Goofs

When the young recruits go out on their first patrol, to string the barbed wire; the veteran uses a mallet to drive the post into the ground. While the movie went to the trouble to have the right kind of post they used it completely wrong. That post was developed by the Germans to allow them to put up barbed wire much more quietly then the Allies. The bottom portion of each post is twisted into an auger; this allowed the soldiers to simply put the post on the ground; put a rod through one of the holes in the post and screw it into the ground. This was one of innovations that the Allies copied. Both sides had listening posts near the wire on their sides to listen for infiltrators and wire crews; once detected they would be cut to pieces by machines gun or mortar fire. See more