Tour of Duty, Combat and the Rat Patrol have something in common where the main characters are not killed off. There were some exceptions. The pacifist kid on Tour of Duty was wounded in action near the end of the first or second season and was send back home due to his wound. You didn't see that in the other two TV shows. The characters in the TV show Combat were wounded but were never send home let alone killed in action.
However, there were big differences between Tour of Duty and the two other shows.
In the Rat Patrol and Combat, you see German soldiers getting killed in wholesale numbers without inflicting heavy casualties on the Americans. In Tour of Duty, the North Vietnamese gave as good as they got. In the Rat Patrol and Combat, you had German soldiers being killed by bayonets, strangle to death, or in some cases being drown. You did not see that in Tour of Duty.
In the TV show Combat, you did not see the show address issues of war crimes committed by Allied soldiers, racist attitudes toward the Afro-Americans, Hispances, Asian Americans, other white Americans of different ethnic groups and to Allied soldiers of different nations like the British and French. The show did not address the military inequalities that exists between the enlisted men and the officer corps. The World War II American officer corp live high off the hog like the American officers of Vietnam. The show did not address the tensions between the regular Army, Army Reserve, and the National Guard. The show also did not address about the situation on the home front both good and bad such as the women and minorities working in the factories, labor unions pushing for higher wages and corporations trying to overcharge the government and Vice-President Truman trying to put a stop to the corporate malfeasance.
Finally, in Tour of Duty, you have special effects of soldiers being wounded in action and blood spurting all over the place. You do not see that in the Rat Patrol or Combat.
P. S. I am agree with one person who stated about capturing NVA general. In Combat, they always seem to have episodes about capturing an important German officer or destroying a target that was not within their skills.
However, there were big differences between Tour of Duty and the two other shows.
In the Rat Patrol and Combat, you see German soldiers getting killed in wholesale numbers without inflicting heavy casualties on the Americans. In Tour of Duty, the North Vietnamese gave as good as they got. In the Rat Patrol and Combat, you had German soldiers being killed by bayonets, strangle to death, or in some cases being drown. You did not see that in Tour of Duty.
In the TV show Combat, you did not see the show address issues of war crimes committed by Allied soldiers, racist attitudes toward the Afro-Americans, Hispances, Asian Americans, other white Americans of different ethnic groups and to Allied soldiers of different nations like the British and French. The show did not address the military inequalities that exists between the enlisted men and the officer corps. The World War II American officer corp live high off the hog like the American officers of Vietnam. The show did not address the tensions between the regular Army, Army Reserve, and the National Guard. The show also did not address about the situation on the home front both good and bad such as the women and minorities working in the factories, labor unions pushing for higher wages and corporations trying to overcharge the government and Vice-President Truman trying to put a stop to the corporate malfeasance.
Finally, in Tour of Duty, you have special effects of soldiers being wounded in action and blood spurting all over the place. You do not see that in the Rat Patrol or Combat.
P. S. I am agree with one person who stated about capturing NVA general. In Combat, they always seem to have episodes about capturing an important German officer or destroying a target that was not within their skills.