UKC

Just watched "Fury" which is a WWII Tank film with Brad Pitt in it.

Now I know that Hollywood has a tendency to suspend disbelief in the name of a good story.

Now for those that have seen the film, I am interested in your Battle Strategy regarding the final Big Battle. Brad and his men have an immobile tank and need to hold a crossroads against about 200-300 German soldiers with machine guns and anti tank gun thingies.

In reality how long would the battle have lasted before "Game Over"?

In reply to The Lemming:

No help really, but a little factoid, that will give you a bump.

Chris Bonington was a tank commander for 5 years.

In reply to The Lemming:

My strategy would be to run away.

In reply to The New NickB:

And he was my father-in-law's commanding officer.

In reply to The Lemming:
I was watching this and was thinking 'what bollox'. A single panzerfaust ( a disposable single shot weapon firing a hollow charge) would have destroyed that Sherman, as they destroyed many Shermans in Europe 1944-45. The Germans called Shermans Tommy Cookers and the British called them Ronsons, due to their habit of bursting into flames or 'brewing up' when hit by panzerfaust rockets. They used petrol rather than diesel.

I was talking about this very scene in the film to someone who restores Shermans (and the odd Panther) for a living, and he agreed that Fury would have been ablaze in the first 30 seconds of that engagement. He did supply some of the vehicles used in the film and had some inside knowledge, he said they did pay huge attention to accuracy but in Hollywood a good story trumps all.

In reply to DerwentDiluted:

Were the German tanks as resilient as depicted it the film by taking on three USA tanks at once?

In reply to The Lemming:
A Tiger tank could easily take on 3 Shermans, Google Michael Wittmann, who single handedly destroyed about 15 Shermans with 1 Tiger in 15 minutes. The only really effective weapon against a Tiger or a King Tiger was rockets from Typhoons or similar, or the Sherman Firefly, which mounted a 17 pounder gun rather than the standard 75mm but these took some time to arrive in theatre. Allied commanders knew full well the Shermans short comings and tried to use them en masse and exploit their one real advantage, their massive numbers.

The only reason the Sherman is well remembered by history is that it was on the allied side, the T34 was a far better tank IMHO. The T34 had sloping armour to deflect shot, while the Sherman had many flat surfaces so impact had to be absorbed rather than deflected, and an 88mm shell needed some absorbing. The panzerfaust hollow charges worked differently, functioning on impact and sending a stream of molten plasma right through the armour plate, spraying the inside with molten metal. The RPG works in exactly the same way, and is a direct descendent of the Panzerfaust.
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In reply to The Lemming:
Thinking a bit more on it, the Sherman could take out a Tiger but doing so required lucky or steady shooting, especially from the front, often at a closer range than would have been healthy. I saw an interview with a Canadian gunner, who said that to take on a Tiger you needed to aim just above the drivers hatch to try and get a round in where the turret rotated to try and jam the turret. The interviewer paused for a few seconds before saying "....but... That's an area no bigger than an envelope...!...?" To which the veteran simply shrugged, smiled, and mumbled something about not having much choice.

I was very lucky a few weeks ago, the Sherman restorer mentioned above gave me a guided tour of the M4 he is just finishing, (I supply him some consumables) which not many people get to do. It had no turret and so it was possible to see right inside. He said that the replica interior for Fury was built on a scale of about 1.5 to 1 and so shows way too much room in the tank. The actual M4 interior was about the size of a Mini, fit into this a gun breech, all the kit, ammunition and a crew and things get seriously cramped. Not only that, but the sheer number of things that can cause you harm are mind boggling. A big gun breech, numerous metal edges, cleats and projections, a not very well guarded transmission, a big hot engine, oil and fuel leaks etc. Thinking about sitting in this with very poor visibility waiting for either an armour piercing shell or a spray of molten plasma to come in, and no easy or quick way out, and it gave me the heebie jeebies. Having seen inside, I'd honesty prefer to take my chances out in the open.

Respect and remembrance for those crews.

In reply to DerwentDiluted:

According to figures from battle damage assessors at the time and quoted by Anthony Beevor in "D-Day: The Battle for Normandy" Typhoons actually destroyed a lot less armoured vehicles than the RAF claimed.

While the M4 was inferior to the later German tanks, a big factor in the better ratio of kills by German tanks was the nature of the battle in Normandy where they were often in "hull down" concealed positions waiting for the Allies to come onto them; particularly in the Bocage where the Allies had to break through the hedgerows so it was relatively easy for the Germans to target the breach.

In reply to The Lemming:


I'm in charge of our fish tank. Does that count?

My strategy is to outstare the little **ckers. I hate them and all fish. They do keep dying, though, so there's light at the end of the tunnel, and "Game Over" might see me outliving them.

In reply to Hat Dude:
I'm just re-reading the same book. IIRC, there's a story of three hidden Shermans destroying 3 Tigers advancing in the open.

When the Germans attacked in the Bocage they suffered the same losses and the Allied line was held. The Allies could sustain the losses (better logistics & manpower) and eventually the German line broke.

Probably the Typhoons didn't knock out many tanks but if they destroyed German ability to maneuver or bring up fuel & ammunition the tanks are almost as dead. An tank abandoned with no fuel is possible Typhoon kill.

Just killing the horses may have been enough to make German forces immobile.

In reply to Hat Dude:
Not read that book but I'll seek it out, numbers aside the rockets were still very effective at opening up a Tiger. I'd point you in the direction of 'Panzers in Normandy' published by After the Battle as well.

The Bocage was ideal for defence against armoured attack as you say, the Germans put a lot of resources into armoured SP guns like the STUG III, the Hetzer and the Jagdpanther to maximise the hull down tactic, bring turretless they had a low profile.

They also developed some proper behemoth things such as the Elefant and the Maus, I can't help but wonder, if they had just focussed on making lots of Panthers and Tigers (and ME262 fighters) rather than developing many weird things, how things would have turned out.

One massive problem with the late war German tanks was the effect of their size on logistics. Rail and road transportation was a nightmare as each tunnel and bridge had to be checked for width and weight bearing capability. When in action they had massive transmission and axle problems due to their weight. These logistical problems, coupled with fuel shortages and over reliance on horse drawn transport were the achilles heel of the Heavy armour.

In reply to The Lemming:

Pretty stressful. But it could be worse..this commander doesn't mince his words!

youtube.com/watch?v=EzDVrntMZVs&

In reply to dek:

Pure comedy gold.



Who was that dude?

In reply to The Lemming:

As well as the survival of the tank requiring suspension of disbelief, there's also Brad Pitt's age. How many 50-odd year old staff sergeants would there have been (a) alive and (b) still serving as a tank commander on the front lines at that age?

My dad was the oldest in his company at 25, by 5 years, when he joined up in 1940. His platoon sergeant was 21. The RSM of the whole regiment was 41, and didn't deploy with them when they went overseas. The brigadier general commanding the whole brigade was 42, and the oldest member of the brigade to deploy overseas. Dad was one of the oldest in the whole brigade, at 30, when the war ended.

In reply to DerwentDiluted:

All very interesting stuff.


I think the problem was as much production of the Panthers and Tigers, they were all fairly technically complex and took significant man hours and material to produce, both of which was in ever declining supply in Germany from 1941 onwards.

And just the sheer capacity for production that the Allies had, principally the Soviets until D-day, at least in terms of fighting vehicles and tanks. Although the US provided an absolutely phenomenal number of trucks (nearly half a million IIRC) under lend lease, not to mention uniforms, boots and rations for the Red Army. And then if you look at tank production numbers, the Soviets churned out far more tanks (largely T34s) than the Nazis alone, disregarding the Allied tank numbers.

The vanity projects like the Maus were definitely a diversion, but I don't think they sucked up enough resources to really make a difference to the outcome.

Really, they lost the war the moment operation Barbarossa failed, not that it was obvious at the time.

In reply to Phil79:


Probably lost it when Barbarossa started!

In reply to The Lemming:

Wasn't Bonner's in the Royal Tank Regt?

In reply to DerwentDiluted:


Crikey! The things you can learn on UKC that surprise you.

In reply to The Lemming:
I would ask Gary - he knows everything about tank commanding in Scotland.

In reply to The Lemming:

Kind of on topic. They filmed parts of this on a farm in Oxfordshire where a friend lives. His wife took a photo of the barrel with 'fury' written onto it one weekend and photoshopped it to read 'furry'. Still makes me giggle.

Agree with the guy upthread who said that the war was lost for Germany the day Barbarossa started. Great podcast series from Dan Carlin "Ghosts of the Ostfront", I can recommend it if you like that kind of thing.