The first vehicle "from the scene where they murder surrendering German troops". Those were Czech soldiers. They were speaking Czech not German. They did not say "Look I washed for dinner". I don't speak Czech, but was told they said something like "We are Czech, not German. We were drafted."
Hi Mark please check out the War Movie called Patton! As the germans in that movie used M47/M48+M41s as Tiger Tanks and the Americans used them as Sherman's they also used M24 chaffees and American Deuce and a Half's for trucks on both sides.
If you ever do videos on the 1st Amored Division as it went from Rome to the Alps, I have a written account research report of it. I would let you look into it. It's quite fascinating
Just a quick side note, I just started watching your episode about whether Russia could destroy the United Kingdom 🇬🇧, and I have to say I agree with your introductory statement about what the new labour government has done since they were elected, especially the actions of Kier Starmer, and I agree with you 100%, the man is a fool living in his ivory tower whilst the rest of the population are being fed a load of rubbish about their actions and inactions, the deceit and hoodwinking is just unbelievable. 🤬😡😠😤😢🇬🇧🏴
Makes sense, the T-34 reliability rates were roughly as bad as Panthers, roughly a 30% of a unit would have tanks out of action due to mechanical failure. WW2 tanks were super unreliable, that’s what makes the sherman so relatable, instead of 30% being out of action it was usually only 15-25% and they got repaired quicker. I digress, T-34s broke down a lot, makes a lot of sense to get 4 of them incase one decides it’s had enough
Another wonderful video from Mr Felton, spotting out of place vehicles in the wrong historical context in films and documentaries is a little foible of mine so this was all the more enjoyable. My knowledge is of such things is on a far more modest scale than Mark’s so this is rather welcome. Thanks Mark Felton and keep up the wonderful high standards.
@@stuglife5514 It always bugs me how often people claim the T-34 is better than the Sherman. The Sherman is superior in almost every way, notably being the first mass produced tank with sloped armor as well as excellent crew comfort etc.
When I was probably 12, on my way to a Boy Scout camp out in cape henlopen, DE, my dad and I saw the first tiger tank that was sticky bombed along the side of the highway on a ridge. We stopped on the way home to investigate, and I climbed through the drivers vision slit. The bow machine gun was just a barrel (nothing inside the vehicle) and the main gun was a big air cannon. About the time I realized this tank wasn’t a functioning fighting vehicle, the owner pulled up to the field where the tank was parked, with myself still inside. He was cool about the whole thing, and proceeded to tell us that this was the first of the two tigers seen in the movie. Very cool experience, and now I have a story to tell every time I’m watching the film. Thank you for covering this
@ this was probably between 2007 and 2009, so it’s likely it was moved shortly after I saw it. I was young so I don’t exactly remember if we passed it in PA or DE, but I remember the highway having a ridge about 15 or 20 feet tall on either side, which you wouldn’t see in mostly flat lower Delaware.
I did a Battle of The Bulge reenactment back in 2006 (I think) at Fort Indiantown Gap, PA. Someone with deep pockets had bought one of the Saving Private Ryan "Tigers" (the first one Tom Hanks took out) and had it shipped to the States. I was doing 101st Airborne and I can tell you sitting in a foxhole watching that thing slowly clank up a snow covered dirt road is a memory I will not forget!
Even as a kid, I was usually disappointed by the lack of effort filmmakers put into using correct (or correct-looking) equipment. Movies from the sixties and seventies were particularly bad for this. Patton may have won seven Oscars, but the battle scenes were infuriating for a kid who built plastic models and knew those were NOT German tanks. While I knew the Tigers in this film were Soviet mock-ups, I appreciated that they were decent ones. Thanks for the detailed descriptions. I’m glad to know that someone besides me obsesses about things like this.
Tamaya produced a 1/8 scale Tiger 1 with interior & was remote control it was £15 back in 1971 paid it off weekly from pocket money , God knows how much that would be at todays prices , yeah like you i knew when they got it wrong
I still prefer that than make a mock-up that looks trash. For example, the "Tiger" in the movie 'White Tiger' is an IS-2 but looks almost identical to the Porshe prototype/command Tiger. I have not many experiences with bad mock-up tanks in movies but if my memory serves me right I saw somewhere that in a movie they built a Sherman using an M113 IFV or something similarly outrageous. Or was that T-34 rebuilt to resemble a Sherman🤔. I saw them in a video like 5 years ago and I can barely recall yesterday's events so I rather stop here because you probably get my point
My father served with 4th Marines on IWO. When I was a kid he would watch’Sands of Iwo Jima ‘ every time it was on and yell at the tv. He wasn’t a John Wayne fan. It still cracks me up thinking about it.
Former mech infantry soldier here. I thought the film did a very good job portraying the sounds of the armored vehicles in an urban setting. Squeaky road wheels, the sound of crushed rubble under vehicle tracks, and engine noises during turns.
The one's I worked around, the engines were so loud you couldn't hear anything else. Of course, you certainly felt the ground shaking with their approach.
"Saving Private Ryan" raised the bar considerably for what a WW2 combat film ought to be. I'm a critic of certain aspects of the script, and I am not one of those who believes SPR to be a perfect film. But having said that, homage must be paid: Spielberg and his team got a whole lot of things right. He and his team also responded to fans and critics in the much-awarded min-series "Band of Brothers," which rectified many of the errors made in SPR. Spielberg and his production team also had a hand in Clint Eastwood's twin epic about Iwo Jima, "Flags of our Fathers" and "Letters from Iwo Jima," both of which also set new highs for realism and authenticity in war films. The very fact that they were aware of these sounds and effects, raises them high in terms of technical achievement and awareness - the fact that they got them right more often than not only elevates them further. I'll never forget seeing SPR for the first time, in the late 1990s in a theater when it first came out: Seeing a couple of elderly gentlemen sitting there with tears on their faces after the film ended. Someone next to me saying, "Those men were there"....
Fury had it problems, but one point about the scene with 131: In the extra features of Fury, its shown that for the scenes involving 131, the insurance company and curators would only a allow 131 to drive either straight forward or back on a concrete pad covered by only a small amount of mud on top, with a bunch of other restrictions. The silly driving forward and being flanked by Fury was the best idea the filmakers could come up with considering the restrictions.
In which case they should not have included the scene at all! It is a total joke. In reality, the Tiger would have stayed concealed and destroyed all the Shermans from there.
@@rubbishmodeller Sure, and Main Characters dying after a static long range fight from concealment isn't something most audiences would pay to see. As the old saying goes; its easy to smell a rotten egg, but hard to lay a better one.
From what I understand, the Tiger was also too heavy for the field it was in, any attempt at a 360 or neutral turn the panzer sank and dug itself in, putting it in danger of throwing or breaking a track or doing irreparable damage. This was why it was put onto a concealed thick concrete pad, to support the weight and lessen any potential damage, it also aided the turns the panzer made.
The "Tiger" in Pennsylvania has relocated to Florida, it has been restored over the last 6 or so years where the old modifications were removed, areas cut away were strengthened to hold the turret properly, and new "Tiger" armor was added. New fire suppression equipment and radios were installed, and a new engine was added from a Polish T-34 recovery vehicle. The restored Tiger has plenty of energy now and with live MG34s and a restored gun, has the bite a good movie villain needs. It is operated by WWII Armor and appears at events in the US. I've had the pleasure of playing a "dough" sent to support US armor in fighting the "not so Tiger" and the first time you see the barrel point in your direction it generates a significant emotional experience.
@ Different needs, for a movie it only has to look good on camera and be functional for the duration of filming, for what WWII Armor does, which is regular events and training with the vehicles, they have to have certain safety considerations and longevity concerns.
The real tell on that Tiger in the film is the absence of overlapping wheels in the track system. Also, the turret is too far forward to be an actual Tiger I.
If I recall correctly, the Chieftain engine sound effects were recorded at the Jacque Littlefield military vehicle collection (mostly tanks from WWI - 1980’s, in Palo Alto, Ca. I had the joy of spending a day going through his collection most of which was in, or had been restored to, running order and stored in several buildings on his property. I believe he had the only privately owned tank repair / overhaul facility in the U.S. When I was there they were working on getting his Panther restored, which they completed right before he passed away. It was a wonderful place and it was open to the public, for free, once a month, with volunteer guides to show you around, but the day I was there with some friends and we had the entire place to ourselves. A marvelous collecting achievement. After he passed his widow donated all the vehicles to Collings Foundation whom kept a lot of them and auctioned off what the didn’t want.
Lucky you for experiencing the legendary Littlefield collection. I only managed to purchase the auction guide. Thankfully a lot of the collection can be seen today at the Collings Foundation's American Heritage Museum facility in Stow, Massachusetts.
I had the privilege of seeing the "Tiger" at the Duxford IWM Land Warfare Display Gallery while I was on leave from Afghanistan in 2008. I was walking through the Normandy section of the exhibit when I said, "It would be really cool if they had a Tiger". My fiance, who had gone ahead slightly, then motioned me towards the bombed out ruins where the vehicle was positioned. I was as giddy as a schoolgirl to see what I initially thought was a real Tiger. Even after reading the plaque and discovering that it was the tank from Saving Private Ryan, I was no less impressed. Definitely one of the highlights of my visit. Thanks for giving me a trip down memory lane.
In the early '70's my uncle was stationed at Aberdeen Proving Grounds, outside of Baltimore. They had a vast collection of WW2 tanks and artillery. Stuff was just sitting outside rusting away. Only place I've actually seen a real Tiger.
My grandpa told me when he worked for the railway, also in Scotland, the government had an amnesty of some sort allowing people to hand in illegal weapons. There were piles of swords and firearms I believe from Both world wars and more, that were just going to be melted, so he took a Luger and a sword. The Luger was thrown into some river but the sword remains in my families possession
They didn't have a large enough building for all those vehicles and missiles and such. There was also a road with examples of every tank the US has built - all of them could be operated again (minus the guns) with a modicum of maintenance. I wonder if those went to Fort Lee (or whatever the name is now)? Also, the rail gun, which had to be really hard to move.
In the 1962 movie "The Longest Day," an authentic VW Type 82 Kübelwagen is strafed, set on fire and rolled onto the driver's side. As the owner of a '43 Kübel, this scene is now painful to watch; have always wondered what was the fate of that car after filming was completed.
Probably scrapped as it was just a piece of old enemy junk back then, less than 20 years after the war ended. Nobody was thinking about saving these machines that still have reminded the atrocities of war.
Film producers are notorious for wrecking rare vehicles' there is a Uk Tv show called Combat Dealer his Tiger 1 was in ''Fury'' he also had a Kettenkrad valued some £250.000 on set then the stunt guys decided to race it around the set the owner stepped up & had a tear up with the director threatning to pull all his vehicle props from the film for letting his crew abuse the vehicles imagine the legal issues that would have ensued then ........
@@leso204 I have had two vehicles used in film shoots. The movie people don't care if your car gets damaged. I was told that any damage would be fixed by them but the cheapest of 3 estimates from body shops is all they will pay for. I won't do that anymore because why should I let my cars be damaged in the first place. My cars weren't damaged but that isn't the point. The money they pay to use it really isn't much. I knew of a car damaged by a film crew using fake snow in a scene where the snow clogged the radiator but they kept using the car as it overheated and blew a rod bearing. It costs a fair amount to rebuild the engine on a 1956 Mercedes 300SL Gullwing. They paid, but took their own sweet time doing it.
Spielberg and the audio engineers absolutely nailed the audio and the sounds of the Tiger approaching in the final battle. From listening to the record player and reminiscing while being abruptly interrupted by the distant and terrifying shrieks of a giant beast approaching. I like to attribute it to a Trex approaching as in Jurassic Park that he did several years prior. You can absolutely FEEL the tension and fright in the air. The squeaks, thuds, clanging of heavy armor approaching and the shaking of the ground and rubble as the men stand at the ready. Absolute masterclass in suspense.
My son recently visited Bovington after taking a Spitfire ride not far from there...he said the museum was amazing. They have a NUMBER of only known examples of WWI and WWII tanks. He grew hearing stories about my Uncles that fought in WWII, one was in the 82nd Airborne and fought on D-Day all the way through the Bulge...we both have always loved the history of WWII planes and armor. Pretty cool he got to see a Tiger I and Tiger II at the same place in person!
I worked on Band of Brothers a few years after this was made, and i can tell you the tanks in person were extremely convincing, the battles were so realistic that if it wernt for the cameras the crew would say how this is like a "personal living history show" for all of us. This was a monumental time in my career and the most special, i am still friends with some of the performers and the crew, we are indeed a band of brothers.
I don’t know how close you were to Scott Grimes, who played Donald Malarkey, but my wife’s father is good friends with Scott. Small world. Very cool to read your comment.
Certainly, but after what those GI's were put through on Omaha Beach they weren't in any mood to take prisoners. I have to give Spielberg credit for showing that particular sequence. Sherman said it, "War is hell."
Please remember this was a movie. I have full confidence that the soldiers of our greatest generation were nothing but kind and helpful to volunteer soldiers identified as foreign fighters in SS uniforms. 😂. Naw. Just joking. They killed those guys like that whether they needed killing or not.
@@tomthx5804 They weren't necessarily fighting for the German by choice remember, Czechoslovakia had been occupied by Germany shortly before the war started and they almost conscripted Czechs into the various branches of the Wehrmacht because they needed all the warm bodies they could get. They probably weren't given much choice, it's not like draft dodging was thing back then and unlike the US during the Vietnam war, I'm pretty certain that Germany had pretty serious punishments for anybody caught trying to dodge the draft, not to mention that there wasn't exactly a friendly neighboring country that they could ran to if they hadn't gotten out of the country before Germany's occupation.
@@tomthx5804 They were captured by the Germans and forced to fight for them. Unlike the Czech Resistance in Czechia, Czech troops sent overseas to places like France had little chance to resist as they didn't speak the language, were in a foreign land, and if caught trying to go AWOL by the Germans they would have been executed. However, such conscripted foreign troops were known to surrender as soon as they could safely do so (they really didn't want to fight for their German captors who had invaded their homelands.) Czech troops like these were more victims of the German war machine than perpetrators.
I have a full collection of the German War Files videos, and I have watched them dozens of times. I am so glad to have found that you're still out here making content!
@@maralajtkep2900I was surprised mark Felton didn’t know that. It’s basically the saving private Ryan version of the guy kicking the helmet and breaking his toe
No remember the GI explained to his friend that they were saying, "look we washed for supper" before checking them for intelligence and having a good chuckle about it
Unrelated fact, on the 5th March 1940 the Germans launched a successful raid in the Saarland area where they captured a number of British pows. There are photos and news articles about it. The captured men were from the 2nd battalion Duke of Cornwall light infantry near Hartbusch wood or Oberesch.
Only a Brit would say “ twatted “ Excellent 😂 The half track was supposed to have been a probe by the 2nd SS Das Reich advance units but they didn’t turn up until well after this action was supposed to have taken place and not in that area . But I suppose it’s more of an impact having SS troops to fight on the big screen .
My grandfather was an Omaha Beach lander, he had nothing but praise for the German soldier. he said they were so good that we could not even talk to one another, we had to run wire to keep them from hearing our communicates. The hedgrose that they hid behind could hide an entire tank and they were textbook in their defense. He said they were the most professional soldiers he had ever encountered, but even they could not stop our numbers.
You don't see a lot of original WWII German vehicles in films because their owners are not keen on seeing them blown up or set on fire. Jay Leno has told a story about a friend who loaned a rare and irreplaceable classic car to a film crew only to have them hack a huge hole in the dashboard to mount a camera. Interestingly, the Sherman tank they used to film "The Pacific" was also a fiberglass replica even though Shermans are not exactly rare. Oh, and one minor correction: The Soviets didn't reverse engineer the Ural 63 motorcycle, BMW actually sold them a production license during the brief period when the Germans were trying make nice with the Soviets prior to Barbarossa.
Месяц назад+6
And that BMW was an R71, not the R75. The Soviets made the R71, but most Urals were further modified R71's. For 12 years I owned a Chinese copy of the R71, the Chang Jiang, and it was nearly identical to the BMW R71. Some BMW engine parts would fit it.
BMW offered the Soviets a choice of three motorcycles - the R12, R71 and R-75. The R12 was considered too dated. The R75 would not be available until 20,000 units were produced, (a figure never achieved). The R71 had ceased production in 1939 in Munich and restarted production in early 1941, presumably to train Soviet workers. The R71 was not a great motorcycle and required many modifications to be successful. The Wehrmacht didn't use it, being utilised by the Reichspost and Zollgrenzschutz.
Месяц назад+2
@@peterwilliams2152 The R71 was a great motorcycle, a workhorse. But it was a flat-head, so it was slow. Very simple to maintain and repair. I have photos of German soldiers riding them.
The R71 was garbage. BMW stopped making them in 1939 because only the Reichspost and Zollgrenzschutz bought them. The Soviets bought it because they saw the possibility of the R72. You probably have photos of Zollgrenzschutz riding them. It's almost impossible to tell the Zollgrenzschutz and Wehrmacht apart in B&W photos. What were the R71s problems? The plungers ripped off. A 3.89 FD gear. Weak clutch. The sidecar stub axle broke. The 18mm gudgeon pin broke. The Soviets corrected all these problems. Until these corrections, the WLA was simply a far better motorcycle with the Stoye sidecar from ГАЗ.
My father in law was a Panzergrenadier in the 9th Panzers, Hohenstaufen division. Later worked for the City of Fremont in California as the mapmaker for the new postwar city being planned. When he surrendered and looked for British or Americans to surrender to, he rode a burned up bike with no rubber tires. Saw a German tank off the road with someone up in the hatch and yelled several times but was ignored. When he approached the tank the officer was leaning back against the hatch door with his entire lower body missing and burned away but the top half of him looking relatively okay. Before that one of his first assignments was to scout the distance from his unit to the Soviets across a river to get a firing fix. To this day the neighborhood blocks in his adopted American town of Fremont are quite long, and match exactly the distance from his squad to the Soviet position 10 years earlier.
That's a cool story... Sounds pretty German (the block distance size). Did he volunteer that he was part of a (formerly) SS Panzer Division upon emigrating? I would have thought that might be an instant 'no' if advertised on your paperwork... (Not that I'm aware of the Hohenstaufen being accused of any 'war crimes' specifically, but) I imagine 'SS' was all it took in some circles to shut doors forever... Glad to hear he eventually made Fremont easier to get around in. :)
@@briankrause2359 I know he buried his panzergrenadier uniform, MG 42 and Luger, he was only 18 at a mill where he was given work after the surrender to support his family; the father and uncle were taken to Siberia and that was it for them. In '44 Waffen SS came to his village (Hochweis in Slovakia) when he was 17 and said "you're coming to the Baltic for training". Good point about the Hohenstaufen division which I agree doesn't seem to come up for much.
Great idea to cover this.....all my life I watched WWII movies and knew they were just American Surplus with Iron Crosses painted on the side.... Ryan was one of the few I ever noticed that seemed to go beyond that
Jacksons scope: At the beginning of the film, the rifle is shown as an M1903A4 (which is appropriate) but with a Lyman Alaskan scope (which is wrong). Next, it is shown with interchangeable scopes, the seconds one being an 8x Unertl. While the Unertl was used by Marine Corps snipers, it is not interchangeable with the M1903A4's Weaver M73B1 scope. Just to make it fit on the prop gun, the mounts have to be changed. finally, when it's actually used with the Unertl, the scope does not move like it should, and Jackson tries to change his windage by adjusting the scope's parallax
You’re definitely not alone. While all the acting is top shelf (and a special nod to Shia Lebeouf), the film itself fell so far short of what it could’ve been, and was a sizable disappointment to me. I still watch it to see the tanks in action and enjoy the visual spectacle of the movie, but the writing, the sequences, how it all came together (or didn’t), fell very short of the mark. It SHOULD have been a phenomenal movie, and it just wasn’t.
well, to be fair to the movie fury I see a lot of comments where people just can’t accept the possibility that during WW2 an American tank might’ve destroyed a German tank…ever.
It’s amazing how that scene remains so controversial over the years but I agree with you. Range with that gun was it’s biggest advantage, they wouldn’t be charging forward.
Basically, it probably went unnoticed by the majority of the viewing public interested mostly in Brad Pitt - however it grated with all the WW2 enthusiasts I'd suggest. For me it was also the scene where they trumped hidden emplaced and range sighted AT guns. Fury would have been FUBAR'D in quick order.
@@TwinTalon01the characters are so stupid The writing is terrible.....like why is Brad Pitt's character a psychopath. That movie is absolute garbage. Doesn't deserve to be called a war movie
I've seen operational (sometimes barely) T-34s, Stugs, Shermans, and a Panzer III. The German reenactor unit with the Stug uses it to fundraise for repair money.
Very cool, I remember when I discovered how the Spielberg's tiger had incorrect, that is, T-34 tracks. Still way better than what they pulled with Battle of the Bulge. Cheers!
I watched this film aged 16 in New York with my father, whilst on a holiday from the UK. I burning memory of my childhood. All seemed very genuine at the time and truly gripping.
It's really not that hard. I'm just a guy who likes to build armor models. I'm not an Historian who produces videos that the whole World can watch, and even I already knew most of this stuff.
There's a company in America that is trying to build a full replica company of German mechanized infantry and armor. I don't know how far they've gotten but last time I checked that had one panzer 4 and 2 251s completed and operational. This was about 10 years ago though, so if they didn't go bankrupt they probably have more done.
Well, if you want your military vehicles to survive for posterities sake DO NOT attack east first and then start a mess towards the west. Oh, and leave the Jews alone.
Fun fact, someone has a German half track sitting in a garage near Fulton, MO. A town famous for the iron curtain speech. The owner sometimes would have the garage doors open when you’d drive by. Quite the shock when I first saw it
Tip: the Battle of the Bulge was filmed in Spain and those Panzers were Spanish army M47s and the extras were Spanish recruits doing their mandatory military service. Exactly the same happened in the film Patton. Also; the actor who played the role of Patton was horrified to see how poorly those recruits were treated by their sergeants.
The SPR Normandy beach landing was filmed at Curracloe in Wexford, Ireland. A lot of the extras are Irish army. I've been there since, and there was no sign of the movie having been there. They cleaned up their mess well. Waterloo (1970) the soldier extras were Russian army. At one point during a French cavalry charge at the 'British' square formations of troops, one square breaks formation. Apparently the extras were genuinely scared by the mass of horses running at them.
The Messerschmitt 109s used in the Battle of Britian (1969) were all retired from the Spanish Air Force. The production company bought them all, about fifty of them, and put seventeen of them back into flying condition, flown by Spanish Air Force pilots, and members of the Commemorative Air Force. The thirty-two Heinkels, with crews, were on loan from the Spanish Air Force. The two Junkers 52 were also on loan.
The wooden tiger's plywood vision port is a shame. "We can't be arsed to bend a bit of cardboard to look like the port. Nobody'll notice!" People did. Instantly. It's one of the rare cases where I'd be fine with a bit of CGI retouching.
They did a good job with the film's authenticity. I have no problem with "fakes" being used as long as the visual representation is reasonably accurate. The key word there is reasonably, which I think Spielberg accomplished quite well. Compare it to the 1965 film Battle of the Bulge that used obviously modern US tanks to portray German tanks. It was ridiculous. No attempt whatsoever was made to make those even resemble German panzers.
A few of the vehicles shown in both Band of Brothers ( the faux Tiger @ 10:13 is one) & The Pacific (the Higgins boats) were fabbed & serviced by a shop in nearby Dillsburg, PA many years ago. The shop sat along the southbound side of US Route 15 & for years, passersby would be amazed at what would sit in the lot. A friends son, worked at this shop & on some of the Hollywood "props". I do remember him being frustrated with the "Tiger" as it was powered by a long obsolete powerplant that they had difficulty sourcing parts for. I sold them a bevy of wiring & switches for that Frankenstein.
Make it a three way collaboration between Mark, Ian and Jonathan Ferguson keeper of firearms and artillery at the Royal Armouries Museum in the UK, which houses a collection of thousands of iconic weapons from throughout history
@selfdo ohhh I know. When I was a kid and really into building models it just always bummed me out that Hollywood didn't care enough to use real machines.
Singular der Panzer/plural die Panzer. :-)) US tank , appearing in german 1950s anti war movie Die Brücke/ the bridge , was a wooden Mock Up, moved with steel ropes and winds.
3:35 I'm suprised to hear you weren't aware they aren't German, but Czech. "Please don't shoot me, I am not German, I am Czech, I didn't kill anyone, I am Czech!"
Excellent movie! Spielberg deserves kudos in his effort to give us an "as close to real" experience as he could physically make it without manufacturing German vehicles from scratch. Saving Private Ryan has, and will, stand the test of time. Thank you so much for making this video!
Apologies for being anal, no offence - No he didn't, he said "twatted" which is vastly different to "twated" which is by your erroneous spelling is pronounced tway- ted. Incidentally, there is always one or more of these humorous insertions into Felton's excellent presentations which makes them vastly more human, entertaining and different to other documentaries. Look-out for them. Can anyone quote any more examples..?
That’s my least favorite scene in the film. It’s always nice to see warbirds but Hanks’ lines just seem so contrived. P-47’s would have been a better fit IMO.
The most obvious difference between the real Tiger tanks and the fake Tiger Tanks is the real ones have interleaved road wheels, while the fakes don't.
Tigers also have a big front drive sprocket, whereas the T34 only has a small idler at the front as it is rear sprocket drive. That always stands out to me
It was the most realistic attempt. When I was a kid, the movies of the 50's and 60's all used modified American tanks. I knew it, even then. I suspected lack of surviving examples.
Movie budgets were much smaller than. Now, movies are marketed across the entire world. Then, they were for US consumption, and perhaps a bit of European market.
@@tomthx5804 Yet a few years later "Kelly's Heroes" managed to show us a believable fake Tiger and "Where Eagles Dare" used a real JU-52. Not to mention "Battle of Britain" where they used real English airplanes and license-built Spanish HE-111. It's more a matter of effort than budget.
in the first scene you mention, they are dressed as german soldiers but they are czech recruits, you can hear them say nestrilejte, which means dont shoot
@@martinswiney2192 These could be ethnic Czechs which remained in Sudeteland and didn't opt for Czechoslovak citizenship, or people from the Volkliste. Otherwise, Czechs were not allowed into the German army or SS, even as volunteers.
Doctor Mark, I was at Bovington a few years after this Movie came out. I got a chance to see the (now running ) Tiger Tank in pieces as they were going to restore it sometime soon ( as one Museum Staff Member noted ). I also got to see what 'looked like' a Tiger in the back of the Museum. The armor boomed when struck with a closed hand as if it were hollow in addition to having some Russian looking running gear. The Staff Museum Member who observed me looking it over commended me on realizing it was not a real Panzer. Nice to know that this 'Tiger' is still in England tho' no longer at Bovington. I think that Bovington is well off with the real Thing at any rate! ;0) Thank you for this fun ( Halftrack ambush so interestingly described ;0) and informative video.
Dr. Felton could do a similar compendium on the vehicles featured in "Kelly's Heroes". I think the MkVI's in that production might have been T-55s. This was fantastic!
The way you describe the strategic use of vehicles in the film's climax is so vivid! It's like re-experiencing the movie through your words. Brilliant work!
There's a Girls und Panzer fan comic out there that pokes fun at the Patton being used as a King Tiger stand-in. Despite the inaccuracies in films like BotB and SPR, I accept that the filmmakers followed a philosophy that can be perfectly summed up by one line from an awesome sci-fi film that more than enough people should be able to appreciate. "Doing what I can with what I got." -Burt Gummer
@NTAD : was taken to the cinema to see Patton by my mum when the tank battle started in the valley i said very loudly they're not german tanks' lots of shuss's from behind one guy was laughing & said he's right , dear me did'nt half have a smack round the ear after mum saying thats for showing me up ! it was one of those cases i was right but in the wrong at the same time ☹
Excellent episode about a great movie! My dad was an ETO veteran, serving in the 99th Infantry Division. The 99th was still in training on D-Day at Camp Maxey, near Paris, Texas. The Division arrived in France at Le Harve in November of 1944. The 99th was the first full US Division to offload at the permanent harbor facilities at Le Harve instead of Omaha Beach. The 99th was moved into position in the northern Ardennes, in what G-2 assured the brass in the 99th that they would be “in a quiet sector”. As it turned out, US Military Intelligence was wrong about the area being “quiet”. I took my dad to see “Saving Private Ryan” when it first came out. For a long time, Dad didn’t talk about his service much and rarely talked about the Bulge or combat. As he got older, he began reading several books on the ETO in general and the Bulge in particular. During the final push of the Germans, in the movie, to recapture the bridge at Ramelle, Dad all of a sudden set up straight in his seat and grabbed the armrests. After the movie, we talked for a long time about the movie and I ask him why that battle scene jolted him. He said, to him as a veteran of the ETO, the thing the director got right was the noise of the German armor. The squeak of the German tank wheels and tracks, was something that was almost constant during the war. Yes, German armor out classed much of the Allied armor but reliability was never completely over come by the Germans. A few years ago, my wife and I took a Battle of the Bulge tour, through the National WWII Museum in New Orleans. On our first day in the Ardennes, we toured the northern shoulder of the Bulge, where the 99th was located. I stood in the crossroads town of Losheimergraben, Belgium. After the artillery barrage lifted on December 16, 1944, the first thing my dad and other US troops heard was the squeaking of the wheels of the German armor advancing from the east. It sent chills down my spine thinking about what was going through my Dad’s mind at that moment. On our tour, we also visited the December 44 Museum in La Gleize, Belgium. In front of the Museum is a King Tiger tank of Jochen Peiper’s 1st SS Division. One thing that the King Tiger and other German armor required was fuel. It was the high water mark of the German advance in Le Gleize. Without fuel, the Germans abandoned their vehicles and tried to walk east, back into Germany. So, if you want to stand in front of a real King Tiger, go to Le Gleize, Belgium and try to imagine what you would have done facing a tank like that! Thanks to Steven Spielberg for getting his movies so real and giving me a chance to talk to my dad about his service.
Re: "The 99th was moved into position in the northern Ardennes, in what G-2 assured the brass in the 99th that they would be “in a quiet sector”. As it turned out, US Military Intelligence was wrong about the area being “quiet”." Wow, what a story - thanks for sharing it! You dad, like so many men of that generation, were giants. Their intelligence was cutoff because once the Anglo-American allies were ashore for good in the ETO after D-Day the Germans began using line-lines and motorcycle messengers instead of radio traffic and the Enigma coding system. Deprived of our insight into their coded communications, our intel blacked out. That is one of the reasons the Ardennes Offensive caught us so badly unawares. SHAEF didn't expect them there,even though the Germans had previously used the route to attack France in both world wars. I've seen a King Tiger up close, at the Patton Armor Museum. They are fearsome looking tanks even all these years after the war; I can only imagine how frightening one must have been to the GIs back in 1944-1945. Fearsome though they were, the largest and heaviest German tanks and tank destroyers were ill-suited in many respects to fast-moving mobile operations of the kind represented by the 'Bulge. They drank fuel, and were too large and heavy for the bridges, unpaved roads and rough terrain of the Schnee Eiffel. Interestingly, some Allied troops when encountering the largest and most-fierce German AFVs, took to using captured German AT weapons, such as the famous panzerfaust. That weapon was found to be effective against even the thickest frontal armor, such as that found on the Panther, Tiger I and related AVFs. Of course, sometimes, Allied troops didn't need to knock them out - as they'd be found out of fuel, broken down, bogged down or otherwise abandoned. My dad was a WW2 veteran, too, but he was USN - a navy man in the Atlantic and Pacific. I'm glad your father made it home from the war. They were special, the men of that generation.
@@GeorgiaBoy1961 Yes, you are correct about the lack of intelligence as the Allies got closer and later, into Germany. Even in Belgium, because some parts of the country had been part of Germany, prior to WWI, intelligence was lacking. The other part of the G-2 story was that the 99th was assured that there was ONE horse-drawn artillery piece across the Siegfried line from there location. At the start of the Bulge, the 99th and other Allied units, were subjected to the longest artillery barrage on the Western front in WWII. Never lost for humor, even in a dire situation, one GI was heard to say, “Boy, they’re sure working that poor horse to death!” Those Navy men were tough. A GI infantryman could always use his entrenching tool to dig deeper while under fire. The sailors could not do that if in a battle with the Japanese or German navies. Being sunk had to be on their minds most of the time. Don’t Give Up The Ship!
One of the things that always bothered me with the film is the way the Americans are able to knockout the first Tiger Tank by shoving a Thompson into the Driver's Port and then the commander opening the hatch just to get himself and the rest of the crew killed. The crew would have been safe for the most part inside the tank despite being disabled. I mean a few seconds later, the 20mm cannon takes out most of the Americans still standing on or near the Tiger.
The crew or commander could've possibly panicked and didn't realize buttoning up would've been safer. Unrealistic sure,but not impossible in an actual scenario back then with the varying amount of training everyone had
@@vito7428 When I see that scene I think to myself that the driver paniced or didn't know there were attacking infantry and took out the vision block to change to a clean/undamaged one. Once the bullets are in the tank even a commander might panic and unlock the hatch...
Spielberg's crew did a great job on the Tiger. The ridged texture on the armor is a nice detail that only an obsessive tank nerd would even notice. I have an even deeper respect for this movie now.
Zimmerite plastered on tanks to prevent magnetic explosives. Funny thing that Germans were the only* ones that used magnetic explosives * maybe soviet?
From what I've read, there is a legal difference between murdering POW's, and not taking prisoners. In the heat of a battle it is not always possible to take prisoners, so the reasoning goes. Of course, there is no excuse for the millions of POW's worked, starved or frozen to death by the Germans and Japanese.
Yep. My understanding is that enlisted troops are under no legal obligation to accept battlefield surrenders. Legally, battlefield surrenders may only be negotiated by officers. And that makes sense. How is an enlisted man, whose orders are to remove enemy conbatants by force of arms supposed to be able to tell the difference between a real surrender and a trick? Infantrymen have gotten themselves killed that way.
Mr Felton, I happen to know the owner of the 2 German halftracks used in this film 1 was what you said a chech post war copy but one of the other halftracks is an original ww2 one with some battle-damaged
@@malekodesouza7255 Generally I would rather see an obviously period incorrect real ship than a perfectly period correct and horribly fake CGI with terrible physics. Most CGI looks worse than stop motion by that guy Harryhausen fired on his first day.
@ watch “Greyhound”(again with Tom Hanks). The interior scenes were filmed on an actual WW2 destroyer but the battle scenes were all CGI. That movie would never get made without it.
I think Saving Private Ryan is the best war film ever made. Its all in the details, the language, the sounds, the cinematography, even the uniform costumes are so lived in, so realistic. In my opinion we are yet to see another film come close
The opening scenes are very accurate and I often refer to them as an example of what happened on Omaha due to the absence of specialist engineer vehicles.
I have infinite problems with Ryan and the vehicles are merely one of many; Hollywood really, really needs to get away from portraying every German tank as being a "Tiger." First off, there weren't that many Tigers that were built (it was extremely expensive) and the vast majority went to the Eastern Front, as did most all of the German forces & equipment. And, as stated, US forces never faced the very small numbers of Tigers at Normandy. But, that's Hollywood, and blame it on Spielberg, who could have done a lot better with this movie. If you want to watch a pretty much flawless WWII movie, see Das Boot--there is nothing else out there that can compare to it....
Apparently, one of the problems was that many Americans (probably other Allies too) referred to any German tank as a 'Tiger'. In the chaos and stress of combat, I can imagine a late-war Panzer IV (Aust. H with side skirts) looking like a Tiger.
I have read a lot of original WW2 source materials such as after action reports and such, and it was very common for US tank crews to call every German tank a "Tiger" or "Panther" when in reality they were most often facing Panzer IVs. Though there were a lot of US encounters with actual Panthers, let's just say the source materials are very interesting reading, I won't go into it here due to the toxic armchair general comments that usually follow.
It's worth you making a segment about this. I do believe also historically, that such low ground attacks by planes during WW2 by the Allies would've been conducted by the P-57 Thunderbolt as it was more capable of taking ground fire damage.
3:35 fun fact (or not so fun fact), those soldiers surrendering were speaking Czech, which means they were conscripts forced to fight by the Germans. They were saying, "Please don’t shoot me! I am not German, I am Czech, I didn’t kill anyone! I am Czech!"
Fantastic breakdown. I've read LOTS of WWII books and memoirs but have never gotten into the Tanks and Artillery minutia, so I really appreciate this simple breakdown. Would love to see a similar "Patton" breakdown. As always, a big Thumbs Up like.
🌏 Get NordVPN 2Y plan + 4 months extra ➼ nordvpn.com/markfelton It’s risk-free with Nord’s 30-day money-back guarantee! ✌
Those are not surrendering Germans, those are Czech forced soldiers saying they aren't nazis. Weird of you to miss this piece of movie trivia
The first vehicle "from the scene where they murder surrendering German troops". Those were Czech soldiers. They were speaking Czech not German. They did not say "Look I washed for dinner". I don't speak Czech, but was told they said something like "We are Czech, not German. We were drafted."
Hi Mark please check out the War Movie called Patton! As the germans in that movie used M47/M48+M41s as Tiger Tanks and the Americans used them as Sherman's they also used M24 chaffees and American Deuce and a Half's for trucks on both sides.
If you ever do videos on the 1st Amored Division as it went from Rome to the Alps, I have a written account research report of it. I would let you look into it. It's quite fascinating
Just a quick side note, I just started watching your episode about whether Russia could destroy the United Kingdom 🇬🇧, and I have to say I agree with your introductory statement about what the new labour government has done since they were elected, especially the actions of Kier Starmer, and I agree with you 100%, the man is a fool living in his ivory tower whilst the rest of the population are being fed a load of rubbish about their actions and inactions, the deceit and hoodwinking is just unbelievable. 🤬😡😠😤😢🇬🇧🏴
I’m laughing that Spielberg made 4 Tigers in case of mechanical failure- I guess he learned his lesson from Jaws
tigers and mechanical faliure, two things always uttered in the same breath
Ironic seeing that they weren’t real Tigers at all
Makes sense, the T-34 reliability rates were roughly as bad as Panthers, roughly a 30% of a unit would have tanks out of action due to mechanical failure. WW2 tanks were super unreliable, that’s what makes the sherman so relatable, instead of 30% being out of action it was usually only 15-25% and they got repaired quicker. I digress, T-34s broke down a lot, makes a lot of sense to get 4 of them incase one decides it’s had enough
Another wonderful video from Mr Felton, spotting out of place vehicles in the wrong historical context in films and documentaries is a little foible of mine so this was all the more enjoyable. My knowledge is of such things is on a far more modest scale than Mark’s so this is rather welcome. Thanks Mark Felton and keep up the wonderful high standards.
@@stuglife5514 It always bugs me how often people claim the T-34 is better than the Sherman. The Sherman is superior in almost every way, notably being the first mass produced tank with sloped armor as well as excellent crew comfort etc.
Mark, I nearly choked on my dinner when you said "twatted by a bazooka team"...
Made my day
It’s official military terminology
Yes, all very Suchomimus!
I had to rewind that bit, to check my ears weren't lying.
@@weswolever7477 It's in the manual, somewhere.
When I was probably 12, on my way to a Boy Scout camp out in cape henlopen, DE, my dad and I saw the first tiger tank that was sticky bombed along the side of the highway on a ridge. We stopped on the way home to investigate, and I climbed through the drivers vision slit. The bow machine gun was just a barrel (nothing inside the vehicle) and the main gun was a big air cannon. About the time I realized this tank wasn’t a functioning fighting vehicle, the owner pulled up to the field where the tank was parked, with myself still inside. He was cool about the whole thing, and proceeded to tell us that this was the first of the two tigers seen in the movie. Very cool experience, and now I have a story to tell every time I’m watching the film. Thank you for covering this
That's cool. I'm In New Castle in Delaware and had no idea that was here
@ this was probably between 2007 and 2009, so it’s likely it was moved shortly after I saw it. I was young so I don’t exactly remember if we passed it in PA or DE, but I remember the highway having a ridge about 15 or 20 feet tall on either side, which you wouldn’t see in mostly flat lower Delaware.
I enjoyed the movie alot. I was a tank commander in Vietnam 1968/69
You climbed through the vision slit? Memory is a darn't thing innit..?
@@annedejong1040 Maybe it was some kind of drivers hatch ...
I did a Battle of The Bulge reenactment back in 2006 (I think) at Fort Indiantown Gap, PA. Someone with deep pockets had bought one of the Saving Private Ryan "Tigers" (the first one Tom Hanks took out) and had it shipped to the States. I was doing 101st Airborne and I can tell you sitting in a foxhole watching that thing slowly clank up a snow covered dirt road is a memory I will not forget!
Yup that definitely happened
Even as a kid, I was usually disappointed by the lack of effort filmmakers put into using correct (or correct-looking) equipment. Movies from the sixties and seventies were particularly bad for this. Patton may have won seven Oscars, but the battle scenes were infuriating for a kid who built plastic models and knew those were NOT German tanks. While I knew the Tigers in this film were Soviet mock-ups, I appreciated that they were decent ones. Thanks for the detailed descriptions. I’m glad to know that someone besides me obsesses about things like this.
Tamaya produced a 1/8 scale Tiger 1 with interior & was remote control it was £15 back in 1971 paid it off weekly from pocket money , God knows how much that would be at todays prices , yeah like you i knew when they got it wrong
I still prefer that than make a mock-up that looks trash. For example, the "Tiger" in the movie 'White Tiger' is an IS-2 but looks almost identical to the Porshe prototype/command Tiger. I have not many experiences with bad mock-up tanks in movies but if my memory serves me right I saw somewhere that in a movie they built a Sherman using an M113 IFV or something similarly outrageous. Or was that T-34 rebuilt to resemble a Sherman🤔. I saw them in a video like 5 years ago and I can barely recall yesterday's events so I rather stop here because you probably get my point
My father served with 4th Marines on IWO. When I was a kid he would watch’Sands of Iwo Jima ‘ every time it was on and yell at the tv. He wasn’t a John Wayne fan. It still cracks me up thinking about it.
So "No Real Effort" by Spielberg. Got it..
Agreed worst movie ever that was guilty of that was Patton.....Horrible.
Former mech infantry soldier here. I thought the film did a very good job portraying the sounds of the armored vehicles in an urban setting. Squeaky road wheels, the sound of crushed rubble under vehicle tracks, and engine noises during turns.
The one's I worked around, the engines were so loud you couldn't hear anything else. Of course, you certainly felt the ground shaking with their approach.
The audio of the finale when played on a high end surround system is legitimately terrifying.
@@cruisinguy6024 Indeed! I was struck with cold dread in the theatre during that scene.
"Saving Private Ryan" raised the bar considerably for what a WW2 combat film ought to be. I'm a critic of certain aspects of the script, and I am not one of those who believes SPR to be a perfect film. But having said that, homage must be paid: Spielberg and his team got a whole lot of things right. He and his team also responded to fans and critics in the much-awarded min-series "Band of Brothers," which rectified many of the errors made in SPR.
Spielberg and his production team also had a hand in Clint Eastwood's twin epic about Iwo Jima, "Flags of our Fathers" and "Letters from Iwo Jima," both of which also set new highs for realism and authenticity in war films.
The very fact that they were aware of these sounds and effects, raises them high in terms of technical achievement and awareness - the fact that they got them right more often than not only elevates them further.
I'll never forget seeing SPR for the first time, in the late 1990s in a theater when it first came out: Seeing a couple of elderly gentlemen sitting there with tears on their faces after the film ended. Someone next to me saying, "Those men were there"....
@@GeorgiaBoy1961although I enjoyed both I thought band of brothers was less believable than Saving private Ryan.
Fury had it problems, but one point about the scene with 131: In the extra features of Fury, its shown that for the scenes involving 131, the insurance company and curators would only a allow 131 to drive either straight forward or back on a concrete pad covered by only a small amount of mud on top, with a bunch of other restrictions. The silly driving forward and being flanked by Fury was the best idea the filmakers could come up with considering the restrictions.
Very interesting. Thank you for sharing👍🏻👍🏻
In which case they should not have included the scene at all!
It is a total joke. In reality, the Tiger would have stayed concealed and destroyed all the Shermans from there.
@@rubbishmodeller Sure, and Main Characters dying after a static long range fight from concealment isn't something most audiences would pay to see. As the old saying goes; its easy to smell a rotten egg, but hard to lay a better one.
Hah bureaucracy
From what I understand, the Tiger was also too heavy for the field it was in, any attempt at a 360 or neutral turn the panzer sank and dug itself in, putting it in danger of throwing or breaking a track or doing irreparable damage. This was why it was put onto a concealed thick concrete pad, to support the weight and lessen any potential damage, it also aided the turns the panzer made.
“Twatted by a bazooka team” 🤣
Lmao great terminology as per from mark
I thought I heard that 😂
Technical term ☝️
yes, perfect
5:27 - lol. Aye, I caught that too, I was a little surprised but I laughed.
The "Tiger" in Pennsylvania has relocated to Florida, it has been restored over the last 6 or so years where the old modifications were removed, areas cut away were strengthened to hold the turret properly, and new "Tiger" armor was added. New fire suppression equipment and radios were installed, and a new engine was added from a Polish T-34 recovery vehicle. The restored Tiger has plenty of energy now and with live MG34s and a restored gun, has the bite a good movie villain needs. It is operated by WWII Armor and appears at events in the US.
I've had the pleasure of playing a "dough" sent to support US armor in fighting the "not so Tiger" and the first time you see the barrel point in your direction it generates a significant emotional experience.
So "No Real Effort" by Spielberg. Got it....
@ Different needs, for a movie it only has to look good on camera and be functional for the duration of filming, for what WWII Armor does, which is regular events and training with the vehicles, they have to have certain safety considerations and longevity concerns.
only Americans would provide a license for a civilian live firing automatic M34s!
The real tell on that Tiger in the film is the absence of overlapping wheels in the track system. Also, the turret is too far forward to be an actual Tiger I.
US Government has probably spent Billions by continuing to rescue Matt Damon
Rescuing him from Mars and that ice planet near a Black hole most have cost trillions.
Maaaaattt Daaaaman
I used to think Tom Hanks was the worst guy to go on vacation with
Pfft. It's just money.
I hear he likes apples
Kelly's Heroes also used T-34s as Tigers to great effect.
"woof woof"
It's where the idea came from.
Much better than earlier trends of painting M47s, smacking on a black iron cross, and saying it’s a Tiger
Also in Red Dawn...the original.
I wondered if they were the same vehicles from KH.
We need a Mark Felton Productions WW2 movie!!
With a budget from Elon.
I can't believe they used imagination in making a movie. Who'd a thunk it.
Mark Felton would make an excellent consultant for Hollywood war films.
His videos are amazing!
87+hrs long
If I recall correctly, the Chieftain engine sound effects were recorded at the Jacque Littlefield military vehicle collection (mostly tanks from WWI - 1980’s, in Palo Alto, Ca. I had the joy of spending a day going through his collection most of which was in, or had been restored to, running order and stored in several buildings on his property. I believe he had the only privately owned tank repair / overhaul facility in the U.S. When I was there they were working on getting his Panther restored, which they completed right before he passed away. It was a wonderful place and it was open to the public, for free, once a month, with volunteer guides to show you around, but the day I was there with some friends and we had the entire place to ourselves. A marvelous collecting achievement. After he passed his widow donated all the vehicles to Collings Foundation whom kept a lot of them and auctioned off what the didn’t want.
Lucky you for experiencing the legendary Littlefield collection. I only managed to purchase the auction guide. Thankfully a lot of the collection can be seen today at the Collings Foundation's American Heritage Museum facility in Stow, Massachusetts.
I had the privilege of seeing the "Tiger" at the Duxford IWM Land Warfare Display Gallery while I was on leave from Afghanistan in 2008. I was walking through the Normandy section of the exhibit when I said, "It would be really cool if they had a Tiger". My fiance, who had gone ahead slightly, then motioned me towards the bombed out ruins where the vehicle was positioned. I was as giddy as a schoolgirl to see what I initially thought was a real Tiger. Even after reading the plaque and discovering that it was the tank from Saving Private Ryan, I was no less impressed. Definitely one of the highlights of my visit.
Thanks for giving me a trip down memory lane.
Get yourself down to Bovington then. Haven't been for about 25 years, but I remember it being engrossing
You can see 131 running at bovington. Although it is fairly underwhelming.
In the early '70's my uncle was stationed at Aberdeen Proving Grounds, outside of Baltimore. They had a vast collection of WW2 tanks and artillery. Stuff was just sitting outside rusting away. Only place I've actually seen a real Tiger.
All that stuff moved to new building Fort Lee. Not open to the public.
@@dw-bn5ex At least it's inside. That's a good thing,
My grandpa told me when he worked for the railway, also in Scotland, the government had an amnesty of some sort allowing people to hand in illegal weapons. There were piles of swords and firearms I believe from Both world wars and more, that were just going to be melted, so he took a Luger and a sword. The Luger was thrown into some river but the sword remains in my families possession
They didn't have a large enough building for all those vehicles and missiles and such. There was also a road with examples of every tank the US has built - all of them could be operated again (minus the guns) with a modicum of maintenance. I wonder if those went to Fort Lee (or whatever the name is now)? Also, the rail gun, which had to be really hard to move.
@@dw-bn5ex I thought they were at Benning or whatever it's called now?
In the 1962 movie "The Longest Day," an authentic VW Type 82 Kübelwagen is strafed, set on fire and rolled onto the driver's side. As the owner of a '43 Kübel, this scene is now painful to watch; have always wondered what was the fate of that car after filming was completed.
Probably scrapped as it was just a piece of old enemy junk back then, less than 20 years after the war ended. Nobody was thinking about saving these machines that still have reminded the atrocities of war.
@@magirktheonegood point, lesson learned.we should preserve the merkava tanks.
Film producers are notorious for wrecking rare vehicles' there is a Uk Tv show called Combat Dealer his Tiger 1 was in ''Fury'' he also had a Kettenkrad valued some £250.000 on set then the stunt guys decided to race it around the set the owner stepped up & had a tear up with the director threatning to pull all his vehicle props from the film for letting his crew abuse the vehicles
imagine the legal issues that would have ensued then ........
Get its remains to Bruce Crompton and team. They'll revive it.
@@leso204 I have had two vehicles used in film shoots. The movie people don't care if your car gets damaged. I was told that any damage would be fixed by them but the cheapest of 3 estimates from body shops is all they will pay for. I won't do that anymore because why should I let my cars be damaged in the first place. My cars weren't damaged but that isn't the point. The money they pay to use it really isn't much. I knew of a car damaged by a film crew using fake snow in a scene where the snow clogged the radiator but they kept using the car as it overheated and blew a rod bearing. It costs a fair amount to rebuild the engine on a 1956 Mercedes 300SL Gullwing. They paid, but took their own sweet time doing it.
Imagine how hard it is to get the original horses for films about the Thirty Years War!
Yep. They dont make horses like they used to. 😂
I'm holding out for a Trojan war reenactment where Achilles and Hector give POV takes on the Greek and Trojan sides of the conflict.
Whenever I hear 'Thirty Years War' or similar, I can't help thinking of a new recruit saying: 'Bye then Mum. I'm just off to the one year war.'
"The production team did an excellent job of dressing those motorbikes to look like horses."
They were all finished off in the movie " The Last Valley".
Spielberg and the audio engineers absolutely nailed the audio and the sounds of the Tiger approaching in the final battle. From listening to the record player and reminiscing while being abruptly interrupted by the distant and terrifying shrieks of a giant beast approaching. I like to attribute it to a Trex approaching as in Jurassic Park that he did several years prior. You can absolutely FEEL the tension and fright in the air. The squeaks, thuds, clanging of heavy armor approaching and the shaking of the ground and rubble as the men stand at the ready. Absolute masterclass in suspense.
Got part of the audio right. So "No Real Effort" by Spielberg. Got it.
My son recently visited Bovington after taking a Spitfire ride not far from there...he said the museum was amazing. They have a NUMBER of only known examples of WWI and WWII tanks. He grew hearing stories about my Uncles that fought in WWII, one was in the 82nd Airborne and fought on D-Day all the way through the Bulge...we both have always loved the history of WWII planes and armor. Pretty cool he got to see a Tiger I and Tiger II at the same place in person!
I worked on Band of Brothers a few years after this was made, and i can tell you the tanks in person were extremely convincing, the battles were so realistic that if it wernt for the cameras the crew would say how this is like a "personal living history show" for all of us. This was a monumental time in my career and the most special, i am still friends with some of the performers and the crew, we are indeed a band of brothers.
I don’t know how close you were to Scott Grimes, who played Donald Malarkey, but my wife’s father is good friends with Scott. Small world. Very cool to read your comment.
Freind of mine's dad was camera crew - Martin Hume
I love Band of Brothers. Because of Band of Brothers I was able to sell my M1 Garand for $1,400. I paid $350 for it a few years earlier.
Was the "second Tiger" at 12:10 used in Band of Brothers for the Market Garden battle?
I had most of the Main cast uniforms and rubber K98s from BoB .
I sold most of it on Ebay
At 03:24 Those ‘Germans surrendering’ were Czechs which makes their ending even more tragic.
Certainly, but after what those GI's were put through on Omaha Beach they weren't in any mood to take prisoners. I have to give Spielberg credit for showing that particular sequence. Sherman said it, "War is hell."
Please remember this was a movie. I have full confidence that the soldiers of our greatest generation were nothing but kind and helpful to volunteer soldiers identified as foreign fighters in SS uniforms. 😂. Naw. Just joking. They killed those guys like that whether they needed killing or not.
Why tragic? They were fighthing for the Germans.
@@tomthx5804 They weren't necessarily fighting for the German by choice remember, Czechoslovakia had been occupied by Germany shortly before the war started and they almost conscripted Czechs into the various branches of the Wehrmacht because they needed all the warm bodies they could get. They probably weren't given much choice, it's not like draft dodging was thing back then and unlike the US during the Vietnam war, I'm pretty certain that Germany had pretty serious punishments for anybody caught trying to dodge the draft, not to mention that there wasn't exactly a friendly neighboring country that they could ran to if they hadn't gotten out of the country before Germany's occupation.
@@tomthx5804 They were captured by the Germans and forced to fight for them. Unlike the Czech Resistance in Czechia, Czech troops sent overseas to places like France had little chance to resist as they didn't speak the language, were in a foreign land, and if caught trying to go AWOL by the Germans they would have been executed. However, such conscripted foreign troops were known to surrender as soon as they could safely do so (they really didn't want to fight for their German captors who had invaded their homelands.) Czech troops like these were more victims of the German war machine than perpetrators.
As a teenager, I owned it on VHS. It's so long, it came on 2 cassettes. I binge watched it for weeks.
So you have no idea what binge means, got it.
I have a full collection of the German War Files videos, and I have watched them dozens of times. I am so glad to have found that you're still out here making content!
Fury may have been “ludicrous,” in one sense or another, but damn I do love it. I wallow in the muddy gray despair of that film once every 2-3 months.
3:40 those guys were saying "We're not German" and that they were forced to fight.
Actually I was very surprised when I saw the movie in original for the first time and those guys were speaking Czech :)
Exactly what I was going to comment before I scrolled down.
@@maralajtkep2900I was surprised mark Felton didn’t know that. It’s basically the saving private Ryan version of the guy kicking the helmet and breaking his toe
No remember the GI explained to his friend that they were saying, "look we washed for supper" before checking them for intelligence and having a good chuckle about it
@@BortBortson Lol you cannot be serious
Unrelated fact, on the 5th March 1940 the Germans launched a successful raid in the Saarland area where they captured a number of British pows. There are photos and news articles about it. The captured men were from the 2nd battalion Duke of Cornwall light infantry near Hartbusch wood or Oberesch.
Interesting - I will investigate this! Thanks.
5:28 - anyone else hear “the half track is Twatted by a bazooka team”…. 😂
Ha ha came here to say this! Felton is a REAL military historian
Only a Brit would say “ twatted “ Excellent 😂
The half track was supposed to have been a probe by the 2nd SS Das Reich advance units but they didn’t turn up until well after this action was supposed to have taken place and not in that area .
But I suppose it’s more of an impact having SS troops to fight on the big screen .
My grandfather was an Omaha Beach lander, he had nothing but praise for the German soldier. he said they were so good that we could not even talk to one another, we had to run wire to keep them from hearing our communicates. The hedgrose that they hid behind could hide an entire tank and they were textbook in their defense. He said they were the most professional soldiers he had ever encountered, but even they could not stop our numbers.
Thanks!
You don't see a lot of original WWII German vehicles in films because their owners are not keen on seeing them blown up or set on fire. Jay Leno has told a story about a friend who loaned a rare and irreplaceable classic car to a film crew only to have them hack a huge hole in the dashboard to mount a camera. Interestingly, the Sherman tank they used to film "The Pacific" was also a fiberglass replica even though Shermans are not exactly rare. Oh, and one minor correction: The Soviets didn't reverse engineer the Ural 63 motorcycle, BMW actually sold them a production license during the brief period when the Germans were trying make nice with the Soviets prior to Barbarossa.
And that BMW was an R71, not the R75. The Soviets made the R71, but most Urals were further modified R71's. For 12 years I owned a Chinese copy of the R71, the Chang Jiang, and it was nearly identical to the BMW R71. Some BMW engine parts would fit it.
BMW offered the Soviets a choice of three motorcycles - the R12, R71 and R-75. The R12 was considered too dated. The R75 would not be available until 20,000 units were produced, (a figure never achieved). The R71 had ceased production in 1939 in Munich and restarted production in early 1941, presumably to train Soviet workers. The R71 was not a great motorcycle and required many modifications to be successful. The Wehrmacht didn't use it, being utilised by the Reichspost and Zollgrenzschutz.
@@peterwilliams2152 The R71 was a great motorcycle, a workhorse. But it was a flat-head, so it was slow. Very simple to maintain and repair. I have photos of German soldiers riding them.
The R71 was garbage. BMW stopped making them in 1939 because only the Reichspost and Zollgrenzschutz bought them. The Soviets bought it because they saw the possibility of the R72.
You probably have photos of Zollgrenzschutz riding them. It's almost impossible to tell the Zollgrenzschutz and Wehrmacht apart in B&W photos.
What were the R71s problems? The plungers ripped off. A 3.89 FD gear. Weak clutch. The sidecar stub axle broke. The 18mm gudgeon pin broke. The Soviets corrected all these problems. Until these corrections, the WLA was simply a far better motorcycle with the Stoye sidecar from ГАЗ.
And you can still purchase a Ural motorcycle today in the United States. They are still being made in Kazakhstan.
My father in law was a Panzergrenadier in the 9th Panzers, Hohenstaufen division. Later worked for the City of Fremont in California as the mapmaker for the new postwar city being planned. When he surrendered and looked for British or Americans to surrender to, he rode a burned up bike with no rubber tires. Saw a German tank off the road with someone up in the hatch and yelled several times but was ignored. When he approached the tank the officer was leaning back against the hatch door with his entire lower body missing and burned away but the top half of him looking relatively okay. Before that one of his first assignments was to scout the distance from his unit to the Soviets across a river to get a firing fix. To this day the neighborhood blocks in his adopted American town of Fremont are quite long, and match exactly the distance from his squad to the Soviet position 10 years earlier.
That's a cool story... Sounds pretty German (the block distance size). Did he volunteer that he was part of a (formerly) SS Panzer Division upon emigrating? I would have thought that might be an instant 'no' if advertised on your paperwork... (Not that I'm aware of the Hohenstaufen being accused of any 'war crimes' specifically, but) I imagine 'SS' was all it took in some circles to shut doors forever... Glad to hear he eventually made Fremont easier to get around in. :)
Aren’t the 9th Wehrmacht?
@@angryeliteultragree6329 Hohenstaufen were Waffen SS -they were the division who fought the british at arnhem during marketgarden in september 1944
Wow, fascinating historical info. My Toyota Chevy Nova Two Cam was made in Fremont. 😂
@@briankrause2359 I know he buried his panzergrenadier uniform, MG 42 and Luger, he was only 18 at a mill where he was given work after the surrender to support his family; the father and uncle were taken to Siberia and that was it for them. In '44 Waffen SS came to his village (Hochweis in Slovakia) when he was 17 and said "you're coming to the Baltic for training". Good point about the Hohenstaufen division which I agree doesn't seem to come up for much.
"Ludicrous."
Very well said. Dr. Felton
Try getting Mike Tyson to say it...😂
Yes! Fury was a load of crap!
@@benadam7753 It was OK until the final crossroad scenes. Then it just went into fantasy land.
Yes but a movie about wasting a company of Rangers to roam about looking for a single private ISN'T ludicrous ? Oh right ✅️
@@buckshot6481 you kind of have a point there 😆
Great idea to cover this.....all my life I watched WWII movies and knew they were just American Surplus with Iron Crosses painted on the side.... Ryan was one of the few I ever noticed that seemed to go beyond that
Jacksons scope: At the beginning of the film, the rifle is shown as an M1903A4 (which is appropriate) but with a Lyman Alaskan scope (which is wrong). Next, it is shown with interchangeable scopes, the seconds one being an 8x Unertl. While the Unertl was used by Marine Corps snipers, it is not interchangeable with the M1903A4's Weaver M73B1 scope. Just to make it fit on the prop gun, the mounts have to be changed. finally, when it's actually used with the Unertl, the scope does not move like it should, and Jackson tries to change his windage by adjusting the scope's parallax
I just always thought that the tank commander was choking and exiting the hatch after desperately opening it himself.
8:20 I'm glad someone agrees with me about Fury.
You’re definitely not alone. While all the acting is top shelf (and a special nod to Shia Lebeouf), the film itself fell so far short of what it could’ve been, and was a sizable disappointment to me. I still watch it to see the tanks in action and enjoy the visual spectacle of the movie, but the writing, the sequences, how it all came together (or didn’t), fell very short of the mark. It SHOULD have been a phenomenal movie, and it just wasn’t.
well, to be fair to the movie fury I see a lot of comments where people just can’t accept the possibility that during WW2 an American tank might’ve destroyed a German tank…ever.
It’s amazing how that scene remains so controversial over the years but I agree with you. Range with that gun was it’s biggest advantage, they wouldn’t be charging forward.
Basically, it probably went unnoticed by the majority of the viewing public interested mostly in Brad Pitt - however it grated with all the WW2 enthusiasts I'd suggest. For me it was also the scene where they trumped hidden emplaced and range sighted AT guns. Fury would have been FUBAR'D in quick order.
@@TwinTalon01the characters are so stupid
The writing is terrible.....like why is Brad Pitt's character a psychopath.
That movie is absolute garbage. Doesn't deserve to be called a war movie
As a WW2 reenactor, i was able to see the SPR Tiger at an event some years ago....sold to a private owner. Remembered it overheated alot!
I've seen operational (sometimes barely) T-34s, Stugs, Shermans, and a Panzer III. The German reenactor unit with the Stug uses it to fundraise for repair money.
Indian Town Gap?? I was there!
Very cool, I remember when I discovered how the Spielberg's tiger had incorrect, that is, T-34 tracks. Still way better than what they pulled with Battle of the Bulge. Cheers!
I watched this film aged 16 in New York with my father, whilst on a holiday from the UK. I burning memory of my childhood. All seemed very genuine at the time and truly gripping.
The murdered German troops in your first scene were trying to tell the Americans that they were Czech and not German.
Really? Didnt they spoke french!?
The tragedy of war.
Conscripts who were anything but loyal to Germany.
@@Chris-ql9bunot everyone who surrenders is French :)
Spielberg trying to justify
How the hell you managed to find out details like that, Dr Felton, is beyond me.
It's really not that hard. I'm just a guy who likes to build armor models. I'm not an Historian who produces videos that the whole World can watch, and even I already knew most of this stuff.
Thank you for pointing out that it was difficult to find actual German vehicles for this production.
The allies helped commies to destroy them while taking half of Europe.
There's a company in America that is trying to build a full replica company of German mechanized infantry and armor. I don't know how far they've gotten but last time I checked that had one panzer 4 and 2 251s completed and operational. This was about 10 years ago though, so if they didn't go bankrupt they probably have more done.
Well, if you want your military vehicles to survive for posterities sake DO NOT attack east first and then start a mess towards the west. Oh, and leave the Jews alone.
Nice, informative and non-judgmental.
I'm so tired of the "experts" who count the rivets then criticize the effort.
So true they think these original tanks are just parked In somebody’s garage just waiting to make a movie
Fun fact, someone has a German half track sitting in a garage near Fulton, MO. A town famous for the iron curtain speech. The owner sometimes would have the garage doors open when you’d drive by. Quite the shock when I first saw it
Tip: the Battle of the Bulge was filmed in Spain and those Panzers were Spanish army M47s and the extras were Spanish recruits doing their mandatory military service.
Exactly the same happened in the film Patton. Also; the actor who played the role of Patton was horrified to see how poorly those recruits were treated by their sergeants.
The SPR Normandy beach landing was filmed at Curracloe in Wexford, Ireland.
A lot of the extras are Irish army.
I've been there since, and there was no sign of the movie having been there. They cleaned up their mess well.
Waterloo (1970) the soldier extras were Russian army.
At one point during a French cavalry charge at the 'British' square formations of troops, one square breaks formation.
Apparently the extras were genuinely scared by the mass of horses running at them.
Must not be a method actor then. Real patton wouldn’t have cared
The Messerschmitt 109s used in the Battle of Britian (1969) were all retired from the Spanish Air Force. The production company bought them all, about fifty of them, and put seventeen of them back into flying condition, flown by Spanish Air Force pilots, and members of the Commemorative Air Force. The thirty-two Heinkels, with crews, were on loan from the Spanish Air Force. The two Junkers 52 were also on loan.
George C. Scott was Patton.
He made a great Scrooge too.
@@toastnjam7384 The BoB film BF 109s were called Buchons,
that were ironically powered by Rolls Royce Merlin engines.
The wooden tiger's plywood vision port is a shame. "We can't be arsed to bend a bit of cardboard to look like the port. Nobody'll notice!"
People did. Instantly. It's one of the rare cases where I'd be fine with a bit of CGI retouching.
So "No Real Effort" by Spielberg. Got it, he hacked it.
They did a good job with the film's authenticity. I have no problem with "fakes" being used as long as the visual representation is reasonably accurate. The key word there is reasonably, which I think Spielberg accomplished quite well. Compare it to the 1965 film Battle of the Bulge that used obviously modern US tanks to portray German tanks. It was ridiculous. No attempt whatsoever was made to make those even resemble German panzers.
C'mon, man! They painted Balkenkreuz on them!
I was a teen when that movie came out and I called BS then to all my friends about the fake German tanks.
You (literally) don;t know the meaning of the word "authenticity".
That's actually quite good, at least it was a tank. I once saw an Italian film set in the North African campaign.....they used M113's 😱
The tanks in the movie Battle of the Bulge were bad but even worse was the abysmal terrain that was supposed to depict the Ardennes in winter.
A few of the vehicles shown in both Band of Brothers ( the faux Tiger @ 10:13 is one) & The Pacific (the Higgins boats) were fabbed & serviced by a shop in nearby Dillsburg, PA many years ago. The shop sat along the southbound side of US Route 15 & for years, passersby would be amazed at what would sit in the lot. A friends son, worked at this shop & on some of the Hollywood "props". I do remember him being frustrated with the "Tiger" as it was powered by a long obsolete powerplant that they had difficulty sourcing parts for. I sold them a bevy of wiring & switches for that Frankenstein.
Mark what happened ?
I was half way through the Rudolf Hess video and it was removed ?
You and Forgotten Weapons should do a collaboration
Make it a three way collaboration between Mark, Ian and Jonathan Ferguson keeper of firearms and artillery at the Royal Armouries Museum in the UK, which houses a collection of thousands of iconic weapons from throughout history
Still better than the panzers in Patton
You work with what you have.
"Panzers", I liked that Iron Cross did use real serving T-34's.
@selfdo ohhh I know. When I was a kid and really into building models it just always bummed me out that Hollywood didn't care enough to use real machines.
@@SiloSoundStudios 99% of the viewing audience didn't know, and didn't care either.
Singular der Panzer/plural die Panzer. :-)) US tank , appearing in german 1950s anti war movie Die Brücke/ the bridge , was a wooden Mock Up, moved with steel ropes and winds.
3:35 I'm suprised to hear you weren't aware they aren't German, but Czech.
"Please don't shoot me, I am not German, I am Czech, I didn't kill anyone, I am Czech!"
Whaddya doing dressed up in German uniforms, man? Are we supposed to bring interpreters along for all European languages?
@@tomthx5804Brilliant
“…the ludicrous 2014 movie Fury…”
THANK YOU for saying that.
I honestly hadn't known about non-Germans being pressed into service, until the time I learned of this easter egg.
@@DustyGamma Some of the pillbox crews were Polish and did fight quite hard. Goodness knows why.
Excellent movie! Spielberg deserves kudos in his effort to give us an "as close to real" experience as he could physically make it without manufacturing German vehicles from scratch. Saving Private Ryan has, and will, stand the test of time. Thank you so much for making this video!
So "No Real Effort" by Spielberg. Got it.....
3:24 Not German soldiers surrendering and gunned down by the Americans but OST units speaking Czech...
I recommend watching "Shaving Ryan's Privates" as a fun, historically acurrate alternative.
Ah yes the finale to the great blockbuster trilogy, the other two installments being Pulp Friction and the Da Vinci Load
"Schindler's Fist" is another eye-opener.
You have experience it to know how terrifying the engine roar, tracks squealing and the ground trembling as a main battle tank approaches!
Did Mark Felton actually say ‘twated’ 😂
Twatted, in fact.
Apologies for being anal, no offence - No he didn't, he said "twatted" which is vastly different to "twated" which is by your erroneous spelling is pronounced tway- ted. Incidentally, there is always one or more of these humorous insertions into Felton's excellent presentations which makes them vastly more human, entertaining and different to other documentaries. Look-out for them. Can anyone quote any more examples..?
twatted or slotted(same thing)
That’s Doctor Felton to you, sir.
Great job as always...EVER THINK OF DOING THIS TYPE OF IDENTIFING DIFFERENT VEHICLES IN WAR FILMS.....FILMS LIKE KELLY's HEROES......
P-51 Mustangs we’re not “tank busters”. Wrong airplane, wrong munitions, and woefully incapable of killing a Tiger as shown in the movie.
That’s my least favorite scene in the film. It’s always nice to see warbirds but Hanks’ lines just seem so contrived. P-47’s would have been a better fit IMO.
The most obvious difference between the real Tiger tanks and the fake Tiger Tanks is the real ones have interleaved road wheels, while the fakes don't.
Yep, that's the big "tell" for that one....
I feel the tracks itself give away the T-34 pretty quickly
fake tigers can usually identified by the short nose section
Tigers also have a big front drive sprocket, whereas the T34 only has a small idler at the front as it is rear sprocket drive. That always stands out to me
‘Twatted by a bazooka team’😂
Excellent video, as usual. The format of going through the film in chronological order was brilliant. Top drawer Dr.
8:19 that little dig at fury lol
Mark is my favorite Internet info man. You rule, bro.
It was the most realistic attempt. When I was a kid, the movies of the 50's and 60's all used modified American tanks. I knew it, even then. I suspected lack of surviving examples.
The worst offender for fake vehicles is the Battle of the Bulge movie. American tanks painted with cross's on .
American made tanks, because those were M47 sold to Spain. The same Spanish tanks used in the film Patton.
Movie budgets were much smaller than. Now, movies are marketed across the entire world. Then, they were for US consumption, and perhaps a bit of European market.
I dunno, Big Red One is pretty bad, so is Patton.
@@tomthx5804 Yet a few years later "Kelly's Heroes" managed to show us a believable fake Tiger and "Where Eagles Dare" used a real JU-52. Not to mention "Battle of Britain" where they used real English airplanes and license-built Spanish HE-111. It's more a matter of effort than budget.
In truth the Germans would use Allied equipment when they could capture it. They rather liked Sherman tanks.
in the first scene you mention, they are dressed as german soldiers but they are czech recruits, you can hear them say nestrilejte, which means dont shoot
Thought it meant "look I washed for supper"😂
Czech SS volunteers is what you meant to say.
@@martinswiney2192 These could be ethnic Czechs which remained in Sudeteland and didn't opt for Czechoslovak citizenship, or people from the Volkliste. Otherwise, Czechs were not allowed into the German army or SS, even as volunteers.
If they were smart they'd have learned how to speak English.
@ if you choose to serve an evil regime as opposed to actively fighting against it then I consider that as having made a choice. Hence, volunteer.
Now I'm curious to know about the Band of Brothers vehicles. Those actually looked much more real.
Doctor Mark, I was at Bovington a few years after this Movie came out. I got a chance to see the (now running ) Tiger Tank in pieces as they were going to restore it sometime soon ( as one Museum Staff Member noted ). I also got to see what 'looked like' a Tiger in the back of the Museum. The armor boomed when struck with a closed hand as if it were hollow in addition to having some Russian looking running gear. The Staff Museum Member who observed me looking it over commended me on realizing it was not a real Panzer. Nice to know that this 'Tiger' is still in England tho' no longer at Bovington. I think that Bovington is well off with the real Thing at any rate! ;0) Thank you for this fun ( Halftrack ambush so interestingly described ;0) and informative video.
Perfect use of ‘Twatted’ 😂 I had to rewind three times I was laughing so much 😂😂
@8:20 Now, tell us how you REALLY feel! Heh.
What a great set of descriptors, and I couldn’t have said it better myself: Fury was such a stupid, stupid movie.
Dr. Felton could do a similar compendium on the vehicles featured in "Kelly's Heroes". I think the MkVI's in that production might have been T-55s. This was fantastic!
The way you describe the strategic use of vehicles in the film's climax is so vivid! It's like re-experiencing the movie through your words. Brilliant work!
“The Tiger seen in the ludicrous 2014 film “Fury”…”
This is EXACTLY why Mark Felton is my favorite WWII historian.
There's a Girls und Panzer fan comic out there that pokes fun at the Patton being used as a King Tiger stand-in.
Despite the inaccuracies in films like BotB and SPR, I accept that the filmmakers followed a philosophy that can be perfectly summed up by one line from an awesome sci-fi film that more than enough people should be able to appreciate.
"Doing what I can with what I got." -Burt Gummer
lol
How about TANK VIXENS?.
"Hilda! Strike a POSE!"
@NTAD : was taken to the cinema to see Patton by my mum when the tank battle started in the valley i said very loudly they're not german tanks' lots of shuss's from behind one guy was laughing & said he's right , dear me did'nt half have a smack round the ear after mum saying thats for showing me up ! it was one of those cases i was right but in the wrong at the same time ☹
@@leso204 OTB is still a great movie. I wouldn't mind a re-release with the correct KT's added in though
they did the best they could under the circumstances,it’s still one of the best WW2 era fictional films period,the graveyard finale is quite moving 🤔
We love you Dr Felton!
Dr Felton stanning
"in the 2014 film 'Fury' where the Germans are portrayed as mind numbingly stupid" LOL 8:20
Excellent episode about a great movie!
My dad was an ETO veteran, serving in the 99th Infantry Division. The 99th was still in training on D-Day at Camp Maxey, near Paris, Texas. The Division arrived in France at Le Harve in November of 1944. The 99th was the first full US Division to offload at the permanent harbor facilities at Le Harve instead of Omaha Beach.
The 99th was moved into position in the northern Ardennes, in what G-2 assured the brass in the 99th that they would be “in a quiet sector”. As it turned out, US Military Intelligence was wrong about the area being “quiet”.
I took my dad to see “Saving Private Ryan” when it first came out. For a long time, Dad didn’t talk about his service much and rarely talked about the Bulge or combat. As he got older, he began reading several books on the ETO in general and the Bulge in particular.
During the final push of the Germans, in the movie, to recapture the bridge at Ramelle, Dad all of a sudden set up straight in his seat and grabbed the armrests.
After the movie, we talked for a long time about the movie and I ask him why that battle scene jolted him. He said, to him as a veteran of the ETO, the thing the director got right was the noise of the German armor. The squeak of the German tank wheels and tracks, was something that was almost constant during the war. Yes, German armor out classed much of the Allied armor but reliability was never completely over come by the Germans.
A few years ago, my wife and I took a Battle of the Bulge tour, through the National WWII Museum in New Orleans. On our first day in the Ardennes, we toured the northern shoulder of the Bulge, where the 99th was located. I stood in the crossroads town of Losheimergraben, Belgium. After the artillery barrage lifted on December 16, 1944, the first thing my dad and other US troops heard was the squeaking of the wheels of the German armor advancing from the east. It sent chills down my spine thinking about what was going through my Dad’s mind at that moment.
On our tour, we also visited the December 44 Museum in La Gleize, Belgium. In front of the Museum is a King Tiger tank of Jochen Peiper’s 1st SS Division. One thing that the King Tiger and other German armor required was fuel. It was the high water mark of the German advance in Le Gleize. Without fuel, the Germans abandoned their vehicles and tried to walk east, back into Germany.
So, if you want to stand in front of a real King Tiger, go to Le Gleize, Belgium and try to imagine what you would have done facing a tank like that!
Thanks to Steven Spielberg for getting his movies so real and giving me a chance to talk to my dad about his service.
Uh huh...okay Boomer.
You should write a book. 😅
Re: "The 99th was moved into position in the northern Ardennes, in what G-2 assured the brass in the 99th that they would be “in a quiet sector”. As it turned out, US Military Intelligence was wrong about the area being “quiet”."
Wow, what a story - thanks for sharing it! You dad, like so many men of that generation, were giants.
Their intelligence was cutoff because once the Anglo-American allies were ashore for good in the ETO after D-Day the Germans began using line-lines and motorcycle messengers instead of radio traffic and the Enigma coding system. Deprived of our insight into their coded communications, our intel blacked out. That is one of the reasons the Ardennes Offensive caught us so badly unawares. SHAEF didn't expect them there,even though the Germans had previously used the route to attack France in both world wars.
I've seen a King Tiger up close, at the Patton Armor Museum. They are fearsome looking tanks even all these years after the war; I can only imagine how frightening one must have been to the GIs back in 1944-1945.
Fearsome though they were, the largest and heaviest German tanks and tank destroyers were ill-suited in many respects to fast-moving mobile operations of the kind represented by the 'Bulge. They drank fuel, and were too large and heavy for the bridges, unpaved roads and rough terrain of the Schnee Eiffel.
Interestingly, some Allied troops when encountering the largest and most-fierce German AFVs, took to using captured German AT weapons, such as the famous panzerfaust. That weapon was found to be effective against even the thickest frontal armor, such as that found on the Panther, Tiger I and related AVFs. Of course, sometimes, Allied troops didn't need to knock them out - as they'd be found out of fuel, broken down, bogged down or otherwise abandoned.
My dad was a WW2 veteran, too, but he was USN - a navy man in the Atlantic and Pacific. I'm glad your father made it home from the war. They were special, the men of that generation.
@@GeorgiaBoy1961 Yes, you are correct about the lack of intelligence as the Allies got closer and later, into Germany. Even in Belgium, because some parts of the country had been part of Germany, prior to WWI, intelligence was lacking.
The other part of the G-2 story was that the 99th was assured that there was ONE horse-drawn artillery piece across the Siegfried line from there location.
At the start of the Bulge, the 99th and other Allied units, were subjected to the longest artillery barrage on the Western front in WWII. Never lost for humor, even in a dire situation, one GI was heard to say, “Boy, they’re sure working that poor horse to death!”
Those Navy men were tough. A GI infantryman could always use his entrenching tool to dig deeper while under fire. The sailors could not do that if in a battle with the Japanese or German navies. Being sunk had to be on their minds most of the time.
Don’t Give Up The Ship!
One of the things that always bothered me with the film is the way the Americans are able to knockout the first Tiger Tank by shoving a Thompson into the Driver's Port and then the commander opening the hatch just to get himself and the rest of the crew killed. The crew would have been safe for the most part inside the tank despite being disabled.
I mean a few seconds later, the 20mm cannon takes out most of the Americans still standing on or near the Tiger.
The crew or commander could've possibly panicked and didn't realize buttoning up would've been safer. Unrealistic sure,but not impossible in an actual scenario back then with the varying amount of training everyone had
Does it bother you a lot?
Pssst…it’s a movie not a historical documentary. 🤷🏻
@@vito7428 When I see that scene I think to myself that the driver paniced or didn't know there were attacking infantry and took out the vision block to change to a clean/undamaged one. Once the bullets are in the tank even a commander might panic and unlock the hatch...
My guess is the crew panicked.
Spielberg's crew did a great job on the Tiger. The ridged texture on the armor is a nice detail that only an obsessive tank nerd would even notice. I have an even deeper respect for this movie now.
Zimmerite plastered on tanks to prevent magnetic explosives. Funny thing that Germans were the only* ones that used magnetic explosives * maybe soviet?
Zimmerit coating.
@@anthonymunoz6013 Thanks. I didn't know that it had a name
From what I've read, there is a legal difference between murdering POW's, and not taking prisoners. In the heat of a battle it is not always possible to take prisoners, so the reasoning goes. Of course, there is no excuse for the millions of POW's worked, starved or frozen to death by the Germans and Japanese.
Also for the hundredthousand s of Germans killed by the allies..... so, the Truth is always to be speaken out in full.
and Russians... one estimate says of the aprox 100,000 prisoners captured at Stalingrad, 6,000 returned home.
Def a lot more gray in WW2 than black and white, all side did questionable things.
Yep. My understanding is that enlisted troops are under no legal obligation to accept battlefield surrenders. Legally, battlefield surrenders may only be negotiated by officers. And that makes sense. How is an enlisted man, whose orders are to remove enemy conbatants by force of arms supposed to be able to tell the difference between a real surrender and a trick? Infantrymen have gotten themselves killed that way.
Mr Felton, I happen to know the owner of the 2 German halftracks used in this film 1 was what you said a chech post war copy but one of the other halftracks is an original ww2 one with some battle-damaged
Mark, looks like your most recent video from this morning was removed before I could watch.
The ordinary viewing public wouldn't care or know. But as you've said vehicles were hard to come by. Excellent video and knowledge on your part Mark.
War ships are an even bigger challenge for film makers. Some of the older films 50's or 60's were still able to find some but today not so much.
Given that garbage they called Pearl Harbor, Hollywood doesn't deserve the real thing.
CGI now.
@@malekodesouza7255 Generally I would rather see an obviously period incorrect real ship than a perfectly period correct and horribly fake CGI with terrible physics. Most CGI looks worse than stop motion by that guy Harryhausen fired on his first day.
@ watch “Greyhound”(again with Tom Hanks). The interior scenes were filmed on an actual WW2 destroyer but the battle scenes were all CGI. That movie would never get made without it.
@@malekodesouza7255 I wish it hadn't been made - as bad as Fury...
3:37 Those soldiers are speaking Czech, not German. They were likely portraying Czech conscripts forced to serve in the Wehrmacht.
What about that panther in the cellar😂
I think Saving Private Ryan is the best war film ever made. Its all in the details, the language, the sounds, the cinematography, even the uniform costumes are so lived in, so realistic. In my opinion we are yet to see another film come close
While I enjoy it, SPR is actually full of technical inaccuracies.
No historical movie is without inaccuracies
One of those movies I would say is not very accurate, but is very much authentic.
I was just waiting for a comment like this. Most of us don't care. If you want accuracy, watch a documentary or read books, don't watch movies.
The opening scenes are very accurate and I often refer to them as an example of what happened on Omaha due to the absence of specialist engineer vehicles.
History books are full of historical inaccuracies, if you want to be real about it.
More real than Tony Blairs weapons of mass destruction
Harsh
@@Historybooks-456…but fair :)
I have infinite problems with Ryan and the vehicles are merely one of many; Hollywood really, really needs to get away from portraying every German tank as being a "Tiger." First off, there weren't that many Tigers that were built (it was extremely expensive) and the vast majority went to the Eastern Front, as did most all of the German forces & equipment. And, as stated, US forces never faced the very small numbers of Tigers at Normandy. But, that's Hollywood, and blame it on Spielberg, who could have done a lot better with this movie. If you want to watch a pretty much flawless WWII movie, see Das Boot--there is nothing else out there that can compare to it....
Apparently, one of the problems was that many Americans (probably other Allies too) referred to any German tank as a 'Tiger'.
In the chaos and stress of combat, I can imagine a late-war Panzer IV (Aust. H with side skirts) looking like a Tiger.
@@rubbishmodeller Truth.
I have read a lot of original WW2 source materials such as after action reports and such, and it was very common for US tank crews to call every German tank a "Tiger" or "Panther" when in reality they were most often facing Panzer IVs.
Though there were a lot of US encounters with actual Panthers, let's just say the source materials are very interesting reading, I won't go into it here due to the toxic armchair general comments that usually follow.
Or if you want reality watch a documentary.
@@jb7483 So, you're saying that Spielberg wasted his time trying to make it as realistic as possible?
It's worth you making a segment about this.
I do believe also historically, that such low ground attacks by planes during WW2 by the Allies would've been conducted by the P-57 Thunderbolt as it was more capable of taking ground fire damage.
3:35 fun fact (or not so fun fact), those soldiers surrendering were speaking Czech, which means they were conscripts forced to fight by the Germans. They were saying, "Please don’t shoot me! I am not German, I am Czech, I didn’t kill anyone! I am Czech!"
That Ural M63 sure is a beauty. 😍
lol, thanks Doc, your brief review of 'Fury' made me howl.
That film was a pile of stinking crap and I wish I'd demanded a refund at the cinema!
@@MarkFeltonProductions Hahaha! Glad i never went.
@@MarkFeltonProductionsespecially the last scene where the SS deploy their ‘mindless lemmings’ battalion…
@@MarkFeltonProductions Thankfully, I was sufficiently nauseas after seeing the trailer that I skipped it.
There never anything Fake about Mark Feltons Videos!
Fantastic breakdown. I've read LOTS of WWII books and memoirs but have never gotten into the Tanks and Artillery minutia, so I really appreciate this simple breakdown. Would love to see a similar "Patton" breakdown. As always, a big Thumbs Up like.