Artistic License Military / Live-Action Films

• Top Gun

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• The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial:
  • Some of the actors are too old for the ranks their character hold, such as Kiefer Sutherland, who plays a lieutenant-commander at the age of 56^note Holders of that rank usually obtain it in their 30s. Humphrey Bogart was also in his 50s when he played Queeg in The Caine Mutiny, but it was more believable for the WWII setting as officers in the regular US Navy had stalled careers because of military downsizing in the wake of the WWI., and Jason Clarke, who plays a lieutenant at the age of 54^note holders of that rank usually obtain it within their 20s.
  • Large sections of the script are kept unaltered from the original, so Queeg is referred to as a "regular" with the implication that the other Caine officers are draftees despite the time period being moved from World War II to the Global War on Terror.
  • Like in the original novel, play, and film, Greenwald is a fighter pilot brought in to defend Maryk because he previously attended law school. With each branch of the modern US military maintaining a professional JAG Corps, there'd be no need to second a fighter pilot with no practical legal experience to defend the case, especially for a charge as serious as mutiny.
• In The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, in a fantasy sequence set on a British airbase, Mitty (Danny Kaye) addresses an RAF officer as "Colonel". There is no such rank in the RAF; the equivalent rank is "Group Captain". Incidentally, the officer is wearing the uniform of an Air Vice-Marshal, equivalent to an Army Lieutenant-General, while Mitty, supposedly a Squadron Leader, wears the uniform of a Group Captain! Perhaps justified in that the protagonist is a daydreaming civilian who's obviously clueless about the subject.
• At one point in the Stargate movie, Colonel O'Neil calls Kawalski, his second in command, "Lieutenant". Not only that, he's credited as "Lieutenant Kawalski" in the credits. The problem? He's wearing silver oak leaves throughout the entire movie, making him a Lieutenant Colonel. While the film's treatment of the military is far from accurate or flattering, that's actually a pretty easy mistake to make. After all, he's a "lieutenant colonel." It can be presumed that Emmerich and Devlin were simply unaware that the appropriate abbreviation of the rank "lieutenant colonel" is not "lieutenant" but rather "colonel." Or they thought the audience would get confused if O'Neil and Kawalski both addressed each other as "colonel"; kind of a military variant of the One-Steve Limit. On the other hand, they did get a detail right that even some people in the actual military forget: with the single exception of the sitting President, you do not salute civilians. After the final battle, the Abydonian boys salute O'Neil. You can tell he wants to salute back, but instead he waits until his own men join in so he can salute them.
• Basic, a film starring Samuel L. Jackson, Connie Nielsen and John Travolta featured several errors, including:
  • A female soldier wearing a Ranger tab. There were no Ranger-qualified females at the time (or female Rangers, for that matter).
  • The rank of Samuel L. Jackson's character changed (up and down) depending on the scene.
• Damon Wayans is much too young to have served in Vietnam in Major Payne, and also would been at least a colonel by the mid 90s, if not retired.
• Rolling Thunder:
  • When Major Rane puts his Air Force uniform on, his U.S. lapel insignia not only are in the wrong location, but are the insignia used by enlisted personnel, not officers. Similarly, despite the character supposedly being a Vietnam War veteran, his uniform lacks the Vietnam Campaign Medal (an award given out to every single soldier who served in that war).
  • Master Sergeant Vohden's uniform has a Fifth Army patch on the right sleeve. A patch on the right sleeve indicates that the wearer served with that unit in combat during a previous war or campaign. The Fifth Army last served in battle during World War II. Vohden, as a returning Vietnam War veteran in 1973, would have been only a year or two old during World War II, if he had been born at all.
  • The hair of most of the military personnel shown in the film, including that of Major Rane and Master Sergeant Vohden, is too long for military standards.
• Iron Eagle II features rather rotund actor Maury Chaykin as a sarcastic, back-talking sergeant who wanders through the entire movie with his uniform unbuttoned, his hair uncombed (and too long for the military), and generally looking like a slob. However, the higher-ranking General who assembled the Ragtag Bunch of Misfits of which the sergeant was a member had handpicked them because he wanted their mission to fail.
• Pearl Harbor:
  • Rafe wears an Eagle Squadron badge, as do the Spitfires. The squadron code 'RF' is for No. 303 Squadron, which was a Polish unit - a very famous one at that. The only Hurricane seen in the film has the correct codes for an Eagle Squadron, 'XR-T' for No. 71 Squadron.
  • Rafe claims that he was assigned to an RAF Eagle Squadron prior to American involvement by order of Jimmy Doolittle, but he's lying. In reality, active duty personnel could not be assigned to serve with a belligerent nation while the US was neutral. They would have to resign their USAAF commission, swear allegiance to the British Crown, and enlist in the RAF (usually via Canada). The problem is why Danny believed this excuse.
  • The Doolittle Raiders scene is "how not to be the military".
• The Hunt for Red October:
  • Jones, the sonar technician, wears the "crow" of a Petty Officer but is addressed as "Seaman Jones" more than once. The proper forms of address would be either "Petty Officer Jones" or "Petty Officer" by those unfamiliar with his rate, or "STS2" by those who know, by rate being vastly more likely. Possibly "Jones" either by superiors or less formally.
  • The film and book depict the eponymous sub's "caterpillar" propulsion system as a revolutionary technological advance because it is much quieter than a traditional screw-propeller system. The problem is that the loudest thing on a nuclear submarine, and thus the one most likely to be picked by opposing passive sonar systems, is the reactor, and specifically the reactor's cooling system. The reactors on Soviet subs were particularly loud as compared to those on American subs. So it really wouldn't matter how quiet the Red October's propulsion system is: as long as it's being powered by a nuclear reactor, American subs would have been able to hear it. In Real Life, the real concern over stealthy (well, stealthier) submarines comes from an older technology: diesel-electrics. Since diesel-electric submarines only use their diesel motors when on the surface and rely solely on battery power, which is extremely quiet because there are no moving parts, when submerged, they are much stealthier than a nuclear submarine. They are also much slower when submerged and can only stay submerged for limited periods of time, which is why nuclear power has generally been considered a big advance.
  • The officers of a Russian sub would probably not walk around in parade uniform all the time. In fact, they certainly wouldn't: when the sub is deployed, the regulations require all personnel on the boat, both the officers and the ratings, to wear the same fatigues, distinguished only by their position pip on the left shirt pocket.
  • The whole reason for Ramius to be dissatisfied with the Soviet system is pretty dumb as well. While the Soviet brass was more dismissive of their personnel than their US counterparts, Ramius is not only a full captain (equivalent to an army colonel) and thus high-ranking anyway, but he is a nuclear submarine CO - a resource the Soviet military emphatically didn't have growing on trees, and thus they were treated much more carefully than more replaceable men in uniform. Another matter is that he simply wouldn't be approved for the position had his superiors had even the slightest doubt in his loyalty.
    • The book goes into better detail about Ramius' motives. While Ramius has irritated the Soviet Navy brass with criticisms of procedure to the point where he's unlikely to be promoted to admiral, his criticisms were all of operational matters, not politics, and Ramius himself preferred serving at sea anyway. Although secretly harboring some Lithuanian nationalist sentiment, he was at least outwardly completely loyal to the Party until his wife died from a drunken surgeon's mistakes and the doctor couldn't be prosecuted due to his Party connections which outweighed Ramius' own clout.
• In the film Below, the ghost story is set on a submarine and an incredible amount of artistic license is taken with how roomy the submarine is. Few movies can accurately portray how cramped, crowded, and claustrophobic a submarine is, but this particular submarine is shown to have fairly large rooms, multiple decks, and corridors wide enough for two people to walk comfortably side by side. This was mainly done to allow characters enough room to wander off by themselves so that spooky events could ensue, also its much easier to film in a wider space. Both modern and World War II era submarines are so cramped that all off duty personnel are usually expected to be in their racks so as to stay out of the way of the people on duty. Only the largest "boomers" could even try to approach having this much space.
  • For contrast watch Das Boot also on a WWII era submarine (Type VI Ic U-Boat in this case). The space is so cramped that officers having dinner are forced to stand up against the nearest bulkhead anytime someone needs to pass through.
• In An Officer and a Gentleman, officer candidates continually refer to Gunnery Sergeant Foley as "Sergeant". Navy OCS candidates refer to their Marine drill instructors as "Sergeant Instructor" (followed by proper rank and last name if referring to a specific instructor rather than the one yelling in your face). In addition, while the United States Army allows the use of "Sergeant" for any NCO from E-5 to E-8, Marine Corps etiquette insists on referring to non-commissioned officers by proper rank, and even though the Army doesn't require them to be called anything by sergeant, E-8s are often referred to as "Master Sergeant" anyway.
• A Few Good Men:
  • As he is leaving after questioning his client, Tom Cruise's Lt. Kaffee turns and says, "Whatever happened to saluting an officer when he leaves the room?" whereupon Dawson stands up and pointedly shoves his hands in his pockets. Great moment, great scene... except that Marines don't salute indoors, while Navy officers would not expect a salute indoors. (Specifically, in the Navy and USMC, covers (i.e. hats) are not to be worn indoors except for a few rare occasions...and in those branches, you are not supposed to salute without your cover. Therefore, there is a very small chance of saluting indoors for members of those branches of the US military.) Dawson does finally manage to salute Kaffee (again, indoors) at the end of the film. At this point, he is a prisoner whose sentence includes discharge from the service; such individuals are not permitted to salute or return a salute (though Dawson probably knows this and is breaking the rules out of respect).
  • The premise for the entire plot edges on the unfeasible, if only because the personnel details of a junior enlisted Marine would be so far below the pay grade of a full-bird colonel running an entire base that it wouldn't be worth his time and effort to get involved in them directly^note That's in fact why there's a chain of command: the colonel commands the lieutenant colonels, who command the captains, who command the lieutenants, who command the non-commissioned officers. It's straightforward delegation. Indeed, his insistence in getting involved in what should have been a very straightforward matter of discipline easily handled by subordinates is what ended up costing him his job and freedom.
  • Additionally, Lt. Kendrick admits on the stand that he had a subordinate punished by depriving him of food for a week. He's not the one on trial, so nothing happens to him. In reality, he would've been immediately arrested and, probably, drummed out for violating the UCMJ.
  • Crossing over with Artistic License – Law, there is no such charge as "conduct unbecoming a Marine". "Conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman" exists as UCMJ Article 133, but Kaffee's clients are enlisted Marines and can't be charged with it.
    • That one's a relatively minor mistake because Article 134 (ie. the "General Article") is often used in similar "catch-all" situations for enlisted personnel. Though the charge is usually phrased along the lines of "Bringing discredit to the service" or "Conduct prejudicial to good order and discipline".
  • The notion that the Cuban Revolutionary Army troops on the other side of the Guantanamo perimeter fence might take a potshot at Kaffee in his dress whites (as suggested by the Marine who takes him on a tour of the facility) borders on ridiculous: Cuba isn't stupid enough to pick a fight with the United States that way, especially not after the fall of the Soviet Union (the breakup happened during the film's production). Probably justified due to Colonel Jessup's General Ripper mentality towards the Cubans coming downstream, though: the fact he can't seem to accept that the Cold War is over is a major part of his motivation.
• Not that Hobgoblins was a bastion of reality in film, but Nick salutes his sergeant (who should know better than to wear his uniform at a strip club) at Club Scum. He also has insanely long hair for a soldier fresh out of basic training.
• Full Metal Jacket:
  • The Marines are shown saluting officers while in Vietnam. This is a big no-no. You do not salute officers in a war zone because it immediately identifies the officer to the enemy, making them a target. Another error: in the scene with Joker explaining his "Born to Kill" graffito, the officer initiates (just barely, but still) the salute. Wrong: the junior rank initiates the salute, always, in every branch. This was altered from the original novel (The Short-Timers by Gustav Hasford, himself a Vietnam veteran): Joker, being Joker, was saluting the officer in a combat zone on purpose - and when explicitly ordered to.
    "Corporal, don't you know how to execute a hand salute?"
    "Yes, sir." I salute. I hold the salute until the poge colonel snaps his hand to his starched barracks cover and I hold the salute for an extra couple of second before cutting it away sharply. Now the poge colonel has been identified as an officer to any enemy snipers in the area."
    • In reference to this, saluting in the field is known as a "Sniper Check", and lampshaded by saying it while doing it in an attempt to either discourage newer officers or hasten their replacement.
  • R. Lee Ermey, a former Drill Sergeant Nasty in Real Life, once said in an interview that a drill instructor would never be allowed to slap, choke or punch a recruit even in his days as a young Marine; any who did would be stripped of their command immediately. While it is true that training staff were likely to get physical back then, as opposed to only doing so to stop an immediate threat to the recruits as it is now, they were just quick jabs to grab a recruit's attention and nothing breaking or humiliating. His character was also much more verbally abusive than any drill instructor would ever be allowed to be.
  • Ermey's performance as Gunnery Sergeant Hartmann codified a lot of Drill Sergeant Nasty scenes in future media, which usually feature a single Drill Sgt yelling at recruits with no other staff in sight. In actuality, boot camp involves multiple training instructors hounding recruits and dividing tasks between them, with these usually being junior NCO ranks while the Senior Drill Sgt. only assigns punishments if a recruit really messes up or the infraction was done in front of them. The Junior NCO staffers meanwhile actually do most of the yelling and instruction, whilst in the movie they are rarely if ever seen, meaning that a scene where Hartmann is looking for who mouthed him off usually wouldn't happen as one of the Juniors walking around would have spotted it.^note Hartmann may have used the opportunity for a learning moment instead, since Joker did eventually own up to the joke. The Juniors are also the actual reason punishments in boot camp are harsh, since there are many of them walking around to look for every infraction.
  • In real life, Drill Sergeants are trained to spot signs of mental instability, and Pyle displayed plenty of signs. They would immediately judge unfit and force him out of training with a psychiatric discharge, as doing otherwise would lead to mental breakdowns and accidents that would negatively impact the rest of the training platoon.
  • Taking even a single round of ammunition, never mind an entire clip, from the firing range would be next to impossible. Live rounds are only given out at the range, and every round is accounted for: you will be given twenty rounds, and someone will stand by you and see that you load and fire twenty rounds. And then there's the continual inspections and searches down to the lint in your pockets: it's not just to teach them an eye for detail and adherence to rules, but also to make sure that recruits don't have anything they shouldn't. But then we wouldn't have the most iconic scene in the film, would we?
  • Like the above, being able to smuggle your weapon into the barracks and bringing it out at night is similarly unlikely in Boot Camp, especially in Boot Camp. Weapons are stored in the unit's Arms Room when they are not being used for operations, training, or maintenance and are only taken out for those purposes before being secured back in the Arms Room afterwards, with strict accountability of every single weapon. Hartmann of course ordered the entire platoon to take their weapons to bed with them each night, a highly unlikely occurence which for the above reasons could have gotten him court-martialed. Moreover, said iconic scene is explicitly after graduation, on their final night on Parris Island before going on to their secondary training, when all weapons would have been turned in and secured, so there is no way Pyle could have had his rifle.
• The Four Feathers: Well, a British campaign was fought in the Sudan in 1884. That's about all it gets right. Major points include: the British wore grey, not red, in the Sudan, the force sent was much larger and comprised several regiments, not just one, and the most egregious flaw, the Battle of Abu Klea was a British victory.
• Down Periscope:
  • There's plenty of stuff that has those actually familiar with the Real Life US Submarine Service laughing not only at the intentional comedy, but the unintentional variety as well. While some of the inaccuracies are due to writer ignorance, and some are due to Rule of Cool or convenience to the plot, some of the issues surrounding the USS Orlando can be chalked up to the film production staff not having access to classified USN information.
  • To say nothing of the fact that Nitro is apparently both the ship's electrician and a radio operator. In any Real Life Navy, they are separate rates. There is a radio operator seen, played by Patton Oswalt in his first film appearance.
  • While it's possible that the Stingray's initial crew might have been dredged up from whatever layabouts could be found to fill the necessary billets, however ineptly, for the purpose of a temporary exercise, it's ridiculously unlikely the entire same crew would be allowed to transfer to a completely new submarine with entirely new systems and protocols.
• Battleship abandons all attempts at nautical terminology from the start. Also, see Artistic License – Ships for all the ways the creators got warships wrong.
• In The Blue Max the costume design department perhaps attempted to show off their work - only to fail miserably, dressing each one German pilot into the uniform of the Prussian 1st Uhlan Regiment - which Manfred von Richthofen (a.k.a. The Red Baron) usually wore, but which was certainly not a general issue in the Imperial German Army Air Service (Luftstreitkräfte). Also, the German aircraft are depicted sporting the curve-sided crosses (cross pattée) insignia, which is incorrect for the period post-March 1918; also using armament without any ammo feed. Apparently Rule of Cool reigned supreme.
• Lord of War
  • The Soviet Union phased out the AKM ^note  The AK-47 was removed from service and replaced by the similar-but-improved AKM early in The '50s in 1974, replacing it with the similar-looking-yet-very-different AK-74, in 5.45x39mm. Further, Soviet troops (including Nicholas Cage's son Weston) in 1991 are shown using Norinco Type 56-1, Chinese copies of the AKMS, despite Soviet troops never using Chinese equipment, especially after the withdrawal of 7.62x39mm weapons from service, and Czech SA Vz. 58 rifles, in the background of the Ukrainian armory. The majority of rifles given to guerilla troops, however, are, in fact Soviet AKM rifles and East German AKMS rifles, as well as the occasional real, very rare AK-47.
  • Yuri tells Uncle Dimitri to flub his numbers so that instead of 40,000 AK-47s, he has 10,000 and thus is "severely depleted," needing to order more from the factory. Yuri says that this number is low for a battalion, which has only 500 riflemen, and so 10,000 assault rifles is a ridiculously high amount of guns. In addition, as a major general, Uncle Dimitri would be in command of a division, of which 10,000 AK-47s is a bit more understandable.
  • Uncle Demitri is repeatedly referred to as a Major General. His uniform has two stars, which is a Lieutenant General in the Soviet Army/post-Soviet Ukrainian Army.
• Under Siege probably has dozens upon dozens. One that would probably go unnoticed to most though is that it's stated Steven Segal's character lost his SEAL standing and clearance and only had the options of becoming (cross-rating) to Yeoman or a cook (Mess Management Specialist at the time). It's never stated what his source rate was (back then SEALS were one of 8 regular ratings), so assuming it was one that required a clearance (for instance, if he was a Boatswain's Mate, he could have stayed as one, but not a Photographer's Mate), he still couldn't become a Yeoman, as it requires a secret clearance.
• Captain America: The First Avenger:
  • Despite being awarded the Medal of Honor, Steve never wears the appropriate ribbon - possibly justified, since the USO arranged his exemption from the usual regulations regarding his uniform.
  • The various awards seen on Captain Rogers' uniform are described here. While most are plausible (or fictional) one inaccuracy stands out. Steve wears an American Defense Service Medal - an award specifically for those who were in active service prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor - despite the movie showing him enlisting long after the US entered the war. Note that this may have been deliberate on the part of the filmmakers, as in the comics Steve did enlist beforehand.
  • The campaign award that Steve is eligible for - the European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal - is missing from his uniform. Note that this is actually an aversion: while the award was authorized in 1942, the actual medal design was not finalized - and thus none were issued - until after the war.
  • Steve salutes Phillips and then lowers his hand without Phillips ever saluting him back. Military etiquette is that the junior salutes first but holds the salute until it is returned.
  • The way Peggy Carter publicly assaults a soldier would be completely unacceptable in real life, and all the more so when she is a foreigner. If General Patton didn't get away with beating on a GI scot-free, an SOE Agent certainly isn't going to. Never mind firing a gun at Cap, which would have her instantly court-martialed.
  • The Red Skull, when he was still a member of the Nazi Party, wears an Allgemeine SS uniform with SS-Obergruppenführer (3-star General rank) collar tabs, but a SS NCO peaked cap (black chinstrap, not the silver-braid chinstrap of officers) and no visible shoulder boards. This would be an unacceptable breach of uniform regulations and etiquette for a German officer, but given his attitude towards his fellow Nazis (which got him Reassigned to Antarctica), one assumes that he didn't give a damn whether his uniform was correct or not.
  • Two aversions, though: Steve addresses his drill sergeant as 'Sir' which is correct for that era in the US Army, and after pulling a Military Maverick maneuver he submits himself for military discipline. Of course, who's going to court-martial someone who single-handedly rescued 400 POWs?
  • Another case that would be anachronistic is justified: while military units were not fully racially integrated until 1948, Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos are shown to be a special case, since Steve has more than enough authority to demand these specific men be on his team, regardless of race.
  • Nazi officer Schneider is depicted wearing the SS' all-black uniform, which would've been phased out by the time the movie is set. Bizarrely, the other SS officers in the scene with Schneider are wearing the correct "feldgrau" (gray) uniforms of the era.
• The 2013 film Phantom, starring Ed Harris and David Duchovny, is mostly set inside a Soviet submarine. Duchovny's character is portrayed as a member of Osnaz, an allegedly radical faction within the KGB. Radical or not, this is a big factual error. Osnaz was a generic designation given to the special forces of the Soviet Police (Osnaz short for Osobogo Naznacheniya, meaning Special Forces), while the KGB had its own special forces, namely the Spetsnaz (short for Spetsiyalnogo Naznacheniya, meaning the same as the above).
  • Additionally, in the context of Moscow Centre, "Osnaz" has always referred (and still refers) to a specific unit, a SIGINT branch of GRU, that is, a military intelligence agency as opposed to KGB's civilian/political one. It's basically the Russian equivalent of No Such Agency, only with less domestic wiretapping (that'd be KGB/FSB turf).
• In Hulk, Bruce Banner is ambushed with a Tranquillizer Dart. Military soldiers do not actually use tranquilizer guns.
• In Hussar Ballad uniforms are historically accurate, except those were parade uniforms, not used in a real war. Rule of Cool, since the day-to-day uniforms looked much less nice.
• In The Dirty Dozen, Colonel Breed bullies his way into the Dozen's training camp and tries to coerce them into explaining their mission. Since he wasn't authorized to be in said camp or to know anything about their mission, this should have gotten him a long and uncomfortable interview with Intelligence while they figured out whether he was an enemy spy or just a pushy jerk with no respect for operational security and need-to-know. Instead, he remained in command of his unit, which held a critical role in a major exercise the following week.
  • During said exercise, the Dozen capture Breed by repeatedly ignoring the rules of the exercise. This would invalidate the exercise, definitely annoy all the brass who had arranged for the exercise only to have it ruined, and likely invalidate the terms of the challenge they had to complete in order to get their ultimate mission greenlit instead of scrubbed (and the Dozen returned to prison).
• In Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, a character is identified as "Colonel West" but wears the Starfleet naval insignia of a vice admiral. Fandom has understandably made hay out of this.
• The Spy Who Loved Me. A female undercover KGB agent sends a message via radio and ends with the phrase "Over and out" while awaiting a response. The male agent she's calling responds and also ends his message with "Over and out". That phrase is not actually used in real life radio communications. In real life, "out" is used to end a message transmission while the phrase or word used mid-transmission would be simply "over".
• The Action Prologue of The A-Team has a drug lord, a corrupt Mexican Army general, pursue the team from Mexico over the border into the US, whereupon an F-22 pastes the drug lord's helicopter with a missile. As mentioned in the description, they'd have needed the President's permission to pull that off: US planes are not permitted to launch over US soil without White House authorization, not to mention shooting down a Mexican Army general, corrupt or not, would be a major international incident (not an insurmountable one under the circumstances, but enough it probably wouldn't be done just on Hannibal Smith's whim).
• Superman: The Movie
  • While on duty, a Metropolis police officer uses the phrase "over and out" during official radio communication, which setting aside that the phrase isn't used in real life communications, certainly wouldn't be used by a police officer.
  • While talking on the radio with the Metropolis airport control tower, the pilot of Air Force One says "over and out".
  • A soldier in a U.S. Army convoy uses the phrase "over and out" during a radio call to another Army unit.
• Transformers, while actually letting the US military be effective against the Decepticons once they've adjusted (rather than leaning on Armies Are Useless), confuses some terminology. Cybertronians are shown to be vulnerable to thermal penetrators, specifically "105mm sabot rounds" which apparently ignite from magnesium (originally fired from the howitzer on an AC-130 gunship). Sabot rounds are kinetic penetrators: a sabot is a section of a cannon shell that falls away from the main body of the round in flight to enable a narrower round to be fired from the same barrel, such as with the armor-piercing shells on modern tanks.
• Jaws. While talking on the radio with Mrs. Brody, Quint (a former U.S. Navy sailor) ends the call by saying "over and out".
• Inglourious Basterds:: The "Gestapo major" who cottons to the Basterds' roleplay in the basement bar is all wrong on multiple counts: Gestapo agents were plainclothes secret policemen who seldom wore uniforms; the black SS uniform he is wearing was obsolete by 1944; and he is addressed as "Herr Sturmbahnfuhrer" - not only would he use the police rank Kriminalrat or "Criminal Detective", not an SS rank, but prefixing "Herr" to his rank was a German Army practice which was strictly forbidden in the SS on Himmler's orders.
• X-Men: Apocalypse has the scene where all the nuclear weapons are launched into orbit, which while impressive-looking◊, goes against all of the real military plans, as missile silos are very spread apart◊ in order to maximize the number of targets required for a counterforce strike.
• The Imitation Game, set in World War II, has a sequence where the protagonists discover the Enigma code right before a planned German raid on British forces. Alan immediately decides that they can't let anyone know about this - as the Germans will know they've broken the code and therefore change it - and thus lets the raid go ahead for Rule of Drama. In such a situation, these low ranking code breakers would not make a decision like that - and it would be made by their superiors. Unsurprisingly it didn't happen in real life: this was inspired by a real-world conspiracy theory about the German air raid on Coventry, England.
• Stop-Loss:
  • The epilogue shows Rico and Steve's brothers among the soldiers heading back to Iraq. The epilogue can't be set more than a month later, so the brothers should still be in boot camp (they hadn't even enlisted when Brandon and Steve return home at the start).
  • When Brandon visits Rico, the latter calls him 'sir'. Brandon is only a Staff Sergeant and would not be called sir, which is reserved for actual officers.
  • Tommy is shown being given a funeral with full military honors, despite being dishonorably discharged before his suicide.
• Discussed Trope in Apt Pupil. Dussander points out that the replica uniform Todd got him is incorrect. He held the SS rank of Sturmbahnführer (major) but the insignia designate him to be an Obersturmbannführer (lieutenant-colonel).
  Dussander: I see I've been promoted.
• Suicide Squad (2016)
  • Waller brags to a room full of military men that she's compromised Flag to control him. In reality, this would get them both pulled from duty, and would likely have led to charges against Waller.
• G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra:
  • When Duke's convoy is attacked at the start, the soldiers stand in line to meet the attackers, rather than look for cover and concealment and return fire from behind trees, disabled vehicles etc.
  • Duke is called a Captain, but is shown wearing shoulder boards of a Major in flashbacks.
  • Rex's hair is far too long in flashbacks to him as a soldier, being long enough to slick back in a combover, and sticks out next to Duke and Ripcord's accurate crew cuts. Even then, Duke and Ripcord are shown with goatees at a formal event, when grooming regulations state everyone needs to be clean shaven.
  • The Joes meanwhile can be hand waved as being subject to different regulations as a secret organisation, which presumably is why Ripcord can flirt and share a kiss with Scarlett without reprimand for fraternization or Scarlett and Cover Girl can appear in uniform with their hair down.
• Airplane!
  • Ted Striker says that he was in the Air Force, but the flashback in the Magumba bar in Drambuie has him wearing a US Navy dress uniform (and soldiers aren't supposed to wear their dress uniforms in bars anyway). Of course, had he been wearing the dark blue USAF dress uniform, the subsequent Saturday Night Fever joke wouldn't have worked. He later shows up in an Army hospital, although that could've been justified if he was in WWII, in which he would've been part of the US Army Air Corps, but he's too young^note Zero Hour!, the movie that Airplane! is a parody of, was made in the 1950s, and the Ted in that movie did explicitly serve as a pilot in WWII, and they didn't have disco back then...
  • While co-pilot Roger Murdock (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) is on the radio to flight controllers, he says "over and out".

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