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Atekimogus wrote: Have you seen "Fury"? Exactly the same. We have tanks rushing each other....never would have happened. All you do rushing an enemy tank in that time is botching the aim of the gunner. But......for a movie that would have been too boring.

If you are referring to the scene where the Shermans get ambushed by the stationary Tiger, the tanks do initially pull back. Sherman tanks at the time had a high-speed AT shell, that if it came in too fast (i.e. fired from too close) would bounce off the Tiger's front armor. By pulling back initially they could get the shell slow enough to damage the Tiger.

But then the tanks ran into brush or other stuff and they couldn't back away. They are still within lethal range of the Tiger, and the only other way to kill it is to shoot the Tiger's rear. They didn't have immediate access to artillery or aircraft, so the Shermans took the only option available.

In Fury, IMHO the Shermans should have pulled back, and called in Artillery/air.

This... this is a weird one.

No idea how to embed vimeo videos here, so...



Fixed it for you (Ian)

Mikey wrote:

Kinda weird, kinda awesome too.

I just had the thought that, since that's in Brazil, maybe the catfish is just trying to breathe and the beer is the purest water it could find.

Graham Kennedy wrote:No idea how to embed vimeo videos here, so...

Fixed it for you (Ian)

I think they should have filmed her in all of her glory like old old times.

The sniper doesn't participate.

I'll admit, it's got some problems, but overall, I really like this one.

Sold!

Coalition wrote:

Atekimogus wrote: Have you seen "Fury"? Exactly the same. We have tanks rushing each other....never would have happened. All you do rushing an enemy tank in that time is botching the aim of the gunner. But......for a movie that would have been too boring.

If you are referring to the scene where the Shermans get ambushed by the stationary Tiger, the tanks do initially pull back. Sherman tanks at the time had a high-speed AT shell, that if it came in too fast (i.e. fired from too close) would bounce off the Tiger's front armor. By pulling back initially they could get the shell slow enough to damage the Tiger.

That is not exactly true. What you are refering to is something called "shatter gap" which means that if you are too close and the shell to fast the grenade - which in theory and calculation should penetrate - will shatter. However, as far as I am aware this was a problem mostly for russian low-quality made shells. (And british early sabot rounds....not sure about US ammunition though if they had the same problem...)

Coalition wrote: But then the tanks ran into brush or other stuff and they couldn't back away. They are still within lethal range of the Tiger, and the only other way to kill it is to shoot the Tiger's rear.

Which is nonsense of course since the rear is every bit as well armored as the side, even a bit better because the rear plate is angled at 10-15°. What they "should" have done is trying to get at it's side and try hitting it at an exactly right angle. Even the short 75mm of the normal Shermans should be able to get through that at the ranges we saw in the movie.

Coalition wrote: They didn't have immediate access to artillery or aircraft, so the Shermans took the only option available.

In Fury, IMHO the Shermans should have pulled back, and called in Artillery/air.

So here is the situations and what should have happened.

They get ambushed by a Tiger and loose a tank. They start pulling back. Now considering the reload of a Tiger, that it was in a very good ambush position obviously AND already had the range they should have lost another sherman shortly after that. At least it would have been quite likely. But considering that they killed the most rearwards tank first I guess it is save to assume that we have a very "green" Tiger crew here.

They take a while to locate the Tiger and immediatly drop smoke. That is probably the only valid move they make in the whole engagement. Now they have located the Tiger AND blinded him. Then they suffer from a sudden rush from shit to the brain and decide to rush it because some hollywood bloke read somewhere that it always took 5 shermans to take out one Tiger.

What they forget is that Fury is an Sherman with a long 76mm high velocity gun. One of the few guns actually able to engage a Tiger at some range. Meaning that after droping smoke at MOST they should have tried to maneuver into a good position and then just kill it. There was no need for rushing it at all.....(But then FURY also gets magic plot-armor when it was hit point blank into the side and are still alive somehow...so some of the stupidity cancels each other out)

But the Tiger commander isn't much better.....he got smoked and what does he do? He drives forward.......instead of pulling back himself he starts to charge. And when they are out of the smoke and see each other he conveniently kills those tanks first which are the LEAST likely to hurt him.....the short 75mm shermans he could have savely ignored frontally until 100m out or so.


tl,dr...in the time it took to drop the smoke they should have lost another sherman, maybe even two depending on how good the Tiger crew were, but after that the Tiger would probably be toast without any need for rushing or other overly dramatic stuff.

However...if they had given as a thrilling game of cat and mouse with the tiger as the grand finale instead of the stupid "last stand"...the movie would have been almost perfect. It should have been played like "Das Boot"...tense, both stalking each other and NOT rushing like some medival knights.

Atekimogus wrote:Which is nonsense of course since the rear is every bit as well armored as the side, even a bit better because the rear plate is angled at 10-15°.

I think the makers were conflating WWII tank designs in general with an actual serious design problem of the Sherman, which was inordinately weak rear armor right over the gas tanks... so much so that Allied troops began to refer to Shermans as Zippos (you know, because they light every time) and German troops - with their typical penchant for nicknames - began to call them "Tommy-cookers." German troops are, of course, the ones who also came up with such monikers as "forked-tail devil" for the Lockheed P-38 and "devil dogs" for the USMC.