Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Das Tank!

By CaulynDarr

New Brad Pitt war movie.  Looks a little corny, one 'merican Sherman versus the whole German army for the fate of the WORLD!  Still, hot tank on tank action.


20 comments:

  1. too bad it has Shia the Beef in it.

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  2. They got some of the German armor from Bovington for this. Tiger looks sweet.

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  3. This seems very 'Private Ryan' to me. Big fight in the beginning with a Tiger, boring middle, and a pretty decent tank-on-infantry engagement at the end. Probably with Brad Pitt dying during the finale with an "earn this" moment in front of the rookie.

    Yeah, I'll see it. Definitely. :)

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    1. ah darn, you had to spoil it. @&*!!!

      Why, why... now there's no point anymore in seeing it :-)

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    2. There's still hot tank-on-tank action. ;)

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  4. What I'd really like to see is a WWII naval movie with Battleships and Cruisers duking it out. With something other than space aliens preferably.

    Maybe a remake of Sink the Bismark! or Battle of the River Plate. Though Leyte Gulf could by a good one to do. 4 'merican destroyers versus the entire Japanese fleet for the fate of the WORLD!

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    1. I'd rather see them do a Battle of Savo Island movie. Though it would never happen because the Japanese won, making the Americans and Australians look like idiots. Would look really cool as a night battle though.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Savo_Island

      The Battle of Jutland (WWI) could be fun too. But the result wasn't particularly conclusive.

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    2. You could do it if you time skipped the movie a few months to end with the Third and Fourth Savo battles. That way it ends with the Washington and South Dakota kicking ass in a night time gun battle.

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    3. That could work if you could reasonably tie the two together. Dunno enough about the history though.

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    4. Did you know that when the WWI armistice was signed nearly the entire German fleet was interned at Scapa Flow, and rather than surrender their ships to the British the officers scuttled the entire fleet. 15 battleships and about 50 other smaller ships. I'd always thought that a a movie that intertwined that narrative with the battle at Jutland would make fore a really good movie.

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    5. That could work, but only if Hollywood were willing to make Germans look noble.

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  5. I'm wondering how they are going to play the tiger vs sherman battle. The tiger seriously outmatches the sherman (even if it's packing the 76mm gun). Maybe circle strafe it? LOL

    CaulynDarr,
    I'd love a bismark movie....didn't it hit the ammo stores of the british flagship on practically the first shot of the engagement?

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    1. I'm guessing the Tiger battle is why Pitt's Sherman is all that's left of his platoon at the beginning of the movie. 4-5 other Shermans had to die so his could get a lucky side/rear shot.

      The ship that exploded on the first engagement was the Hood, flagship of the British fleet. Bismark was badass... Until a WWI-era biplane took out its rudder with a torpedo. It couldn't run, so you had a bunch of British ships beating on it until the Bismark's crew scuttled her. Kind of a downer.

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    2. Oh, the Hood. It was a pretty ship, but not really a well designed one. It was redesigned and refitted to get adequate armor, but the deck armor was always lacking. There was no way it should have ever gone up against a modern battleship. It didn't help that the Prince of Wales was having mechanical problems with her turrets and couldn't bring all her guns to bear.

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    3. Agreed on the Hood. But wat seems obvious to us now was a huge shock to the Brits.

      Not sure more guns would have helped in that first battle though. Since the Bismark was able to withstand the fire of a much larger force for hours in the final confrontation.

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    4. The Prince of Wales did land two good hits on the Bismark that pierced her armor below the water line. They weren't crippling, but they caused the Bismark to loose speed and leak fuel(which allowed spotter planes to track its movement). The Prince had a good firing solution, and would have continued to do damage if she hadn't had to turn to avoid the sinking wreckage of the Hood. Then A turret crapped out and she had to make a run for it.

      The Prince of Wales actually had a pretty big advantage over the Bismark in a long range gunnery duel. Better fire control and defense against plunging fire. The Bismark's armor scheme was configured for pretty much flat trajectory fire. They assumed that weather and sea conditions would keep any fight at Jutland ranges and designed the ship as such. Problem was they failed to anticipate the US and British collaborating to put together some pretty advanced radar guided fire control systems.

      The problem with this battle was the British commander did know the limitations of the Hood. Explode into big fiery balls is what British battlecruisers do after all. She was an old ship and armored under those same Jutland based assumptions. The only reason she was around was because she was fast enough to keep up with the PoW and carried 8 15" guns. The Hood was basically worthless at the best ranges for the PoW, so the commander decided to close to a distance where the Hood stood the best chance. He was hopping to get in close before what happened to the Hood happened to the Hood.

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    5. The Germans did manage to shake the pursuers of the Bismark with some skill and a bit of luck. But some party official back in Berlin just HAD to know if his kid (some low-ranker on the Bismark) was OK. So Bismark had to break radio silence and give away its position to answer. That's when the British carrier found her and launched the seaplanes that flew too slow for Bismark's auto-tracking AA to properly follow.

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  6. As much as I like seeing it, I hope they show other German tanks than just the Tiger.

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    1. I think that might be a destroyed PzIV (with shützen) at 1:47 as the guy on a horse rides by. The turret looks too wide and short for a Tiger, and the gun is a bit skinny.

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out dang bot!

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