Fury - a fine film

[airborne_artist]

For a good idea of life in a Sherman in 1944/5 it's a cracking film.

No air in it at all, which may not be accurate (there's one short shot of a very high large bomber force), but it's an eye-opener.

[unmanned_droid]

Oh there was air in the background, but no direct support. How would they have communicated?

I thought it was a great film. People have asked me if I enjoyed, and I can't say I enjoyed because it's just too gritty to be enjoyed, but I did think it was a really good film. I found it quite tense at times and found myself thinking "c'mon! c'mon! faster! faster!"

I did wonder if f**kstick had been invented back then tho....

[Maxibon]

It 's remarkably similar to what I found when operating in tanks: there's never any air around when you need it:E (Message to the head of the Royal Flying Corps, Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Massingberd-Massingberd, reads "Where are you, you bastard?!")

[Lima Juliet]

"Where are you, you bastard?!"

Plinking and hosing down other tanks, obviously! :ok:

I cannot think of a bigger deathtrap than a tank when the enemy has a high-tech air force. Reactive armour will never defeat a DH from even something as small as PWIV or GBU-12 dropped from 20,000ft. The words "sitting" and "duck" come to mind...:sad:

LJ

[Maxibon]

It's true but when you're up against the current threat, have a Boiling Vessel for brews and scoff, and the odd cigarette; life's not all that bad. Oh, and a great mess life etc...

And current threats does not include A10s.

[Party Animal]

Sorry but I thought it was rubbish. Decent acting and all that but just another stupid film where the bad guys just stand still while being shot at. I had more tactical nous after 1 hour in the Army cadets at the age of 12, than a crack battalion of seasoned SS appeared to have.

Honestly, if you have 500 men with probably 100 panzerfausts, going against a knocked out tank, my tip is 'don't all charge against the machine gun in the front' and if you do surround it with 5 men armed with panzerfaust at a range of 20 feet, try not to miss the stationary target with your single shot.

For those who have yet to see it, a typical scene is:

Good guys tank enters village. Bad guys shoot at tank from a bedroom window with a rifle. Tank fires a shelll at bedroom window. 15 dead Germans suddenly fall out of the whole that was the bedroom window.

Really!!

I suppose it does give some idea of life in a tank though.

[unmanned_droid]

Yeah, the major battle stretches the believable, totally agree, but, I thought there were a lot more aspects to this film that cancelled that out.

[Tinman74]

To be fair, a Chally 2 had a similar experience on Telic.

[typerated]

Painful Hollywood at its worst :(

[chinook240]

Have to agree with Party Animal, the German tactics appeared laughable as did the tank crew. Why wait till your surrounded when panzerfausts will work, why not use the range of the main gun and 50 cal? When I discussed it with my son he just said "it's a film"!

[unmanned_droid]

Tinman - I think I remember reading something low key in the news at the time. Basra? Is there a write-up anywhere online? Genuinely interested to hear more.

[barnstormer1968]

Look on the bright side, it has got to be better than 'The beast'

I was nervous about watching that film as I'd been assured it was an accurate reproduction of the Soviet time in Afghanistan, but the weekly display at the Bovington tank museum is more hard hitting.

[Darren_P]

With movies about Sherman crews there always have to be negative waves.

[NutLoose]

I was reading a fascinating article on Bovington, they have just taken delivery of a T72 which is a runner from Poland and have sent over a Chieftain. Apparently there were doubters when it was introduced over items like gun travel, but it was designed to move quickly in large numbers and not to sit and defend hull down as the western tanks were expected to do in a European conflict.


Welcome to the Tank Museum - Home of the Tank - New Acquisition: T72 (http://tankmuseum.org/ixbin/indexplus?record=ART4502&_IXMENU_=news_and_events)

[Sloppy Link]

Thought it OK, certainly well made and the Clerk did have a massive regain after his colleagues behaviour in Saving Private Ryan. The SS tactics sucked but as was said earlier, it's a film. I enjoyed more '71, there will be those on this forum who know the story or its outline from the time.

[[email protected]]

The worst element of the 'Hollywoodness' was that all around the main characters people are receiving relatively realistic injuries with bits flying off everywhere - yet Brad gets shot 3 times by a sniper and takes 2 stick grenades in a confined tank turret but is miraculously all in one piece for the 'emotional' farewell from Norman.

A good story though that highlights the horrors of war and what it does to 'civilised' people and a another lesson on why to work hard at school to avoid being infantry or tankies:)

[Hempy]

BBC NEWS | UK | Scotland | Dragoon guards survive ambush (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/2908679.stm)

[Finningley Boy]

I couldn't quite swallow the Saving Private Ryan style final shoot out with a Waffen SS Battalion.

Given that for the German the target was a disabled Sherman, albeit with turret and guns in tact, would the Germans not, after the initial surprise, have scurried into the ample tree line? Also, would they not have brought their anti-tank weaponry (which they must have had with them) immediately to bear and blown the Sherman to Kingdom come? Rather than run around in the open being mowed down like Space Invaders in the old 1970s video arcade game?:confused:

FB:)

[[email protected]]

The shots of the SS column marching showed many of the troops with the Panzerfausts on their shoulders yet only one or two were actually launched against the Sherman.

We come back to the fact that it was just a film and managed to entertain sufficiently to justify the entry fee:ok:

[Tankertrashnav]

A Brit who had served in a British armoured unit on Shermans was employed to advise during the filming. He said he had to admit to Brad Pitt that he had never heard of him before, but Brad just laughed. The old guy was on the radio and he said the main thing wrong in the film was that all the actors were too old. In his tank crew the oldest man was 25 and that apparently was the norm.

[Lima Juliet]

Shia Laboeuf is in his mid twenties and they made him look older than he is!!!

He is pictured on the right (some might recognise him from the Transformers films):

http://cdn01.cdn.justjared.com/wp-content/uploads/headlines/2013/12/brad-pitt-shia-labeouf-day-56-of-fury-production.jpg

[hoodie]

Darren_P: :D :8

[Tankertrashnav]

Shia Laboeuf is in his mid twenties and they made him look older than he is!!!

Leon - Brad Pitt is 50, maybe he didnt fancy the young competition!

[Buster Hyman]

Just back from seeing it...meh.

If the SS were actually that inept at destroying tanks, then I'm surprised the war lasted as long as it did. A Sniper that couldn't one shot kill a guy standing exposed on the 50 cal, boxes of Panzerfaust that they stop using after 3 shots, running around the tank like headless chooks? Seriously, how did the Allies not wipe the floor with these Clowns by 1942?

[B737900er]

The reason is 'western propaganda'! Hollywood will always make the bad guys look rubbish compared to our war heroes.

Do you honestly think the SS would run around like headless chooks? The Germans had the famous Tiger tank which p*ssed all over the Sherman.

[Buster Hyman]

Indeed they wil B739 but I get a feeling that Joe Q Public will inevitably forget that the Nazi's were a force to be reckoned with and a 'cartoonish' representation of them will diminish the reasons why we need to be vigilant that such a hateful force is never inflicted upon the World again.

As for the Tiger, 4x Shermans will do the job (if that was a Tiger portrayed, was drifting off about then).

Anyway, seen it now. I can start to look forward to a more realistic representation of the War when Dads Army is released... :p

[NutLoose]

It was indeed a real Tiger it was Bovingtons I believe. Panzerfaust are single shot, Panzershrek are multiple."

Spill the beans Buster, are you in the new Dads Army? :p

http://www.tankmuseum.org/ixbin/indexplus?record=ART4543&_IXMENU_=Exhibitions

4 Shermans would struggle against a Tiger, look at Wittmands finest hour.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Wittmann

The man who killed him

"Usually, it took five Shermans to beat one Tiger, but the Fireflies were better. When I heard about the concentration camps, I knew it was all worth it. I'm quite proud. Wittmann was a Nazi from the start - he must have known about the camps. It didn't matter who killed him, just that he was killed."

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-392323/Revealed-hero-wiped-Hitlers-notorious-tank-ace.html#ixzz3Hv7mARmj
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-392323/Revealed-hero-wiped-Hitlers-notorious-tank-ace.html

[Wokkafans]

A documentary recently screened on Quest came to the conclussion that it was the Canadians who actually got Wittman. Either way GJ :ok:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCNz7OC8YIs

[Thelma Viaduct]

Inglorious Bastards was quite funny, the German lead actor especially. That wasn't historically correct either :ok:

[Buster Hyman]

No Nutty, I was too old for the Home Guard...

One of Ayer’s mandates for the production was that it would be told in a way that would be as historically accurate as possible.

Like how the turrets just popped off with other hatches open...

[MAINJAFAD]

For Tigers and Panzerfausts you can't beat this (most likely as (in)accurate as Fury in a lot of cases):

Peter Rabbit Tank Killer by Beatrix Potter and Sven Hassel

A6-YPiqOh_w

Not safe for Kids.

[Lonewolf_50]

I can't seem to find Sven Hassel's follow up books to
Beast Regmient
Gestapo
Which I enjoyed as a teen.

I think the other two books were called
SS General
Legion of the Damned

Could never find them. I suppose I need to hunt around on line ... out of print for years, if ever printed on this side of the pond.

Saw Fury yesterday with my son.
I guess the point of the movie was to show how war brutalizes people. That "heroes" are probably not who you think they are. That cartoons can be put on a screen just as in a comic book. That someone, perhaps the director, read and believed the old DC comic "The Haunted Tank (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haunted_Tank)" and believed that it was non fiction. I probalby read a dozen episodes of that serial when I was 10 or 11, about when I was reading Biggles. I wonder if I still have any of those old comic books up in the attic ...

Won't see Fury again. Wasn't a bad diversion for a single afternoon. Glad we didn't pay full price.

[Mechta]

LW50, Try www.usedbooksearch.co.uk (http://www.pprune.org/www.usedbooksearch.co.uk)

Despite the UK suffix it lets you do a USA search of the various used book companies. Both the titles you mentioned were listed.

[NutLoose]

But that's a T34 MAINJAFFAD, and the panzerfaust looks like a panzershrek, I would complain to the Potter foundation. It must have been rewritten for the American market, they don't do accuracy.


:p

[Al R]

LoneWolf,

I was in the Oakham Co-Op the other day and saw his books for sale, three for a fiver. By another quirk of fate, a film of one of his books was on the telly the other evening as well. I haven't thought about him or his books in 25 years and all of a sudden..

He died a couple of years back. I think his estate is starting to push the brand again. World War Two, the gift that keeps on giving.

[MAINJAFAD]

Nutloose, Looks more like a T55 to me (in fact had to stop to let one of them pass me a few weeks ago while exiting Mucklebrough). I concur with the comment about the anti tank weapon, though Rabbits don't tend to run around with MP40s or WWII German infantry anti tank weapons (there's a bit of a scale issue to put it mildly). The drawings and text date came from a British satire book called "The Book of Revelations" by Mark Leigh and Mike Lepine in the late 1980's and was a mocking of Authors flogging dead horses due to publisher pressure. Was never really into Sven Hassel (or Miss Potter when I was younger).

[Basil]

MAINJAFAD!!, Our 2yo grand-daughter was nearby when Benjamin rabbit shouted "Waste the F****r!"
I now await, with some trepidation, the next time she has a row with her siblings :*;)

[MAINJAFAD]

Basil

Please read Cautions and Warnings.

Not safe for Kids.

[Basil]

Ah, right :) and smileys slightly amended.

[Lonewolf_50]

mechta/Al R: Thanks!
LW_50

[ShotOne]

Had to see it after all that. Pity about the silly 200 keystone cops Germans to not destroy a stranded tank but still a great boys film.

[India Four Two]

I saw Fury recently and on the whole I thought it was quite well done, although as has been commented on, the final battle was completely unrealistic.

The 88 mm armour-piercing sound-effects were pretty much as I imagined, having read descriptions of them, as was the glowing red-hot entry point.

However, the best part of the movie for me was the interior tank scenes, which for the first time, gave me some feeling for what it must have been like for my dad, as a tank driver at Imphal. He never talked about his experiences, even when he took me and my seven-year old son to the Tank Museum at Bovington.

[tdracer]

Disclaimer, I haven't seen Fury yet - after reading the reviews I decided I'd wait until it came out on video.
That being said, for realistic battle scenes, I think Band of Brothers is the best I've ever seen. Further, the assault on Brécourt Manor (D-Day - second episode) is arguably the best filmed battle scene, ever. Obviously helped by it being based on a true story, with actual battle survivors as consultants, but that hasn't stopped other films from totally botching the job.:rolleyes:


Honorable mentions to "A Bridge to Far" and "Pacific" (Pacific is a mini-series similar to BoB, but based on US Marines in the WWII Pacific theater).

[Vendee]

That being said, for realistic battle scenes, I think Band of Brothers is the best I've ever seen. Further, the assault on Brécourt Manor (D-Day - second episode) is arguably the best filmed battle scene, ever. Obviously helped by it being based on a true story, with actual battle survivors as consultants, but that hasn't stopped other films from totally botching the job.:rolleyes:I agree 100% with you there. It was a wonderful series with a great cast. The commentary at the start of each episode from the vets was really good and at the end of the last episode, names get put to the vets although you may have already guessed many of them. The whole box set is ridiculously cheap and I recommend it to anyone.

[NutLoose]

Yep have the Band of Brother box set, I found Pacific, although excellent, just didn't seem to flow as well from episode to episode.

In case you do not know, there is a third series in the making and this time they are focussing on the 8th airforce.

http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/19/3895312/new-spielberg-hanks-world-war-ii-hbo-miniseries

[eastern wiseguy]

Lone wolf....the books all seem to be available on the big river website dot com.

[Buster Hyman]

Agree entirely Nutty. Despite the errors of the filming in MEL, and too many familiar Oz actors in American parts, the flawed characters just didn't engage me as much.

Reading that back, it sounds very shallow but their War was so far removed from the ETO that it's really not right to compare. Also, because it wasn't a continuous 'Company's' story, it felt a little disjointed.

Great to hear about a third series though. Quality production values means it'll be added to my home collection ASAP. :ok:

[Boudreaux Bob]

"Fury" is just like most Hollywood portrayals of real combat stories....it has its moments that make up for the hype.

The Tank fight will glue you to your Seat if you understand the tactics Sherman's had to use to defeat the better German Tanks.

I found that scene to be "intense".

The shooting of the SS Soldier reminded me of what one of my Uncle's had to say about his experiences as a Tank Destroyer crewman after Malmedy. When asked if his unit had captured SS Troopers...his reply was "Not for long.".

"Band of Brothers" and "Black Hawk Down" both did a great job of representing what Combat is all about. "They Were Expendable" is another well done film Technical Effects considering the time period it was made.

[Hipper]

This is a rather good tank film:


Lebanon (2009) - IMDb (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1483831/)

[Wensleydale]

Proving that Band of Brothers is as accurate representation as you will get?


http://www.ww2incolor.com/d/776538-2/b102abecb734149723ac32bd5331eb14

[MightyGem]

The Tank fight will glue you to your Seat if you understand the tactics Sherman's had to use to defeat the better German Tanks.
I found that scene to be "intense".
Yes, to have an enemy tank round scream past you, knowing that the next one is likely to hit you. :eek::eek::eek: