Factual error: The movie is set in 1944, when there were only 48 states, yet we see many American flags with 50 stars, then 48, then back to 50 throughout the film.
Factual error: As the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry lifts off from LZ X-Ray at the end of the battle, it can be seen that there are no more American troops left at the battlefield. However, by the time 1/7 CAV left LZ X-Ray, it had been relieved by two full battalions (2/7 CAV and 1/5 CAV). There were around 700 American soldiers occupying LZ X-Ray by the time 1/7 CAV lifted off.
Factual error: The rifles the British soldiers carried in the film were Lee Enfield rifle No. 4's, these did not go into production until WW2. They should have been using an earlier version of the Lee Enfield rifle.
Factual error: An old man appears with children following him. This is supposed to be pedagogue Janusz Korczak. It appeared as if he was just wearing a suit and a Jewish arm band. In the Warsaw Ghetto, Mr. Korczak never wore an arm band and wore his WWI Polish Army Uniform, both as acts of defiance. He was beaten and almost put to death (he had connections) for not wearing an arm band so having one on in the movie is inaccurate.
Factual error: There is no way that Col.McNamara could allocate which hut men went into. The Germans controlled this. Also there is no way he could just turn up at the Camp Kommandant's office unannounced and talk to him.
Factual error: In the scene where the British soldiers form square, there is a drummer boy. The British army stopped using drummer boys after the battle of Isandhlwana in 1879.
Factual error: Throughout the film the two men wear modern rubber soled Army boots, not leather soled as they would have been at the time - particularly noticeable when they are trying to sleep in the woods, and also when they cut the telephone wires.
Factual error: In the first scene, Iraq invades Kuwait City and the Kuwaitis flee from the theater into a sunny backdrop. The problem is that the invasion actually took place at 1:00AM Gulf time. I don't think there are many movie theaters open at 1:00 in the morning, and I don't think it's sunny then either.
Factual error: Max and his family listen to a radio broadcast announcing the terms of the Versailles Treaty in Germany in 1919. Radio broadcasting first began in the United States in 1920 and began in Germany in 1923. Also, the radio they are listening to is a "cathedral" type that was not manufactured until the 1930s.
Factual error: At the end of the movie, Harry Truman is quoted in 1954 in laying out the domino theory, but it was his successor, Dwight D. Eisenhower who did that.