[quote name='swee'pea99' timestamp='1307795056' post='1703988']
(As an aside, I read somewhere recently that the whole dambusters event, played up massively for propaganda purposes, was in truth a total fiasco, militarily speaking. While the destruction of the dams certainly had some impact on German industrial resources, the effect was actually pretty limited. The famous bouncing bombs were never used again, not least because using them was so incredibly dangerous for air crews, and remaining stocks were quietly dumped in mid-Atlantic smetime after the war ended.)
[/quote]
Yes, I've heard similar. It was a fantastic episode of British inventiveness and use of very simple techniques (like the spotlight altimeter, and the forked stick gunsights), but it certainly didn't win us the war.
Also, the bombs in the original film were the wrong shape, since the actual plans were still classified. I don't think that knowledge makes the original film any less great, so changing the name of the dog and the codeword probably doesn't matter so very much.
Personally, I don't imagine the remake will be better than the original, even given up to the minute effects, and I imagine it'll be a fair bit worse.