Example #1. You will notice that any officer actually wearing his cap and not the garrison flat cap has crushed its brim. To be fair to the costume department, this looks cool as hell and plenty of men did this, especially pilots. This scene, however, takes place in New York City, around June 1940. Being out of regulation state side is not nearly as common as being out of regulation overseas. Now, regular army officers might hesitate to confront Air Corps men, but these guys are all 1st Lieutenants. They aren't exactly high brass, who had even more leeway with their uniform regs. I also suspect that their lapel devices are improperly aligned, but it's impossible to get a good enough shot to tell. Now we get even more pedantic though. Notice the badges on the cap in the middle and the cap on the far left. I've drawn some lines in red. The cap in the center has a relatively straight winged eagle. The cap on the far left has a very obvious curve in the wings. The one in the center is a very early war badge, essentially unchanged from WWI. The on the left is a mid to late war production. It did not exist in 1940. Additionally, while the man in the center has the period appropriate cap badge, his overcoat, with notched lapels, is later war production. Notched lapels would be appropriate for a long officer's overcoat, but he is wearing the short version. The correct lapels are shawl lapels, seen on the officer in the back (who is actually Danny, one of the two main characters).

Speaking of not existing, however, for some reason the other main character, Rafe, has embroidered bullion lapel devices. This might be because he somehow ends up in the RAF Eagle Squadron despite being a member of the American Army (British uniform devices looked similar). Regardless, such devices were highly uncommon, very expensive (Rafe is from a poor farming background), and are most often seen on private purchase uniforms tailored overseas. Here is the first shot I could get. Those are clearly not pins. It is even more obvious when Rafe is standing next to Danny. Here is a small album. Danny, wearing the correct pins, is on the right. Notice the shadows under his lapel devices and how they stand off the fabric. I really have no idea why only one American uniform was made with those bullion devices. The last thing I will say on uniforms is that Danny takes every opportunity he has not to wear one. I am not sure, however, what the regulations on wearing your uniform while on liberty or leave were pre-1942. Also note that while the Sam Browne belt (the leather belt with a shoulder strap) was regulation until mid-1942 and some continued to wear it afterwards, it wasn't very common by 1940. The cloth belt you see here was much more common.

Let us move on, however, to ships. Here, the movie is absolutely atrocious. Considering the amount of CGI that went into the film, you'd think that they would have at least taken the time to get period correct ships, but whoever was responsible for that basically said fuck that noise. There are also massive continuity errors where ships, mostly aircraft carriers, change from one type to another throughout the course of one scene. Finally, many of the battle scenes were filmed on modern US Navy ships which were sitting in reserve fleets. I can't count the number of Spruance class destroyers, built between 1972 and 1983, are featured throughout the film and blown up during the attack. Anyway, let's see some examples:

Here is the first scene showing a battleship in the movie. It's the USS Missouri, an Iowa class battleship not launched until 1944. Also, in this picture, you can see the Arizona Memorial. Nice job, Mr. Bay. The Missouri, or another Iowa, makes several more appearances in the film, sometimes accompanied by [USS Whipple](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Whipple_(FF-1062)), a frigate launched in 1968: e.g. #1, e.g. #2

Our first shot of Pearl Harbor is ostensibly nice. There is a Brooklyn class light cruiser in the lower left corner, several of which were at Pearl. There's not enough detail on the destroyers to tell what they are (though they're probably based anachronistically off of Fletcher class DDs, the only thing I can pick out is that they have two stacks, which several pre-war DDs had). There is one glaring defect though: a nice, big Midway class aircraft carrier, the first of which was launched in 1945. Here is a line drawing for comparison. There is an inexcusable mistake later in the film though when Battleship Row is shown prior to the start of the attack. Most of the battleships are not even close to being in the right place. Here is a map showing the actual positions.

There is also a scene where some sneaky Fifth Columnists take pictures of American warships at anchor. Regardless of the fact that the arrangement is clearly a reserve fleet and not active warships, they are also a minimum of 30 years out of date, being mostly Spruance (or maybe Kidd, I can only tell for sure on the ones with visible hull numbers) class destroyers: e.g. #1, e.g. #2. As a bonus though, I am pretty sure that the larger ship in the background, seen better in this shot is the USS Samuel Gompers](http://i.imgur.com/R8HW6AN.jpg), then BOOM! KA-POW! BIFF! Other modern ships get a ZING too!

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE! MICHAEL BAY CAN FUCK UP THE JAPANESE FLEET TOO!

This is the first view we get of the Japanese task force approaching Hawaii. Yes, those are obviously modern American nuclear carriers. Yes, those are also obviously Ticonderoga class cruisers and Arleigh Burke class destroyers. At least he got the number of carriers right. Well, at least if he gets it wrong, he keeps it consiste...wait, WHAT? This is our next view of the Japanese. Those carriers do look vaguely like WW2 era Japanese carriers! The escorts are still wrong, but hey, progress! Except for the fact that there are only three carriers and the Japanese attacked with six...and now we're back to six...I don't even know what the fuck they are, but they're wrong...and now for the IJN is apparently the US Navy of the late-1990's (but for some reason without angled flight decks...aaand now another switch to period appropriate stuff. This last shot is actually astonishingly good, as it's not a bad representation of IJN Hiryū or Akagi (the only two Japanese carriers which had conning towers on that side of the deck which were in the Pearl Harbor task force). Even the cruiser is Japanese looking, though it looks more like a Takao class; the only heavy cruisers in the Pearl Harbor task force were Tone class.

I am about to run out of space, so I will save the rest of my BadHistory for another post.