History Channel’s “Never Surrender” Document Sponsored by Wargaming

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Thanks to Daigensui for this one.

Hello everyone,

those, who like to read about history – seriously, I mean – know of the poor repuation of History Channel, when it comes to real historicity. It is thus no surprise to find out that the History Channel’s “Never Surrender: The World Wars” show, that tries to appear “historical”, is sponsored by Wargaming.

And here’s a trailer for the series. It starts innocent enough, but just wait…

 

 

Why the fuck is there a World of Tanks footage in a historical show trailer? Why are there completely unrelated vehicles? Gosh… no wonder History Channel has such a poor reputation.

79 thoughts on “History Channel’s “Never Surrender” Document Sponsored by Wargaming”

  2. LOL, the “History” channel is using WoT footage of a post war British arty to cover WWII? What’s next, saying that Hilter was actually an alien? Lolz!

      • Um….no.

        It looks like a game and it sounds like a game.

        Honestly, when will WT fanbois realise their kool-aid is not that special?

          • WT models on their own does look more realistic in their environment. I am kind of hoping the new WG environment render update will fix this… With better looking environment and HD models it’s gonna be awesome looking :-)

              • Or WG gets multithreading to work so that those ‘calculators’ would stll be able yo run it……

                Always the fault of the playerbase aint it?

                • I am not blaming the player base but acknowledging a market reality. WG always claim that the computers in Russia are not that powerful and that Russia is their largest, and thus main, market. So for WG Bigworld works where CryEngine would probably flop due to minimum requirements.

    • They actually used gameplay footage form Medieval: Total War back when the 2nd game came to tell stories about battles that took place 1000+ years ago. They even had that lame series where teams of 2 compete to reenact real historical battles using that game. This even before the game was released. As it was cheaper and better at the time then CGI battles. So this is not the first time I’ve seen them do this.

      • IIRC that was actually quite a good show – for the most part. The battles, terrain, composition of units etc were set to match historic record.

        WOT can’t even get battles with historic vehicles right.

    • Funny thing is, they show a modern day Arleigh-burke class destroyer (or Aegis-class, not sure) when talking about the Japanese World War 2 navy. That and the fact they had T-54s representing tanks of WW2. That show could’ve been awesome, but alas, it was ruined by such terrible historical accuracy like this.

  5. Well, it is just the trailer. I think it is reasonable to assume they used relevant vehicle models to recreate historical encounters (e.g. a Tiger rather than some OP imaginary tank to redo Wittman’s Villers-Bocage action etc.).

    My beef is with the quality of the recreation – it looks about as bad as WoT does on my (very old) computer. WG’s trailers usually look much better so why can’t HC folks get the same (WG’s) rendering quality and details/textures ?

      • In France, we had a documentary about the Revolution.
        They used Assassin’s Creed Unity for the pictures of the old Paris.
        Even if it’s a game, I think it was a good idea because :
        - It’s cheaper than creating the old Paris by themself
        - Players can be more interested by the documentary when seeing this

        • The difference here is the recreations of the cities in the AC series are actually pretty good and to top it off, fairly good recreations of those cities, even if they’re not exact when it comes to the small details.

      • I take you haven’t seen National Geographic Channel’s “WWII’s Greatest Raids” ? :-)

        They are re-airing same 2 or 3 episodes (D-day landings, some offensive in Italy, possibly around Monte Casino, and something else which I can’t be bothered to remember) every single day … Check that thing out – using WoT footage to recreate actual encounters will make much more sense ;-)

      • I don’t know what channel it was, but I remembering seeing Rome Total War(The first one) in TV recreating some ancient battles.

      • I suppose they will make use of WoT footage within the show as well – as they do with 3D simulation in other shows to e.g. display the concept of medieval weapons…

        Or it may be found footage ;)

        Or just Bert making a photobomb…

      • Like I said above. Not the first time. Medieval: Total War was the first game they used for it, even before the game was released. They used the tech to show battles for one of their shows that tells the story about wars fought 1000+ years ago.

  7. The History Channel in the Netherlands litteraly only broadcasts storage wars type shit. Only on sunday night they have one history related documentary. Its ridicoulous! I prefer aliens and shit over the constant barrage of Storage Wars.

  8. Only Americans think History Channel is accurate. Seriously, they believe everything they see on TV.

  10. Ok, I have watched “The World Wars” documentary series in full and it’s a pretty good for a documentary, especially their potrayal of the historical figures like Patton, Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin (a very good likeness for the actor I might add), but this series had one gripe that I can’t let go of.

    Apparently, during World War I, the tanks that were used were M3 Stuarts. Just let that sink in. When it came time for them to discuss the appearance of tanks during World War I, they used M3 STUARTS. A WWII Light Tank in a WWI battlefield. On top of that, during WWII the Americans used M48 Pattons… at that point… dafuq. These were just the ones I spotted, there were probably more that I didn’t. Granted, they did not specifically name these tanks or said that an M3 Stuart was the tank used during WWI, they just said that tanks were used during WWI, without stating the type of tank used.

    But still, I wonder what it would have cost them to make a model of WWI tanks or rent an M4 Sherman for the WWII sequences instead of using completely unhistorical and unrealistic tanks that were COMPLETELY out of their timezone.

    For a WoT player like me, who has taken time to learn about the history of these tanks, I know that it’s not supposed to be there. But to those uninformed, they might see an M3 Stuart and say… “hey, I saw that in a documentary, it fought in WWI”, it kinda beats the purpose of educating, no?

    • I gave up on that show after they said Gallipoli was to get troops to russia, and completly ignored the fact that the Ottoman Empire was a major country in the war.

      • Russia,IMO,created a far better documentary. “The Great War”,I think that was the English translation of it.Apart from the cheesy narrator voice and SLIGHT Soviet bias,it’s not “T-34 won war glory to stalin”.

        EDIT:Yes,it is called “The Great War”.

  11. Why on earth would you have an actor repeat Churchill’s speech? There are recordings of it, guess they think Churchill’s voice is too dull or something…

    • I think it might be perhaps they are trying to re-enact some churchill episodes in the show where they are using that same actor… Honestly I couldn’t see the difference in the short moment I watched the trailer anyway

  12. History Channel is fucking with its’ own American dick since years ago, no wonder why there’s always something about USA… Pawn shops, retarded wannabe Patton cosplayers, and some DOGFIGHTS!

    Fuck… It should be destroyed, just like WG, EA, and Activision.

  14. ——————insert random tank game footage here——————————–

    did the series soviet storm – war in the east (which i really enjoyed btw) use wargaming footage for some of its tank stuff?

  15. In the USA, the History Channels is called the “Hitler” Channel by my friends. Why?, because they must have shown a 360 view of what Hitler crapped out of his pants either the day he died or when he took over Germany. The History Channel is a whore for merchandising. Their magazine is 90% full of adds. They have no originality in producing history on TV. They are a true oxy moron.

  17. at least its not Pawn Stars, or something to do with aliens… I sure miss the old days when they made ACTUAL documentaries and not bullshit like these

  18. Lost it at FV304 and the shitty T2 cancer, surely they could at least have used Bishop or Sexton which, you know, are in the game aswell ?

  19. is this even true?
    i mean come on, we know wargaming is stupid, but really, this stupid?

  20. They should’ve used War Thunder if they were going for cinematics. And what’s with the obviously fake, replica of a StuG on an FV432 chassis at 0:19?

    This has to be one of the worst commercials I have ever seen. “History includes fake tanks never used in WW2 like Bert!”

    “But wait, Bert was in WW2! He was a rogue soldier that killed many whining campers! He did eventually get killed when his team had a 1% win chance, and a scout bum rushed him.”

    rest in PL Bert. I cri evrytiem.

    • About that StuG replica. Many shows like this use reenacted scenes. It’s called “dramatisation” i believe. I think there aren’t many actual StuGs that can move so replica (which is quite accurate btw) is a viable choice and doesn’t hurt “historical accuracy” in my opinion. I don’t see people complaining about actors portraying historical figures in documentaries.

      • I admit i made an assumption here. I saw a glimpse of boxy superstructure and remembered another video where StuG III replicas based on FV chassis was featured. And i swiftly assumed it was in this video too.

        Now that i think of it, i believe Panzer III replicas are built on FV chassis too.

    • LOL that nickname is the best ive seen for the WT man (y)
      we normally use “swaffeltraktor” but WTF is better i guess :P

  25. Watched these when they aired a few months back and they aren’t terrible. Fair amount of dumb shit that they got wrong when they could have avoided it but it isn’t like it’s a commercial for WoT or something. Like, there is literally no use of WoT in the three episodes, it’s just some shit they did for the commercial.

  26. So this is what they do for all the kids money? Work on the freaking game and not awful shit like that. Sry, now I have to go and puke