moonrazer-487-184393 Review of The Rat Patrol

The Rat Patrol (1966–1968)

I'm still working through issues this show gave me.

[10/10 · 1 January 2014]

As a child I couldn't wait for the Rat Patrol to come on each week. I think this was ABC Tuesday night at 8:30pm. It was awesome, a couple jeeps would come across a sand dune in the air and then proceed to destroy a heavily armed German convoy and disappear into the desert unscathed. There was nothing else like it. Sgt Troy obviously took his tactical training at the General Robert E Lee school of small unit tactics. Never has a commander since Lee been able to divide a smaller force in the face of larger force and achieve as much success. The General would be proud. As a kid I had no idea that wasn't how a unit like this would operate. When I got to ROTC in college, I often found myself asking "what would Sgt Troy do in this situation". Sometimes those antics worked not because they were sound tactics but because the opposing force would never think anyone be that stupid to try them. The show was a half hour so serious character development was out. It was a good thing everyone had a different hat so it was easy to see who was who. The Germans were pretty generic, except for Capt Detrich, who was a man of honor but one has to wonder how long he would keep his command and life given all the setbacks the Rat Patrol gave him. My wife finds the whole dynamic rather cartoonish and has given the good captain the honorary radio call sign of "Coyote" in reference to the Roadrunner and Coyote cartoons when he calls his minions to arms against a Rat raid. For me the jeeps were the stars of that show and thus the biggest issue. Enzo Ferrari is reported to have said that the jeep was the only sports car ever made in America. The image of an airborne Willys at the show's opening is permanently etched into my mind. As an adult when I got a chance to look at some of the shows I began to see some problems. Like the person standing in the back of the jeep may not be real or if he is, he has rubber arms. Other times they show a reverse image with the jeep being right hand drive. This summer I became a proud WW II Willys MB jeep owner (still working through those issues) and after some work getting it road worthy (the first test drive was done humming the Rat Patrol theme) I not sure this vehicle is capable of a jump like this in with a sand unless it was getting full traction like on hard dirt or a ramp. Anyway trips in the jeep are referred to as raids, like the "Get the Christmas Tree Raid" or the "Drive down to the Subdivision Pool Raid". These are all done with the windshield down in all but the coldest weather. Anyway I'm digressing. I have a WW II veteran friend who was assigned a Willys with a .50 caliber mounted on it. He used the machine gun on the beach at Normandy during a Luftwaffe attack and said that this was lot of gun for that small of a platform and it's wonder that he didn't cause some friendly fire casualties during the event. Of course this flies in the face of the precise marksmanship Troy and Moffitt were able to achieve. If you want realism,sleep through a documentary on the History Channel, if you want entertainment then look no further.