Goofs

During the film, and especially the mission to infiltrate the German supply dump, none of the commandos, including Major Mallory can understand German. This is especially clear when Leskovar insists he must accompany the team to the dump as only he speaks German and, later, when the team is discussing Leskovar's encounter with the German Sergeant in the train car. All of this ignores the fact that this film is a sequel to "The Guns of Navarone" in which Mallory is specifically chosen for the mission because he speaks "German like a German." Alistair MacLean's original stories also support this fact.

When the German half-track is attacked and the standing officer is beheaded by a wire, it is absolutely not clear why the driver drove the half-track into the forest and why the driver and the other soldiers are dead. Nobody shot them...

Continuity with "The Guns of Navarone": Mallory and Miller are shown at the beginning of this film being picked up by the Royal Navy ships passing Navarone. In that scene, they are wearing German uniform jackets. They discarded those jackets whilst they were in the gun cave at the end of "The Guns of Navarone".

When the team's Lancaster is under attack by German fighters, there is a brief closeup shot of the fighter's machine guns firing. Those machine guns were arranged in a configuration (the same configuration as the Hawker Hurricane, four side by side) that no German fighter ever had during the war. The ME109 carried several guns and cannons in various configurations during the war, but never as depicted in the movie.

When Force 10 is taken to the "partisan" camp and the so-called "partisans" reveal themselves to be Chetniks (German allies), they turn their caps around to hide the communist red stars they were wearing as a disguise to reveal their Chetnik insignia, including the group who met Force 10 initially. However, none of those Chetniks had any insignia on the backs of their caps at the first rendezvous.

The first screen shot after the initial briefing is of a sign, Termoli Air Base, identifying two separate commands who occupy it. One is HQ 462 Sqdn RAF, the other HQ 17 Corp USAF. The United States Air Force did not exist until after the war, in 1947. Prior to that, it was the United States Army Air Force, (USAAF), a division of the US Army.

A power plant (turbines) is never on the top of a dam.

Whilst stealing explosives from the railway yard, the team jump into a railway carriage that is not only from the UK, but is from the UK Ministry of Defence. One of the carriages has the the abbreviation PSTO(N) written on it. These are British Ministry of Defence (MOD) carriages, used in MOD Armament Depots, specifically the Navy. PSTO(N) stands for Principle Supply and Transport Officer (Navy).

A German soldier is seen shooting a Mauser rifle with the bolt handle on the left side of the rifle. All Mauser military rifles had the bolt handle on the right side, which would indicate that the film had been reversed.

A power plant (turbines) is not on the top of a dam.

Very obvious mannequin/dummy used for the decapitation scene.

Shortly after parachuting into Yugoslavia, Barnsby notes that the men should continue "moving east" to reach their objective. Yet as they move, the sun is to their left. If the men are moving east, that would mean that the sun is to the north of them, which would be impossible.

When Mallory is removing his harness after the parachute drop, he quite obviously has a wooden filler in his flap holster rather than a real pistol. In the next few scenes, when he and Barnsby are gathering the troop, he has nothing in his holster at all.

When all the soldiers are in the transport aircraft, Carl Weathers is the only one showing signs of air turbulence.

As a speaker of Russian, it bothers me when I see "speaking in Russian" on the screen but they are not. I don't know if there was real Russian and they just didn't pronounce it well, or they just wanted "Slavicesque sound bits". In any case, Russian - neyt.

When Barnsby checks his watch, it is a Hamilton watch which were American made watches for US military personnel, however the dial says "Swiss" indicating it was made in Switzerland. Hamilton did not relocate to Switzerland from the USA until 1969 some 25 years after WW2.

When the goods train is shunting in the yard, it consists of wagons (open) and vans (closed), clearly of British outline; one vehicle has a number panel from 1970's British Rail. After the saboteurs are carried away in this train, it is seen to emerge from a tunnel, consisting of an electric locomotive (see elsewhere: anachronism), pulling only a train of continental outline vans.

At the beginning, when Mallory and Miller are being briefed, we see a map with the Post-War Flag of Yugoslavia displayed on it.

Near the end of the movie, an orange electric locomotive is visible. The model, Yugoslav railways class 441, was not manufactured until the 1960s.

The Railway from Mostar to Sarajewo is shown to be a electrified normal gauge line (1425 mm). During the Second World War it was still in Bosnian gauge (760 mm) partly with a rack for the steep sections.

When the team's Lancaster is under attack by German fighters, there is a brief closeup shot of Harrison Ford in the pilot's seat of the cockpit. Outside the windows of the plane, you can clearly see bushes as though the plane being used for the shot is in a scrap yard.

A huge man like Capt. Drazak would never command a cavalry company; his weight would be too great for any horse to carry for long.

Near the beginning, Jensen introduces Barnsby to Mallory and Miller--three characters retained from the original "Guns"--and they all act like they're meeting for the first time. This behavior continues throughout the film. Correction: While they share the same last name, the Barnsby in this film is not intended to be the same character as in the first film. Harrison Ford portrays an American Major in command of a commando unit. The character portrayed by Richard Harris in the original film was a British Squadron Commander.

Around 22 minutes in, after Weaver kills the German about to shoot Miller hung up in a tree, and Col. Barnsby tells Weaver to call Reynolds and himself, "Sir", not "man", Barnsby then gives orders to form up his team to evade the German patrol. He orders Sgt. Weaver to bring up the rear. But Barnsby has just met Weaver and Weaver is not wearing a name on his uniform nor any insignia, so there would be no way for Barnsby to know Weaver's name or rank.

After Col. Barnsby shoots the two partisans while Maj. Mallory plays dead, Mallory picks up the the rifle of the dead partisan next to him, but they fail to trek to the other dead partisan to take his rifle. Considering that Barnsby and Mallory are in hostile territory, with only one rifle and one pistol between them, it is extremely foolish of them not to seize any additional weapons to defend themselves.

In the initial briefing, Lieutenant Colonel Barnsby (Harrison Ford) is wearing his ribbon bars upside-down.

When Mallory and Barnsby return to the Chetnik camp to free their comrades, Mallory addresses Schroeder's clerk as Sergeant. The clerk is wearing corporal's chevrons. Sergeants in the German army in WWII wore their rank insignia on their shoulder tabs.

When Drazak is beating Maritza he speaks English to her despite they are alone. Instead of English he could speak Croatian or Serbian to her which are mutually intelligible languages.