WWII tanks in short supply

http://www.foxnews.com/auto/2017/02/20/in-military-collectibles-supply-often-falls-short-demand.html

When I think about it, it's not a surprise when after the war, everyone went all "swords into plowshares," but it's a shame they don't have enough of the right vehicles for the movies.

 

It's no surprise that Fox reporters can't find their butts with both hands...

WTF is a Sherman M2?

Couldn't find an operational early model Sherman? - Google, baby, Google...Planes of Fame, in Chino, California, has an operational 1942 M4A1.

If the "Fury" head honchos wanted an early model M-4 for their movie...It was just a phone call away.

The only plausible answer that I can think of for the 1942 M4A1 not being in "Fury", is because an early model Sherman was not wanted in the first place.

 

CGI will do it. (goodbye hollywood)
Remember watching WW2 movies and being so disappointed, not being able to see the actual tanks used.
Yes, too bad our histories have not been preserved.

 

At least they have real butts, not fake ones like the ones at Fake News Network.

I doubt that the Sherman model error is Fox's, probably the dumb-ass movie producers didn't do research.

 

Fox is the original Fake News Network.

Nah, it's the dumb-ass Fox reporter...

I found one at the Old Rhinebeck Airdrome
http://oldrhinebeck.org/voisin/

The Smithsonian has one, as does the Le musée de l’Air et de l’Espace.

 

Fox news, i think, was an appropriate reaction to CNN back in the day.
There was a time when CNN was relevant. Those days are gone.
Screw teenage/college angst. There is a reason nobody gets to be president unless they are - this tall.

 

If so they've been blown away by the Clinton News Network for biased, slanted reporting.
I'm not at all impressed by your new Prez in his first month, the first 30 days have at times looked more like a raging dumpster fire than a well oiled machine.

However the reporting at CNN has been biased and erroneous at times.

I kinda think they meant M4A2 or M4A3?

 

#5-"The Smithsonian has one, as does the Le musée de l’Air et de l’Espace."
How do you get to the Smithsonian?...Practice, practice, practice...no...that's not it...give me a while

 

Doh...how do you get to the...wait
How would someone who plays music get...
if you play hard, you will become...
ok-
How do you get to Carnegie Hall-
practice, practice,practice

 

Well... There's a few left scattered about.
http://preservedtanks.com/Countries.aspx?LocType=3&MinTanks=0

http://the.shadock.free.fr/Surviving_Panzers.html

 

I thought they wanted a late war Sherman as the film is set in 1945 ?
Saw the Fury exhibition at Bovington last week.
Didn't take a photo though.
Also saw the oldest Sherman in the UK, Michael
http://www.tankmuseum.org/museum-online/vehicles/object-e1955-32

 

It is interesting that Fox news' report about the nit picking difficulties of finding the right variant of WW2 equipment to avoid anachronisms ends by repeating two questionable canards about the Shermans destroyed and the Ronson story. The former is simply untrue, as most vehicles were repaired and returned to use and the "Ronson" story may be an anachronism itself as the slogan "lights every time" may not have been used until post war!

Is this how fake news is circulated?

 

That's OK, we are not impressed with him either.

The problem with that is...AFAIK, the US Army never used the M4A2 in combat. The US Marines used the M4A2 in combat, as well as our Allies receiving Lend-Lease.
So, even if the reporter meant the M4A2, he still screwed the pooch with his shoddy reporting.

 

Complete drivel.

They clearly went for the most shiny model possible.

Article is full of factoidy cliches as is the film... at least they got that right.

 

It is almost always 'interesting' when something you actually understand and follow is featured in the news.
Often makes you wonder about everything else...

...but, it's nothing 'new' is it. The News & Features has always been about comment, opinion & the flawed, or otherwise, lens of who's telling the story. Instead we could just have a plain list of 'Things that happened today'.
I think I'd quite like that, but am also pretty sure I'd get bored with it eventually.

Looks like this article might be more widely syndicated: https://www.hagerty.com/articles-videos/articles/2017/02/15/military-collectibles
I always feel for anyone mildly informed who was interviewed for such a piece, and might often be sat with their head in their hands upon reading it.
Once spent an hour trying to explain to an irritating journo the difference between Whitesmithing & Blacksmithing. Final article: Picture of someone whitesmithing captioned as a blacksmith. You can't win - very often, even for trivial filler, there is a pre-determined 'story' or angle, and everything must fit that. And so it ever was.

 

The US Army used a few M4A2 in Europe. At least one with a dozer can be found in photos of Normandy and there were a large number among the reverse Lend-Lease sent by the British to the Americans to rebuild losses after the Battle of the Bulge.

Aside from that the article is typical of the pablum that passes for an "in depth" feature today.

Production of the Medium Tank M4-series ended in July 1945. Full stop. None were produced during the "Korean War and even later".

All American Army units in 1942-1943 deployed to the Med with M4 and M4A1. All, with possibly a few minor exceptions, of the Ford-produced M4A3 stayed in the US as training tanks. It wasn't until mid 1944 that the new M4A3 produced by Chrysler and Fisher began arriving in the ETO, along with M4 105mm.

Most of those shipped overseas remained overseas, either lost or turned over to allied countries, something like three-quarters of those produced survived the war.

 

True but the over use of it makes it look cheesy. Like, in reality, 15 - 20 tanks would have been actually used, Hollywood generates 100-200 tanks for the scene.

 

The sheer cost of getting a WW2 tracked vehicle back on the road....or keeping one on the road....is absolutely HUGE. Yes there are some museum-pampered items, or ones in private collections that were simply not get so bad as to need hundreds if not thousands of hours of restoration work to get them back on the "road" again - they often consume two or three donor vehicles in the process

And that's for a few hours' running every summer, at shows or major events like the D-Day fortnight's activities on big anniversaries...not the hundreds' of hours filming time that a film like "Fury" would require. Guy Hamilton's production team gathered the sixth largest air force in the world at the time, and shot over 300 hours of inflight footage, to manage to come up with just over two hours of "The Battle of Britain". There were a number of magazine articles at the time of Fury's release regarding the preparation and running of the tanks...and they required three dozen fortunes for the tanks and tank footage alone.

We're also incidently talking of the vehicles of a period where even in day-to-day use in war they were serviced every ten miles or so by their crews at least! These items...even the best ones...were horrendously unreliable compared to the tanks of the early 1950s let alone today's. When used in films they require the sort of cosseting that a modern airliner carrying tens of thousands of passengers annually doesn't get!

And finally - these were the products of wartime. They were not "preserved" in any way, except supposedly from fire LOL by the flame retardant paint. They rusted out at the drop of a hat - which is bad enough in the whole plot....but it means that open the engine bay covers and often you're faced with a sea of rust and corrosion, not a pristine engine and ancilliaries just waiting to be coaxed to life again. There are a lot of Bovvie's display items, even indoors, that are now...hidden away under closed hatches ...rusted out wrecks that can't be moved any more. Some are in even worse state than the other examples of their type stuck out in the elements in the stockyard! Many are just so far gone as to defy any real attempt at restoration - so building replicas is both cheaper, more practical - AND you often start with running engines in rolling chassis from other more modern and reliable items, such as the FV432 and its family, the M113, and the eponymous (and once dirt cheap LOL) T34.

 

There is a Sherman in Medicine Hat...Pa has a picture of me on this tank in 1975(?). Picture is on a slide show. Would try to somehow get it transferred. Magic has always confounded me.
Looking at the post, it says the park was created in 1995, so am wondering aboot that.
They must have had the tank, then incorporated it into the park after the flood of '95.
http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WMF1AA_Sherman_Tank_Medicine_Hat_Alberta

 

There are 2 Shermans in Medicine Hat. The other is in front of Patterson Armory.