History Series / BandOfBrothers

''Band of Brothers'' is a 2001 American war miniseries, initially aired on {{Creator/HBO}} in ten one-hour episodes.

* PetTheDog: In "Replacements," the company passes one of the Dutch women (holding a baby) who has been exiled for sleeping with the Germans. Despite the fact it has been made clear to them that such women were (somewhat) traitors, everyone gives her looks of pity and sympathy. One of the men even gives her a K-Ration as they pass.

A SpiritualSuccessor to ''Film/SavingPrivateRyan'', it follows the men of Easy Company, 506th regiment of the American 101st Airborne Division. Starting with their training in 1942 to the end of UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, it follows the same unit through D-Day, the battle of Carentan, Operation Market Garden, the Battle of the Bulge, the discovery of the Concentration Camps, the capture of Hitler's Eagle's Nest and finally the end of the war. ''Band of Brothers'' is almost universally acclaimed for its (often painfully) accurate recreation of war, and for examining the relationships between soldiers in an elite, all-volunteer unit. Just about every part of the series is spot on, and the actors look very much like the men they portray.

''Band of Brothers'' is a 2001 mini-series, initially aired on {{Creator/HBO}} in ten one-hour episodes. It follows the men of Easy Company, 506th regiment of the American 101st Airborne Division. Starting with their training in 1942 to the end of UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, it follows the same unit through D-Day, the battle of Carentan, Operation Market Garden, the Battle of the Bulge, the discovery of the Concentration Camps, the capture of Hitler's Eagle's Nest and finally the end of the war. ''Band of Brothers'' is almost universally acclaimed for its (often painfully) accurate recreation of war, and for examining the relationships between soldiers in an elite, all-volunteer unit. Just about every part of the series is spot on, and the actors look very much like the men they portray.

Now has a [[Characters/{{BandOfBrothers}} character page]] for its characters.

Since ''Band of Brothers'' is mostly based on historical and personal recollections of these soldiers, almost all of the tropes below are automatically an example of TruthInTelevision.

A Pacific Front version of this series, called ''Series/ThePacific'' premiered in March 2010. The 2013 German miniseries ''Series/UnsereMuetterUnsereVaeter'' is similar, focusing on the Eastern Front, in addition to wartime civilian life in Berlin and the resistance in Poland. And a miniseries based on the Eighth Air Force, called ''[[Series/MastersOfTheAir Masters of the Air]]'', is set to premier on Creator/AppleTVPlus in January 2024.

'''Note''': This is about the {{miniseries}}. For the trope, see Main/BandOfBrothers.

A Pacific Front version of this series, called ''Series/ThePacific'' premiered in March 2010. The 2013 German miniseries ''Series/UnsereMuetterUnsereVaeter'' is similar, focusing on the Eastern Front, in addition to wartime civilian life in Berlin and the resistance in Poland. And Creator/AppleTVPlus is creating a miniseries based on the Eighth Air Force, called ''Masters of the Air''.

* TheWorfEffect: In "Carentan", the Shermans of the US 2nd Armored Division are shown to be more than a match for German assault guns and light armored vehicles. Come "Replacements", the Shermans of XXX corps, as well as the similarly armed Cromwell, are picked off easily off by newer generation German tanks and tank destroyers, establishing just how outmatched Easy Company and XXX corps were.

* HistoricalVillainDowngrade: Mostly the German soldiers are portrayed dispassionately as "the enemy." No massacres or atrocities are seriously depicted until the second-to-last episode "Why We Fight" when Easy discovers a Jewish concentration camp. The final episode "Points" leans fairly heavily into the "Clean Wehrmacht" portrayal - the idea that the German soldiers were simply honorable warriors doing their duty, much like the Americans themselves. Funnily enough, while German soldiers are treated with respect, German ''civilians'' are treated with utter contempt as accomplices to the Holocaust.

* HistoricalVillainDowngrade: Mostly the German soldiers are portrayed dispassionately as "the enemy." No massacres or atrocities are seriously portrayed until the second-to-last episode "Why We Fight" when Easy discovers a Jewish concentration camp. The final episode "Points" leans fairly heavily into the "Clean Wehrmacht" portrayal - the idea that the German soldiers were simply honorable warriors doing their duty, much like the Americans themselves. Funnily enough, while German soldiers are treated with respect, German ''civilians'' are treated with utter contempt as accomplices to the Holocaust.

* HistoricalVillainUpgrade: Sobel is given one. Whilst he was certainly a harsh taskmaster, he was probably no worse than many other US officers of the time, and, indeed, veterans of Easy Company acknowledge that his training was crucial to the company's later success.
** Norman Dike is portrayed as a complete coward, with his cowardice even causing several men from E-company to be killed or wounded during the attack on Foy. In real life, while probably not the most skilled leader and certainly not popular among the men, Dike was certainly not cowardly. He received two medals for valor in combat, one of which for rescuing wounded men while bullets were flying all around him, and the real reason why he froze up outside Foy was that he had been shot and was in shock.

** Buck Compton became a district attorney in Los Angeles later in life. Creator/NealMcDonough played a district attorney in ''Series/{{Boomtown}}'', also set in Los Angeles.

* MoreDakka: The patrol episode features a towed quad-50 antiaircraft gun being used against enemy infantry. Very much TruthInTelevision; the US Army had a lot more German infantrymen to shoot at than it did German planes, and the quad-50 made an outstanding antipersonnel weapon.
** The quad-50 is an outstanding anti-everything weapon. It will tear anything short of a heavy tank to pieces in short order. A favorite method of engaging tree-born snipers, for instance, was to simply open up the quad-50 at a flat trajectory, obliterating the trees themselves rather than bothering to trade shots with the enemy.

* ArtisticLicenseHistory: Rather glaringly in "Why We Fight." The episode opens on April 11, 1945, then cuts to "one month ago." During those scenes "one month ago," Nixon reveals that the President has just died. However, Franklin Roosevelt died April 12, 1945. Then, at the end of the episode, it's back to April 11, and Nixon reveals that Hitler shot himself in his bunker (which would not happen until April 30). In addition, the liberation of the concentration camp as depicted did not occur until April 27.

** Winters is an exemplary officer (noted by Sink himself), yet Sobel treats him like crap when Winters serves as his Executive Officer.

** With a little fridge brilliance Sobel’s case makes perfect sense. As despicable as he is, he did an excellent job of getting the men ready to jump. He just had no clue what he was doing once they were on the ground. Col. Sink is savvy enough to realize he can use him to train noncombatants to jump. Most of them will likely outrank Sobel and even though he’ll be the commander during the training. He’ll have to think twice about how he treats them since they will outrank him once they’ve jumped.

* CreatorCameo: Tom Hanks appears as one of the Red Devils (he is in the back, barely visible).

* WarCrimeSubvertsHeroism: In episode 2, a group of captured Nazi soldiers -- including a volunteer American who was born to German parents and raised 100 miles from Malarkey -- are executed after being given cigarettes.

** Nixon makes it through the whole war without ever firing his weapon in combat. He was credited with three jump-stars (received for combat jumps in the European Theater), a feat only surpassed in the 101st Airborne[[note]]Several thousand members of the 82nd Airborne achieved four jump-stars for their jumps in Sicily, Salerno, Normandy, and Holland.[[/note]] by Jake McNiece, a pathfinder with the 506th who had four.

* NoHoldsBarredBeatdown: In "Points," when a drunk and probably insane NewMeat from Item Company shoots one of TheSquad, which is made up of nothing but battle-hardened stone-cold killers with nothing better to do now that they're just occupying Austria (rather than fighting) than exact vengeance for one of their own. Said insane replacement also shot and killed a German and a Brit. After being captured, he's beaten bloody and very nearly executed by Captain Speirs, who lowers his weapon at the absolute last second.

* SurprisinglyGoodEnglish: Malarkey mocks a German POW by saying "Where ya from, son?", only to be utterly flabbergasted when the POW says "Eugene, Oregon." It turns out that the prisoner is an ethnic German who was born in Eugene but had to move to Germany with his Nazi-loving parents after Hitler took over.

Some of the primary characters of the series are [[MajorlyAwesome Major Dick Winters]] (Creator/DamianLewis), the unflappable leader, Carwood Lipton (Donnie Wahlberg), who steps in to hold the unit together during the Battle of the Bulge, and Captain Lewis Nixon (Ron Livingston), the sardonic and alcoholic intelligence officer.

* JoinTheArmyTheySaid: All the soldiers in Easy were initially infantry recruits, who were offered a raise and a nicer uniform if they simply jumped out of perfectly good airplanes. They also knew that if they didn't enlist, they might be forced into a foxhole with someone who might not be as good at fighting. They joined the elite because they wanted to live. The ironic part is that, as elite soldiers, they were sent to do more difficult and dangerous missions than an average GI Joe would.

* NonActionGuy: Nixon makes it through the whole war without ever firing his weapon in combat. He was credited with three jump-stars (received for combat jumps in the European Theater), a feat only surpassed by Jake McNiece, a pathfinder with the 506th who had four.

** In real life, Webster did not actually go on the eponymous mission in "The Last Patrol", but instead remained behind and manned a machine gun, much like Liebgott is depicted doing. As the episode was primarily from his point of view, this change was likely done to avoid switching to a new character for the episode's climactic moments.

* MarshmallowHell: Perconte enjoys a little... attention from a [[BuxomIsBetter exuberant middle-aged lady]] in Eindhoven. When Lip pulls Perconte away, its difficult to tell if Perconte is aroused or traumatized.