Hollywood and Tanks

I recently visited the Kenosha Military Museum.They have a tank that looks remarkably like an Abrams but something wasn't quite right about it.I wasn't fooled,just perplexed.As it turns out,it's actually a Centurion fitted out with sheet metal to look like an Abrams.It's actually a damn good job,especially the turret.It was used in the movie 'Courage Under Fire' with Denzel Washington and Meg Ryan.There were three tanks given this make-over.Maybe it's no news on this forum,but I figured I'd clue everybody in anyway.

Later

SturmTiger

 

Yes, in war films they mostly using modern army vehicles. In one film they not used Sdkfz 251 but american M3 Halftrack for germans.

 

Yes, that was in "Battle of the Bulge", materially the worst war movie ever made. The Germans used American halftracks and Pershing tanks, so the Americans had to use mostly post-war or later-war stuff; nothing was right anymore...

Sturmtiger: I have seen "Courage under Fire" but I didn't notice that the tanks were actually forty years old!

 

Have you seen the film Patton - both Germans & Americans use the same (US post-war) tanks, just painted different colours!

 

Hollywood has a long standing tradition to use incorrect equipment, if possible. The only director who have tried to do an effort is probably Spielberg.

 

There was a thread on why America gets bashed for its late arrival. Perhaps all those old films have given the unwashed masses the idea that America sold tanks to the Nazis

 

If memory serves me right, the Germans were equipped with M47 tanks (with the long thin bustle) and the Americans had Chaffees in 'Battle of the Bulge'. It served to highlight the rather large difference in size between the German King Tigers and the American tanks, but it still vexed me they didn't make any attempt to make it look correct. The M3 halftracks were just icing on the cake. At least the Chaffees were true WW II tanks. But it's all worth it just to hear Panzer Lied sung.

In 'Patton' the Germans had M48s and the Americans M47s. Gave us a better chance maybe with this matchup? Again, shameful to produce such a good movie and "crap out" on the hardware.

 

It must be said in fairness to the movie producers that historically correct tanks and vehicles tend to be hard to come by, espcially in anything resembling quantity. Of course, with computer generated imaging, that may change now. It would be possible to do a movie about Kursk without the producer going nuts trying to come up with large numbers of authentic tanks.

 

There's an exellent photographs taken following the Ardennes battle which illustrates very well that the Tiger II and 76.2 mm. Sherman are approximately the same height, and that the difference in size isn't really that great.

Besides that, there would be no need to show great quantities of tanks at any time. The vast plains shown in the movie are only to be found in the imagination of the director - the Ardennes area is one big forest, on very hilly and mountanious grounds. A couple of vehicles would be enough, which could be used several times over.

Besides that, the movie even has the weather wrong - in the movie, it starts out being snowy, and later turns sunny, even though there didn't fall any snow until rather late in the battle.

 

I know the heights of the Sherman and Tiger II were roughly the same, but the overall size is comparable?

 

Spielberg did it without computer imaging for the most part. All that's necessary is the will to get the details right.

 

The Sherman is a touch shorter...

If it is anything to go by - I have 1:72 kits of both, and they are roughly comparable. Mind you, I think the Tiger 2 might be 1:76 sold as 1:72!

Real-life measurements, please?

 

Sherman M4A2

Length5.92m)
Width2.62m)
Height2.74m)

Tiger II

Length: (7.62m)
Width: (3.76m) with skirting
Height: (3.09m)

Throw in the huge gun, and I'd say the differences were substantial.

 

Yeah, and furthermore, the tanks used as Tiger IIs in the Battle of the Bulge movie were Pershings. They are probably closer in size as well as in everything else, but they're still rather American.

Christian is right on the landscape too. If you've ever been to the Ardennes you'd know that plains are hard to find. Originally, the area was a large high flat plateau, but over hundreds of thousands of years the rivers that flowed over the plateau dug themselves into the rock creating meandering valleys with steep slopes. Because the region is old, the valleys are now deep, and little ground remains that is still flat.

By the way, the people of La Gleize, the village where the final days of Kampfgruppe Peiper were spent, insist on the fact that no snow fell in their town during the offensive.

 

The height was about the same for the Tiger II and the Sherman. The Sherman armed with the 75 mm. gun was only about 15% shorter than the Tiger II, and the Sherman armed with the 76.2 mm. gun was only 4% shorter (the latter of which accounted for 30% of the Shermans in the US 12th army group).

The width of the Tiger II, at the widest extent of the vehicle (that is, at the track guards) was wider than the Sherman, however at the top of the superstructure, the Tiger II was only about 2.6 meters wide, and thus smaller than the Sherman.

The Tiger II was longer, which both has to do with the relatively larger engine and the backwards sloping armour of the rear hull.

 

Sorry Roel, M47 Pattons, not M26/M46 Pershings. The bustle is the giveaway.

 

D'oh! Thanks for the correction SgtBob. I can't distinguish them...

 

I assume you must be adding in the gun for total length. This doesn't do justice to the diameter of an 88 vs. a 76mm. I prefer to stay with the vehicle "box" without the gun for a true comparison. Using you're measurement at the top of the superstructure the Sherman narrows also, though not as much as the Tiger II because there's not much slope. You need to go to the Patton Museum in Ft. Knox to appreciate the difference. There a Tiger II (the one cut open on one side for an internal view) sits only about 50 ft. from a Sherman (a 75mm one to be correct).

 

I don't include the length of the gun, since this doesn't give much visual difference, and the gun doens't present much of a target.

The Shermans side armour wasn't sloped, though (unless you include the soft contours of the cast armour versions as sloped. The turret armour was slightly sloped (5% from vertical), but that would give almost no difference at all.

I have seen both a Tiger II and a Sherman almost side by side, by the way, only in Panzermuseum in Munster. Fort Knox is a bit far away from me

 

Crap, I just have to get to Munster somehow.