This is a notorious show that came to the British publics attention with one episode that featured The Taliban versus the IRA . Many people thought it was some sort of urban myth but no - it's a real show and what the point of it is I have no idea because as history it fails and it often goes beyond even car crash TV style entertainment
The show revolves around a bunch of experts but they're not really experts . The Taliban/IRA episode features " IRA descendant and historian " Skoti Collins who if you look up his CV on this site will find that he's not a historian he is a professional actor . Maybe he's playing a historian ? Actually the show could do with a historian since it states " The IRA lost the war of independence in 1920 " Hmmm so how did the Irish Free State / Republic Of Ireland come in to being then ? We get to see reconstructions of IRA operations against the British army and you're left in no doubt that the provisional IRA seen here are no different from the IRA of the Anglo-Irish war of 1920 . The IRA wear a uniform and confine their campaign to military targets so there's no scenes of civilians being murdered because they're protestants or suspected informers . . Team Taliban are just as badly inaccurate since they're represented by an Afghan actor who supposedly fought the Soviets in his youth . I don't doubt Fahim Fazil did this . What I do doubt is that he qualifies as former Taliban because he's even described as " Mujuhideen Freedom Fighter " which you read even the most basic history book on Afghanistan you'll learn the Muj and the Talibs are two entirely separate organizations . Eventually in a scenario the IRA beat the Taliban in a battle that many people would find offensive if it wasn't so laugh out loud funny . Strangely in a later show the IRA are beaten by the Spetnatz . Can anyone notice a gap in logic to this ? If the Afghans beat the Soviets and the Afghans lost to the IRA what's the chances the IRA would lose to the Spetnatz ?
The other episodes are somewhat tame compared to this debacle . We see Braveheart vs Chaka Zulu with the two teams throwing insults like " Your grass skirt won't save you Zulu " and " Ah'm gonna have a Scottish barbecue " along with dubious facts that " The Scottish claymore was a long range weapon " ! Long range as in five feet is a long way away ? We see the Waffen SS take on the Viet Cong . Strangely stringing up civilians with piano wire and shooting POWs don't feature too heavily in the information given for the SS . And there's a ridiculous anachronism saying that " If you had fillings you weren't allowed to join the SS and had to show you were of Aryan stock . This is true when it was recruiting in the 1930s - not when it was fighting in the 1940s . In fact the Waffen SS happily recruited Slavs from the Balkans like the 13th and 14th Waffen SS divisions . Likewise the show describes the punji stick as deadly but there's no documented case of an American soldier being killed by a punji stick
My abiding opinion of this show is that it's like " MYTHBUSTERS on acid " Some dubious enjoyment might be had on seeing what the weapons can do but since the rest of the show doesn't care one ounce for any sort of research or accuracy how does the audience know that the stage explosions etc are in any way accurate . Certainly the show's major failing is that it's very , very poor history indeed and I would hate it if anyone watching it thought any information put out was worth listening to
The show revolves around a bunch of experts but they're not really experts . The Taliban/IRA episode features " IRA descendant and historian " Skoti Collins who if you look up his CV on this site will find that he's not a historian he is a professional actor . Maybe he's playing a historian ? Actually the show could do with a historian since it states " The IRA lost the war of independence in 1920 " Hmmm so how did the Irish Free State / Republic Of Ireland come in to being then ? We get to see reconstructions of IRA operations against the British army and you're left in no doubt that the provisional IRA seen here are no different from the IRA of the Anglo-Irish war of 1920 . The IRA wear a uniform and confine their campaign to military targets so there's no scenes of civilians being murdered because they're protestants or suspected informers . . Team Taliban are just as badly inaccurate since they're represented by an Afghan actor who supposedly fought the Soviets in his youth . I don't doubt Fahim Fazil did this . What I do doubt is that he qualifies as former Taliban because he's even described as " Mujuhideen Freedom Fighter " which you read even the most basic history book on Afghanistan you'll learn the Muj and the Talibs are two entirely separate organizations . Eventually in a scenario the IRA beat the Taliban in a battle that many people would find offensive if it wasn't so laugh out loud funny . Strangely in a later show the IRA are beaten by the Spetnatz . Can anyone notice a gap in logic to this ? If the Afghans beat the Soviets and the Afghans lost to the IRA what's the chances the IRA would lose to the Spetnatz ?
The other episodes are somewhat tame compared to this debacle . We see Braveheart vs Chaka Zulu with the two teams throwing insults like " Your grass skirt won't save you Zulu " and " Ah'm gonna have a Scottish barbecue " along with dubious facts that " The Scottish claymore was a long range weapon " ! Long range as in five feet is a long way away ? We see the Waffen SS take on the Viet Cong . Strangely stringing up civilians with piano wire and shooting POWs don't feature too heavily in the information given for the SS . And there's a ridiculous anachronism saying that " If you had fillings you weren't allowed to join the SS and had to show you were of Aryan stock . This is true when it was recruiting in the 1930s - not when it was fighting in the 1940s . In fact the Waffen SS happily recruited Slavs from the Balkans like the 13th and 14th Waffen SS divisions . Likewise the show describes the punji stick as deadly but there's no documented case of an American soldier being killed by a punji stick
My abiding opinion of this show is that it's like " MYTHBUSTERS on acid " Some dubious enjoyment might be had on seeing what the weapons can do but since the rest of the show doesn't care one ounce for any sort of research or accuracy how does the audience know that the stage explosions etc are in any way accurate . Certainly the show's major failing is that it's very , very poor history indeed and I would hate it if anyone watching it thought any information put out was worth listening to