Dogfights - The Complete Season One (History Channel)

List Price: $49.95 Discount Price: $24.12

Customer Reviews:

Worth it for the Taffy-3 Episode alone [Posted on 2008-10-27]
I caught the original "pilot" for this show on the History Channel in Fall of 2006 and absolutely loved it. Apparently I wasn't alone as many other viewers were so impressed that the History Channel made it into a full-fledged series. I have an intense love of military aircraft, and in particular anything having to do with WW2 air combat. In high school my friends had posters of their favorite bands hanging on the walls. I had posters of B-17's and Ju-87 Stukas. This, coupled with a sizable collection of flight sims and plastic aircraft models makes me a prime audience target for this program.

Dogfights uses state of the art CG graphics to recreate some of the great dogfights in history, covering all eras from WW1 up to the Gulf War. There seems to be a heavy emphasis on Vietnam and WW2 era dogfights in particular, and that may irk some folks, but really this is where the vast majority of such action took place and the show reflects this. In addition to this are two episodes largely relating to sea battles, specifically the hunt for the German battleship Bismarck, and the fantastic episode on Taffy 3 (a handful of US Destroyers and Destroyer Escorts taking on a greater force of Japanese cruisers and battleships, including the Yamato, and *winning*). Honorable mention goes to the episode on the Cactus Air Force flying F4F Wildcats, and the awesome episode "Long Odds" featuring extremely mismatched dogfights between Swede Vejtasa in an SBD facing off against 3 Japanese Zeroes, a very unique tale about a B-17 named "Ol' 666", and a dogfight between Mig-17's and the venerable F-105 "Thud".

The program typically covers certain pilots' exploits. These pilots are interviewed throughout the show describing how the dogfight unfolded, as well as interviews with flight instructors and historians. Starting forces are shown as well as side by side comparisons of the aircraft involved, marking their strengths and weaknesses. The WW2 episodes appear to be primarily based in the Pacific Theater, and the only WW1 episode is more or less of a portion of the series pilot. This too may get under some folks' skin, but I love this show in any way I can get it and I think it's safe to say most of the other posters here agree.

There is some controversy surrounding the show's noticeable highlighting of US and Israeli pilots. In truth I think the show would gain much by doing a 2 hour special on the Battle of Britain, but remember that this show was primarily intended for a US audience and thus the producers were trying to cater to this demographic. There were some episodes done from the Japanese and German perspectives in Season 2, but not much else, and as I said this will irk a few folks. There's a number of things I'd love to see the show do programs on;

-The aforementioned Battle of Britain
-Pearl Harbor
-Anything on the WW2 Russian Front (who doesn't want to see some I-16's zipping around?)
-The Nigerian Civil War where the newborn nation of Biafra's tiny mercenary air force took the larger nation's modernized Air Force to task using homemade fighter planes
-A whole episode on Hans-Ulrich Rudel's exploits in his famed Stuka (there's enough there to do a 2 hour special, at the very least!).

There's some uncertainty about the future of the show and rumors of cancellation, which makes a number of us fans a little bit uneasy. There's practically nowhere else we can go to get this kind of programming and that worries me and a lot of others. The bottom line though is that you cannot find a better program of this type anywhere and cannot recommend buying this series on DVD enough. You will not be disappointed!

Superb ! [Posted on 2008-11-02]
Fabulously produced series. Great Value for Money. Worth every valuable cent you can find these days.

Kudos to the team. Highlight for me was interviews with the pilots and aces ... the Israeli - Jordanian dog fight was a classic - the pilot acknowledging that (and, I am paraphrasing here) .. "even though we are sworn enemies, as pilot to pilot, I really wished he had lived".

I was never into battles etc, but this is a must see. Warning :: It's highly addictive !

Very inexpensive for what it offers.

SUGGESTION :: I bought Dogfights Vol 1 and Vol 2 and saved a bunch of money :) Don't buy them together -- buy them separately. And with free shipping, you've got yourself a deal !

This is a great series, well worth the money [Posted on 2008-11-25]
This series of videos is great, now i just have to get season 2, The sound quality is just as good as on TV, and likewise for the picture quality. I'm glad i got this, because not only can you see the entire season 1, but in this they include bonus "dogfights", some of which were not shown on TV before this came out on DVD, so this is worth the money if you are interested in dogfighting, and WW1 and WW2 era aircraft.

Awesome product! [Posted on 2009-01-06]
This DVD set was bought for my boyfriend who is in the military and had seen the show on TV. He talked about it all the time. Now that he has it he raves about it even more. He couldn't be any happier. He say's it's one of the best military documentary videos he's seen. I even enjoy watching it because it explains and shows diagrams very well so even I understand what they are talking about. He can't wait to purchase season 2. Thanks so much!

'Dogfights' [Posted on 2009-01-06]
'Dogfights, season 1' is a very good animated documentary on air battles of WWI, WWII, Korean War, Vietnam War and the Israeli Six Day War. I enjoy sticking a CD in and reliving the air battles that turned the tide of war.
With interviews from pilots themselves. It even has a battleship vs. battleship and aircraft carrier battle, ('Death of the Japanese Navy'), and an airplane vs. battleship battle, ('Hunt for the Bismarck'). I also have season 2, and am waiting for season 3.
'Experience the battles, dissect the tactics, relive the air battles of...'

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