Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => The Roundtable => Topic started by: Monkeyleg on February 08, 2015, 08:48:44 PM
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Excellent. Just excellent. One of the best war films I've seen in a long time (I haven't seen "American Sniper" yet).
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Agreed. I just watched it Friday. Very well done.
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Rented Fury a week ago. Good flick. Pitt was actually fairly convincing as the tank commander (which surprised me) and the battle scenes were appropriately intense. Depicting Americans as the underdogs in April of '45 was a bit of a stretch, but they made it work.
Minor nitpicks: the tank crew seemed to be a collection of stereotypes (the cynical guy, the lecherous guy, the religious guy, the "ethnic" guy and the babe-in-the-woods guy). Also I think the director had watched Cross Of Iron one too many times.
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I watched it on DVD thursday evening and enjoyed it.
POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT VV
I had a sneaking premonition that the guy who survived would be .... the one who actually did.
And Brad Pitt did a good job, surprisingly. All the actors did actually.
Portraying the Americans as the underdogs .... well, The Sherman was in fact outclassed by the bigger badder more modern German monster tanks. Recall the shells bouncing off the front of that Nazi behemoth in the tank fight? That was pretty real. So was the German AT weapons like the Panzerfaust going through the Sherman tanks. General Patton complained that the shells would go through the tank hulls and bounce around a few times and kill everyone.
Certainly one of the better war films in quit awhile.
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Depicting Americans as the underdogs in April of '45 was a bit of a stretch, but they made it work.
For a Sherman crew, it probably wasn't that much of a stretch. They had gasoline engines and poor ammo storage protection, which were not good. They were designed for ease of production. So, we could make a lot of them. Not only did we have to make them, we had to move them. German and Russian tanks had to only be moved over land. American tanks had to be shipped by water. We also were responsible for tank production for nearly all of our allies to some extent. The Germans had better tanks, but they were hard to make, hard to transport, hard to repair and hard to recover. The Sherman was the right choice, but they WERE the underdogs on any contact with any German tank.
The bazooka was pretty good for knocking a hole in a wall. Not so great against German tanks. Actually, we need something like a bazooka for urban combat today and don't have it. Panzerfaust was dirt cheap and had a good chance of knocking out a Sherman if you could hit it. Since it was so cheap, easy enough to hand them to infantry like candy.
https://medium.com/war-is-boring/david-rae-kept-fury-authentic-59afc67ebf11
Apparently, a former British soldier named David Rae was in charge of tank tactics. Aside from practical considerations, the tank tactics were pretty sound that I saw. Overdramatized a bit but it's supposed to be a movie, not a training manual. Overall, quite good. I wasn't aware the movie snagged the world’s last functional Tiger tank.
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This was kind of a bummer quote from Rev's link:
“You’re not going to see a tank film again,” Rae explained. “There’s not much shelf-life left on these machines.” Fury is these old war wagons’ last chance to show off. Rae was there to make sure they showed off right.
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Bumping this because I just saw it. Picked it up for $8 at the Dollar General.
Really good. By the end I was sitting at the edge of my seat, not so much because the ending was any sort of surprise, plot wise, but because the action and fighting sequences were just so intense.
It takes real skill to pull off a standard plot war movie and make it that good. Fury had that. Visually, it was great, especially how it was cut.
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I've only seen the trailers but am I supposed to believe that Pak 38 or 40 crews are going to miss slow moving targets that are moving straight on at them at 200-300 yards?
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I guess I'm the odd man out here - Fury wouldn't even be a contender in my Top 10 list of war movies.
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Have not seen the movie.
From what I have read, the American tanks outnumbered the German tanks at an astounding ratio, can't remember the number but was huge disparity.
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I guess I'm the odd man out here - Fury wouldn't even be a contender in my Top 10 list of war movies.
I have to agree. I thought the movie spent way to much time focusing on the crew being the crew and not enough on any thing else, like battles. It was like those indie movies where it starts, nothing happens except people talking, and the movie ends. Except in a Sherman tank. I disliked it enough that I walked out of it.
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I guess I'm the odd man out here - Fury wouldn't even be a contender in my Top 10 list of war movies.
Same with me.
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Entertaining
Top 10? :rofl:
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The first half was good. Until they occupied the town. Then it became boring.
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Actually, the reason I didn't like Fury is because like other recent war movies, American GI's were portrayed as a bunch of murderous, foul-mouthed cretins who were one step removed from either a prison cell or a strait jacket.
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Actually, the reason I didn't like Fury is because like other recent war movies, American GI's were portrayed as a bunch of murderous, foul-mouthed cretins who were one step removed from either a prison cell or a strait jacket.
Well, one part of that isn't wrong...
-former Infantryman
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Actually, the reason I didn't like Fury is because like other recent war movies, American GI's were portrayed as a bunch of murderous, foul-mouthed cretins who were one step removed from either a prison cell or a strait jacket.
Quite right, it wasn't a Navy movie after all. But that is a common war movie trope going back many years.
The inferiority of American tanks was likely not as big a deal as modern armchairs make it. Early on sure, but by late in the war the modern American way of war was fully fledged. If a Tiger or three was in a known position a bunch of Sherman's would not just saunter out to get shot up. Call in a flight of Typhoons or P-51s. Lay in artillery, lots of artillery. Anything but a wild west mano y mano tank fight. Reading a history of the Rhineland campaign right now, besides water everywhere one of the biggest obstacles to advance was the total wreckage inflicted by artillery and strategic bombers. Towns and Key points were vast cratered rubble piles that hid the enemy and impeded vehicular progress.
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So like modern Detroit then?
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So like modern Detroit then?
No one wants to capture Detroit.
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Mo Town, mo problems.
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Actually, the reason I didn't like Fury is because like other recent war movies, American GI's were portrayed as a bunch of murderous, foul-mouthed cretins who were one step removed from either a prison cell or a strait jacket.
I'm not sure I could have experienced even half of what they did without becoming a bit of a murderous, foul-mouthed cretins who were one step removed from either a prison cell or a strait jacket. :/
WWI and WWII battle fields were pretty gnarly.
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Later Sherman had ammo storage completely redesigned. Ammo racks in the turret were eliminated, ammo was moved to armored compartments, and late versions incorporated wet storage.
This all combined to dramatically reduce the catastrophic ammo fires in early models that often resulted from a turret hit and which could blow the turret free of the hull.
Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk
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I'm not sure I could have experienced even half of what they did without becoming a bit of a murderous, foul-mouthed cretins who were one step removed from either a prison cell or a strait jacket. :/
WWI and WWII battle fields were pretty gnarly.
As an OIF Vet I have nothing but the deepest respect for WWI and WWII vets who endured artillery barrages like those described in the blog post below. Along with amphibious landings under heavy fire, kamikazes, banzai charges, and brutal close quarters combat.
https://angrystaffofficer.com/2016/07/01/anatomy-of-a-world-war-i-artillery-barrage/
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Later Sherman had ammo storage completely redesigned. Ammo racks in the turret were eliminated, ammo was moved to armored compartments, and late versions incorporated wet storage.
This all combined to dramatically reduce the catastrophic ammo fires in early models that often resulted from a turret hit and which could blow the turret free of the hull.
Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk
That and people forget that the Germans were run out of North Africa with a lot of American tanks which were as good or better than a lot of the tanks Rommel had. The problem was we were on an all out production frenzy and we were a year or so behind the latest German/Russian designs which had lept ahead. I think we also fielded some larger tanks and bigger guns later in the war.
You mention artillery. That was one thing I was wondering about from that one scene in Fury. They just charged forward knowing there were anti-tank guns in that position. I would have thought they would call in artillery, flank the position, or at least put out smoke to hide their advance. In Patton's book he mentioned sending in tanks under a barrage of proximity fused anti-personnel artillery. When they faced the Tiger later, I was wondering why they kept moving straight forward and didn't split off at angles to flank the Tiger from different directions.
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Yes, the tactics and the action portrayed were NOT standard US Army tactics of WWII.
Sherman's were designed to be Assault Guns to support infantry advances and the guns were for knocking out things like bunkers and machine gun nests, not to go toe-to-toe with German tanks. That's what M10, M18, and M36 (along with the Towed Guns) Tank Destroyer Battalions were for.
P.S. If you are ever near Central Indiana, the [urlhttp://ropkeyarmormuseum.com/]Ropke Armor Museum is Crawfordsville is simply Outstanding. [/url]
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It was the Sherman's performance in North Africa with the British that resulted in American planners greenlighting the massive upsurge in Sherman production as the primary tank.
It wasn't known what the Germans had in planning phases, but it was known what the Americans had... pretty much nothing. An attempt at a heavier tank, the M6, proved to be a failure, so development of the M26 Pershing didn't start until 1942.
It was considerably more advanced than the Sherman, and had a lot of teething problems, which pushed production back significantly.
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Yes, the tactics and the action portrayed were NOT standard US Army tactics of WWII.
Sherman's were designed to be Assault Guns to support infantry advances and the guns were for knocking out things like bunkers and machine gun nests, not to go toe-to-toe with German tanks. That's what M10, M18, and M36 (along with the Towed Guns) Tank Destroyer Battalions were for.
P.S. If you are ever near Central Indiana, the [urlhttp://ropkeyarmormuseum.com/]Ropke Armor Museum is Crawfordsville is simply Outstanding. [/url]
This is true .... but it also true that Shermans and German tanks did encounter each other and ... "duke it out" as it were. Often to the detriment of the Sherman crew.
I enjoyed the film. Perhaps it had its inaccuracies (many films do) but it was still entertaining.
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I haven't watched this one yet but any movie Sherman crew without Donald Sutherland is sure to suck.
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Actually, it's apparently not entirely true. I had always thought that to be the case, as well.
Army doctrine for the tank in the years leading up to the war was apparently a hybrid of "tanks are an arm of the infantry," and "tanks lead the way" called combined arms operational force, in which tanks were to be used situationally, but in many cases the units weren't entirely trained on the new theories, and tanks were used primarily as infantry support in situations where they would have been far more useful in breaking out, etc.
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Some of you may not know that Fury and End of Watch were directed by the same guy, and they have some structural similarities. Both have roughly three acts. End of Watch does it better, IMO, the middle act not feeling nearly as long, but also doesn't offer as much insight into the stress of the men in question and how they cope, or don't.
The characters in Fury are a little clichéd, its true, but I did not feel that too heavily. Nor did I feel the director gave short shrift to any one type. Again, the middle section, which is excruciatingly awkward, is supposed to be so. Something is being said about each of the characters--and the women whose house they occupy.
For me, the best part of the movie was the sound production. Best I have ever experienced in the theater. I actually ducked when the shells glanced off the tanks.
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Some of you may not know that Fury and End of Watch were directed by the same guy, and they have some structural similarities. Both have roughly three acts. End of Watch does it better, IMO, the middle act not feeling nearly as long, but also doesn't offer as much insight into the stress of the men in question and how they cope, or don't.
The characters in Fury are a little clichéd, its true, but I did not feel that too heavily. Nor did I feel the director gave short shrift to any one type. Again, the middle section, which is excruciatingly awkward, is supposed to be so. Something is being said about each of the characters--and the women whose house they occupy.
For me, the best part of the movie was the sound production. Best I have ever experienced in the theater. I actually ducked when the shells glanced off the tanks.
I have a feeling that the center portion of the film appeals much more to the female viewers than the male. I really appreciated that part. Too many war movies add on the feminine perspective part and it's a dinky love story that falls flat. This, with the odd element of playing house, seemed to have more relevance, not just for the main characters but also exploring how horrifying and surreal the experience of having enemy soliders come through your home.
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I have a feeling that the center portion of the film appeals much more to the female viewers than the male. I really appreciated that part. Too many war movies add on the feminine perspective part and it's a dinky love story that falls flat. This, with the odd element of playing house, seemed to have more relevance, not just for the main characters but also exploring how horrifying and surreal the experience of having enemy soliders come through your home.
Liz, never thought of that. Good to have the female perspective on this kind of stuff. While I'm not surprised you watched this and enjoyed, it, I doubt the overall numbers of women in the theater were very high. My wife went and watched it with me but didn't appreciate it as much.
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Liz, never thought of that. Good to have the female perspective on this kind of stuff. While I'm not surprised you watched this and enjoyed, it, I doubt the overall numbers of women in the theater were very high. My wife went and watched it with me but didn't appreciate it as much.
I probably appreciated it more than most woman simply because of the "Oh! Grease Gun!" factor, but yeah, a lot of war movies in the past few decades seem to be trying to pull in a demographic that doesn't typically do war movies and, unfortunately, they mostly get it wrong (Pearl Harbor is probably one of the best examples of "Dear god, WHY!? Please stop with the sappy love story and go back to blowing *expletive deleted*it up!")
Which is sad, because there are feminine perspectives they could explore that can really hit home. We Were Soliders did that well, even though the deal with the wives was ficticious, it still, IMHO, showed that other perspective and it contrasted nicely with the men knowing to much and the woman not knowing enough, while both are helpless in their circumstances.
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I can't stand that more recent Pearl Harbor movie for that same reason. That and the Japanese bomber planes seemed to have a primary target of dropping bombs on fleeing nurses.
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The bazooka was pretty good for knocking a hole in a wall. Not so great against German tanks. Actually, we need something like a bazooka for urban combat today and don't have it.
Bad rev. "Like a bazooka"? You mean other than the m72...which was effectively identical in terms of performance and we handed them out like candy...except they sucked, just like the bazooka, or do you mean like the AT4 which is still cheap and now has anti-material capability as well? Or do you mean like the Carl Gustav...which now even the regular army is getting (instead of just SOF)...
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We need to name all our weapons Carl Gustav.
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"Oh! Grease Gun!"
Now you're killin'....now you ain't.
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I'll be honest, one reason why I liked it so much may be that it's the first WWII movie I've seen since reading my grandfather's memoirs and the landscape of it (wet, cold and muddy) is very much what he described in the one month of the war he covered (November 1944, Battle of Metz)
I don't know, seeing the visual and the artillery, even the Hollywood version, makes reading what Grandpa wrote seem more real. *shrug*
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The biggest problem with the tank destroyer concept in the American military in WW II was how they were deployed.
Quite frequently they were deployed in the exact same way as the Shermans, which significantly reduced their effectiveness and which also greatly increased their vulnerability.
They were, in many respects, the land version of British battle cruisers of World War I. Fast, light, carrying a heavy punch, and all to frequently called to participate in situations where their vulnerabilities were magnified all out of proportion.
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Tank destroyers seem to me best suited on the defense where their area of heavy armor and gun can be pre-sited on a likely fire axis and the rest of the vehicle as hull down as possible. Nowadays 4 guys, a Humvee and a fire and forget ATGM do as well.
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Tank destroyers seem to me best suited on the defense where their area of heavy armor and gun can be pre-sited on a likely fire axis and the rest of the vehicle as hull down as possible. Nowadays 4 guys, a Humvee and a fire and forget ATGM do as well.
Are you talking about the lightly armored tanks with big guns or the half tracks with artillery? My understanding is some of those tank destroyers were very fast and maneuverable and could be very effective on the attack. If they came under fire themselves, they had to start moving.
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"Tank destroyers seem to me best suited on the defense where their area of heavy armor and gun can be pre-sited on a likely fire axis and the rest of the vehicle as hull down as possible."
As originally envisioned, American tank destroyers were expected to deal with German tanks operating in blitzkrieg fashion using the kind of fast moving tactics that had worked so well in Poland, the low countries, and in the open stages of the Eastern Front war. In those tactics, German tanks punched through opposition and ran in front of their supporting infantry and artillery, effectively operating as cruiser units.
Purpose built American tank destroyers were designed to counter German tanks operating mode by being fast and mobile, which would allow them to engage and disengage at will, and also, as you mention, in pre-sited firing positions in a defensive mode. Unfortunately, it rarely worked out like that during World War II.
By the time American units entered the conflict wholesale, German tactics had changed dramatically, and were operating increasingly in a defense in depth mode. As such, American tank destroyers rarely got the opportunity to operate as originally intended, and it was then that their design limitations became glaringly apparent.
Besides the light armor, many American tank destroyers had open-topped turrets. While great for visibility, it left the crew vulnerable to infantry and air burst artillery and, in fact, many tank destroyer crew casualties were caused by shrapnel when they were put into combat situations where German armor was supported by artillery.
The same was true when tank destroyers were used in supporting attacks against German held positions -- the light armor and open topped turrets were vulnerable to just about everything above small arms.
"Are you talking about the lightly armored tanks with big guns or the half tracks with artillery?"
The "half-track with an artillery gun stuck in the back" was an expediency design, and was virtually never used after the invasion of Sicily. It was effective against Italian tanks and early German tanks, but it was slow, vulnerable to return fire, the gun had very limited aiming capabilities, and the gun's performance was quickly superseded by increasingly heavily armored tanks.
Most of the M3 Motor Gun Carriages in Europe ended up being used as self-propelled artillery or simply having the gun yanked out and the half-track returned to its originally purposes.
They were used with greater effect by Marines in the Pacific, where the rather lackluster ballistics of the 75mm gun was still more than enough to deal with Japanese tanks.