Search - Weapons That Changed War on DVD

Weapons that changed war

Michael R. Judson | 12/26/2009

(1 out of 5 stars)

"Ditto to Mr. Mike Brolin's review. Very nice packaging sells this DVD. There is some interesting footage in some of the segments, but overall this is a waste of time for anyone who is a a student of weaponry or of history. The greater shame is that laymen would watch this and think they are seeing a factual presentation. Mr. Brolin did justice to the segemnt on AK's (I agree, it was terrible). The segment on Flintlocks was possibly worse. The same sequence of the Rev War soldier shooting from behind a tree was used repeatedly and, 1)it was used to illustrate rifle fire and he was firing a smoothbore musket, not a rifle, and 2) the reloading sequence was incorrect. Nearly the entire segment on rifles was taken up by the breechloading mechanisms which were an anomaly and had virually no impact on the age of the flintlock. This is consistent with the entire documentary; footage that is unrelated or irrelevant to the topic of that particular "act". Finally, the photo illustration of the Kentucky rifle appeared to be of those toy rifles. It was a caplock and had the two brass bands around the barrel. I screamed when I saw it. (BTW, Ky rifles were termed that because so many of them, made elswhere, found their way into Kentucky; their use made famous by noteable Kentuckians). As the viewer slogs through the DVD's in this set, footage is used over and over and narration is filled with jargon that has no illustration to back it up. Very unfortunate that this grade of product even comes to market, let alone that dunderheads like me spend their hard earned cash on it."