspective, but as another reviewer has pointed out, these latter approaches have already been used in other series.

Tim Piggot-Smith is a great narrator, giving an urgent, expressive, yet even and restrained voice to the events.

One quibble: I think "Battlefield" omits some important aspects of particular battles. For example, it doesn't go into enough detail about the successful diversion of Halsey's task force in the Battle of Leyte Gulf to explain how the element of luck was crucial to the American victory. This is covered in other series, such as the History Channel's one-tape Leyte Gulf history. Perhaps the European theater is more vivid to the British than the Pacific theater, which was mainly an aircraft carrier and marine operation between the Japanese and Americans. Of course, when "Battlefield" covers aspects of the war with Japan in which Britain played a major part, such as South Asia, the coverage seems more meticulous. Being American, I may be biased, but this is my impression.

This quibble notwithstanding, "Battlefield" is by far the best video series about World War II, from an operational viewpoint.

WWII from a british perspective

[joelbernardcorpusreyes · 1/10 · 21 January 2023]

This series could have been so much better if it wasn't narrated by only british narrators who basically put a british spin on everything. They constantly focus on what the British did and rarely on what the Americans did only mentioning the U. S. when they have to and then downplaying what they did and portraying American Commandets in a bad light. Watching this british propoganda series will make you think they were the only ones fighting in WWII with the exception of the Pacific in which they can't downplay or leave out American evolvement because it was America that defeated Japan. Better find something else to watch if you want a balanced telling of what happened in WWII.

Such a bore

[DigIt · 12 August 2009]

First I should say I'm a whole time WWII buffs, I've seen most of documentaries and films on the subject, played tactical and strategic war games (both on computers and tabletops); I have read a huge collection of books and I'm an expert modeler on this historical age subject and studied in detail weapons, uniforms, organizations etc.

I had a chance to see this whole series and admittedly it deals with tactics and weaponry, but i.e. the images associated to the spoken text are quite often repetitive and even altogether wrong, belonging to other battles or weapons.

The music is such a soporific electronic noise it can surely help you loose patience upon the relentless repetitions of images and text...

It shows a very poor scripting and researches relative to the actual images of the battles they try to describe in depth; some few interesting and revealing information may be found even by the experts and historians, but to get them you have to go through a large amount of to say the least "boring editing".

Great idea, but badly accomplished: even the 3d animated titles belong to the prehistoric age of CG and look like a less than professional and low budget production.

I suggest you spare your time and stay away from it: look for some better documented and above all realized series and there are many.