It's quite interesting to watch,it's a real ww2 battle and you're actually involved in that unit! You can actually hear the guns/rifles being shot and also see were the bullets are heading! Also you can see a fellow soldier getting into big trouble during the battle. Link won't past on to post,so google is the way. Well,it's exciting for me anyways. Google-actual ww2 battle. Than click on the very first link!
She is referring to the famous battle footage shot in 1945 during an urban battle in one of the German cities (I forgot). I find it more disturbing than exciting, because you see a few men get killed as a Sherman and a Panther is being pummeled by tank and automatic weapons fire. Here is the youtube link (instead of that other website) *graphic* YouTube - Actual WW2 battle footage
\ Oh yea I think I have seen that footage before. I believe it was a "Super Pershing" that took out that Panther tank.
I find it strange that they spliced in some footage from a German newsreel (The Stug III from the 1944 Ardennes offensive) and then switched to the footage of the Panther getting the first hit. LOL
It was in Cologne. There are a good many still photos, also, of the Panther in front of the cathedral.
I'm confused at the beginning though. It looks like 30 or 50 cal. fire mixed with tracers, apparently shooting at a car and a single man running across the street. But the car seems to be driving in a strange direction and the man seems to be going for a leisurely stroll at first..?
It appears to be the .30 cal coaxial machine gun on the Sherman. First it is shooting at some car and then the scene cuts and it is shooting at some random guy walking who almost appears to be a pedestrian...
I'm not sure about that. The Sherman could easily be spliced in. I'm surprised that the car and the man managed to get away. The car looks strangely casual as well.
Oh yea well now that you mention it I guess that Sherman is probably spliced in but the way they made it they would have us think it was the sherman
Civilians on the battlefield were often shocked by the violence and unreality and became stunned. It is not uncommon in Iraq for American soldiers to shoot up a car that tried to speed through their check point only to find that it is full of innocent civilians. I think often times they were just too scared to think straight. I concur it's Cologne. The Cathedral, the burning Sherman and the burning Panther were from the same footage shot by an American camera man. The Sherman hammering away at the car and runner might be the same Sherman knocked out in that fight or spliced. StuG III is almost certainly spliced. From what I remembered fo the heavily edited footage and the interview with the Pershing commander that was played to the public, the Panther knocked out a Sherman on the street. The American tank burned, and a crewman, with his leg blown off, crawled out and bled to death on the deck of his tank. The Pershing (regular, not super) was brought forward and stalked the Panther on the parallel street. The Pershing gunner pumped AP round after round through the houses, hoping to get the Panther that way. It did not work and the German tank retreated behind bigger houses. The Pershing commander did not want to let his prey get away. The Pershing rushed the German position, firing on the move. They scored two hits and you can see in the footage that the Panther burned as three German crews probably including the commander escaped the dead tank.
I am not sure about you guys,but the man on top of the tank/car,was he American or german and was he a soldier or a passor-by person and did he survive? You see the guy rolling of the roof but i am not sure if he was escaping or he was being rolled of the roof by the pressure of the bullets entering his body!
The American on the deck of the tank at 23 seconds was KIA. YouTube - Pershing vs Panther Cologne 1945 Somebody has the original footage shot by a photographer embedded in the 3d Armored Division on youtube. You can see the spires of Cologne Cathedral and a Sherman machine-gunning a car and a runner. I don't know if the wrecked car showed later was the same vehicle, but there were dead German officers near the car. There is also the extended footage of the Panther-Pershing duel. Cologne was defended by some Wehrmacht regulars but also lots of Volkssturm. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oDnst7fAEU&feature=fvw
Triple C, what was the Panther doing there all alone and without infantry support? It's unusual for tanks to move around a city without a thick infantry screen.
You have to ask the Panther commander when you find him. With that kind of firepower thrown down the street, I think the infantry were either killed or routed. A lot of the men were Volkssturm troopers, and it was a desperate stand.
I posted this on the other thread (but it got locked) so I'll paste in here: Triple C, if memory serves, 3rd AD's tank battalions made tremendous sacrifices with ~650 tanks written off in combat actions. That's more than two and a half times its original tank strength written off in a relatively short span of deployment. Do you know the approximate tank write-offs that the 2nd, 4rd, and 6th armored endured?
