Worst WW2 movies ever made?

The front hull yes, the front turret with HVAP, of which by that time they should have had at least a couple. Some people also say that the Tiger would have hit the front tank first. I'm not sure about that. If the ambushed vehicles were on a road with little space to maneuver out of it the SOP was to hit the first and then the last one to trap the vehicles in between. But in the movie the road was surrounded by open terrain. Maybe hitting the last tank from a concealed position would confuse the ambushed, so it may not be unrealistic. I think the mistake in the movie is that the Tiger would have targeted Fury first because it was armed with the 76 mm and was the most dangerous opponent. Instead the Germans keep targeting the other Shermans. Another mistake is the Tiger firing on the move. The Shermans had a gyrostabilizer, it was not very good but maybe in such a situation it may be possible that they had tried to fire while moving.

 

The Sherman had a single-axis stabilizer for the main gun. It was inadequate for precise firing on the move but from such close distances this would have been immaterial (I've spent some time playing with it and determining its effectiveness).

Yes, the Tiger lacked a stabilizer but given the relative flatness of the terrain shown as well as the stability of the Tiger as a gun platform I do not consider firing on the move to be unreasonable. Wehrmacht tank crews by this point in the war would have been inexperienced and may have been more likely to deviated from SOP.

One of the other Shermans in the scene had a 76mm Gun M1A1, which offered nearly identical performance to the 76mm Gun M1A2 on the M4A2E8 "Fury". If I recall correctly this tank was hit first -- if so that would seem to be a reasonable prioritization of targets.

Of course this is all "armchair quarterback". Sadly the abysmal script let down what otherwise would have been an excellent film. The attention to detail in vehicles, uniforms, set dressing, etc was top-notch. Too bad the screenwriter couldn't have come up with a more believable plot. I'm still waiting for a film on Task Force Baum....

 

Apparently that Waffen SS battalion forgot their matches (they were likely in the same truck as the Panzerfausts and every experienced NCO ... a shame that the Jabos knocked out the truck the day before). ~180 gallons of gasoline in a steel can would have made for a nice bonfire....

 

A notable WWII tank gunner spent the entire movie elbowing the person he was watching the movie with and saying, "That never happened."

Or so I've been told.

 

Said person should invite the notable WWII tank gunner north of the Canadian border for a day of fun with a Sherman. I have some questions for him.

 

I re-watched the scene and actually the Tiger stops to fire.
When I watched the movie I got the impression that it was firing on the move.

 

Yeah it was the worse movie on Pearl harbor. I was l

I agree glad I waited for it to come out on cable, I was like WTF is this pearl harbor or a stupid romance story and when Ben afleck who's supposed to be dead shows up I'm like is he like AWOL and a deserter. And when they save the downed crew firing their guns as they come in for a crash like really in pitch dark they can make out who's who and shoot with amazing accuracy. And heck with the girl hardly morns the guy and is in bed with another guy so much for love and loyalty.

 

Yeah that was a terrible movie I gave up on any war movies with brad pit as the always make him a super soldier. I counted at least 17 panzerphaust in the front column. Like what not one guy could get a shot in. Also yes the ambush scene was stupid and yes the Germans if they are well trained should have shot at the tank with the long barrel. I guess they can say these guys were green recruits. Knock outs on the tiger with a 76 were reported at1200 to 1600 yards they had to be a few hundred. I was really disappointed I wasted my time watching that junk. It funny they switched but he says he actually wanted to keep their first tank. Most crews stayed with the 75 gun because it had a more effective he round. The most encountered enemy and killer was not tank to tank but tank vs anti tank gun. The 75 he round was much better at destroying targets like tank killer squads and anti tank guns. The 76 high velocity sometimes would hit the gun sheild and go thru without detonation or the smaller fragmentation wouldn't kill enough of the crew or damage the weapon. In any case most crews from north Africa kept their early shermans. I think it is funny that you'd think the 90 mm gun would have been the top killer but every thing I've read says the m18 with76 mm was the top killer and the most
Referred vehical. I wish they had approved the late chassis Sherman with the Pershing turret looks pretty kewl, think I might have to build one just for kicks

 

I'm not aware of a Sherman chassis with Pershing turret. Maybe you are referring to the M-36 GMC?

At the time some German crews were indeed very green, even if the Jerries still had some veterans and they even used experienced people from tank training schools in the battle for the Ruhr pocket.

A German commander reported that en inexperienced crew on a Jagdtiger was fired by a Sherman and they retreated by turning the Jagtiger and exposing the flank, so it was knocked out by the Americans. However I don't think that the general viewers of the movie would ponder about such things, most people don't know anything about tank battles so probably they wouldn't see charging the enemy with a Tiger as a foolish tactic.

 

It was a one-off demonstration done for the chief of the ETOUSA AFV&W Section at DTA in early July 1944. They took one of the T26E3 turrets and mated it to the hull of an M4A3 (105mm) that was there being built to demonstrate the compatibility of the turret and turret ring.

 

For some reason the m26 chassis production was behind schedule but turret production had a bunch of turrets ready someone got the idea hey the turret rings are the same let's try putting the turret on a Sherman and see what happens. They took a M4A2 chassis and put the turret on it and put it through firing trials. It passed. However no further production than the test model was done. They say it would have given tankers another heavy hitting gun but no had to wait for the M26 production to catch up. Still I think it is an interesting vehicle and since war thunder has a number of prototype vehicles it should be great on there. I was surprised to learn most tank destroyer companies preferred the M18 over the,m36. It could be since they already had the M36, they didn't feel it necessary to duplicate the effort. Plus the M36 was cheaper M 26 turrets were a lot more to produce. Some say this concept was the basis for the isreali M51 or super Sherman.

 

That movie “Windtalkers” definitely was not one of my favorites. Nothing against Indians, I just didn’t like the movie, personally.

 

I found some info on the Sherman with the Pershing turret. On some forums I read it was test driven for 2000 miles without breaking. I don't know if this info is correct, certainly it should have added a lot of weight, but the transmission and the suspensions were strong. The Sherman Jumbo had a decent reliability with some seven or eight tons additional weight. Several regular Shermans were also modified in the field as "Improvised Jumbo", and the modification was generally welcome by the tankers. I think the armor could have been increased on the most vulnerable parts on standard factory models without creating significant problems, of course not at Jumbo levels but enough to make a significant difference.
A questionable characteristic of the Sherman was the height of the hull. To make the hull profile much lower would have required to adopt a rear drive, probably not worth the trouble. But perhaps the hull height could have been reduced a bit with minor modifications, for instance to the angles of the front hull, and the weight savings used for additional armor. It seems strange that it was never attempted, as far as I know. Maybe there are technical obstacles that made it unfeasible, but I have the impression that limiting height was never a priority for the Americans before the Abrams.

 

Why weren't the Americans learning the lessons from Germany (and later USSR)? Why go a different design from one that was already proving itself on the battle field?

 

I would have to agree about the height just look at the tanks we built all thru to the Abrams sat high low profile difinately was not a consideration. Although the M18 was an exception, built low it was designed for snipping. The preferred killer in the US tank destroyer companies. Millennium hobbies makes M18 in my scale but I am reworking it I'm rebuilding it so the gun elevates and building a turret basket and modifying some figures manning the turret. I wish dragon, ftoy or Takara would do one the millennium kit is crude and lots of flaws but at least something to work with.

 

The T26 production was not really behind schedule, since a production pilot had not been completed on in July 1944 when BG Holly visited DTA and saw this demonstration vehicle. Ten 26E1 pilots were completed and undergoing testing by July and at least one was at DTA for automotive testing...the turret came from it. Production of the production version, the T26E3, did not begin at DTA until November 1944.

The tank was an M4 (105mm) (for seem reason I always think it was an M4A3), SN #301103950. It was not put through "firing trials" since it was completed the next day as a standard M4 (105mm). It was a proof of concept demonstration, not a pilot vehicle and was never considered for production.

 

Rich, what's your take on Cooper's Death Traps? He has been heavily criticized as unreliable and his book contains several errors about technical details. Personally I don't think that sending the Pershings to the ETO earlier would have much changed the overall situation, as they could not have been deployed earlier than October-November 1944. And shipping a Pershing would have been logistically more difficult than a Sherman, even if I doubt that a Pershing would have taken the place of two M-4. They would have been better than the M-36 however, and from the point of view of the tankers maybe some human lives could have been saved.

Also, what do you think about the claim that a super Pershing destroyed a Tiger II in Dessau in April 1945? I'm very skeptical of that claim. It is not confirmed in the divisional records and no units with Tiger II were near. I find it very unlikely that the only super Pershing sent to Europe would meet such a rare tank.

 

I met Cooper once and he definitely had a bee in his bonnet. However, I'm also sure that quite a bit of his book was ghost written. Pretty much everything in it that does not touch directly on his personal experience is nonsense.

Extremely unlikely. There is no mention of the event in any of the 3d Armd Div or 33d Armored records. The T26E4 was received by the division sometime after 15 March and the modifications done by the division and tracking down the missing ammunition took at least a couple of weeks, so it is unlikely it managed to get to the front until sometime in late April.