M*A*S*H

There is Nothing Like a Nurse - S3-E10

Stupidity: Hawkeye and Trapper park a jeep over a foxhole to trap Maj. Burns in it. While it is certainly possible to trap somebody in a hole with, say, a sports car, an off-road vehicle like a jeep is particularly unsuited for the task - the chassis has so much ground clearance, even a quite fat man could squeeze out past it. You can even see the gap when the camera cuts to Major Burns screaming "Let me out!" (00:18:10)

Doc

Tuttle - S1-E15

Stupidity: When an officer is speaking to who he thinks is colonel Tuttle but is really Radar with a surgical mask, he says what he needs to and is about to leave. Radar who was alone at the time and was completely in on the fact that Tuttle never existed, could have kept up the façade and let him leave, but instead chooses to reveal himself which was utterly pointless.

Radar's Report - S2-E3

Stupidity: Radar takes his glasses off, takes a sip of coffee, then props his clipboard onto the typewriter and accidentally starts typing on the desk calculator. Even if he didn't know his desk well enough to wonder what he laid his clipboard upon AND was so blind he couldn't even orient himself by the desk lamp (which he isn't), he would have felt the difference the instant he touched the keys. Note that he puts his hands on the keys, squints at the clipboard (sic!), then starts typing, he doesn't hammer away right off, which would have added at least a little plausibility to the joke.

Doc

Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen - S11-E16

Other mistake: How did Hawkeye Pierce, a surgeon, know how to drive a tank? It is nothing like driving a car and takes skills, training and experience that a surgeon simply would not have. He wouldn't even be able to start the engine.

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Sometimes You Hear the Bullet - S1-E17

Henry Blake: All I know is what they taught me at command school. There are certain rules about a war, and rule number one is that young men die. And rule number two is that doctors can't change rule number one.

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Dear Dad - S1-E12

Question: A number of times it is mentioned that the outfit is unarmed, yet several times, Frank has a rifle, or a pistol, and once Klinger had a grenade, and the guards and Klinger, while on sentry duty, has a rifle. Was this standard, or is this a mistake?

Answer: Even an Army field hospital would have SOME weapons for self-defense if the enemy attacked. What's meant is that it's not a combat outfit, and therefore wouldn't have enough weapons to actually attack anyone. (It's also mentioned a few times that the Officer of the Watch is supposed to carry a pistol at all times, but Hawkeye refuses to do it when he's in charge and Colonels Blake and Potter don't enforce the rule).

Captain Defenestrator

Answer: The Geneva Convention allows even doctors to carry a sidearm to be used in their self defense or the defense of their patients, however it is rare to do so.

stiiggy

Answer: As an old medical unit staffer, my experience is that med units have combat units assigned to defend them. Usually it was marines.

Answer: My old doctor (now deceased) served in Korea during the War. He was required to carry a sidearm anytime he was not in the hospital.

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