"Historical Fury question" Topic

I want to preface this by saying that I am not asking these questions to pick the movie apart. The film was great. As a former M1 Abrams guy the only tank movies I know about are "Kelly Heroes", "Tank" and "The Beast". I am happy to have a more modern movie about tanking. I ask because I lay awake at night wondering about this stuff.

1. Did the Germans really have green tracers?

2. How did Matt Damon's tank survive the flank hit from the 7.5 cm anti tank gun? My guess is that the German soldiers were idiots and used AP rounds instead of AT. The tank also took a hit from the Tiger's 88mm gun. Maybe the round went completely through the hull and exploded off screen. Or maybe this tank crew was also inexperienced and used an AP round by accident. That seems to be a common theme in the movie. The Germans were not the heady soldiers they were in the opening years of the war.

3. Why did the Shermans that survived the Tiger's initial attack fire on the move? From what I have read (and know from being a tanker on a modern tank) the Sherman tanks did not have good stabilization when moving. Tanks of this era really have to stop to fire accurately. This is usually referred to as "Shoot and Scoot" or "Shoot, Move, Communicate".

My guess is that the crews wanted to keep pressure on the Tiger and decided to fire all willy nilly. Maybe it was just more cinematic and American to show the tanks moving forward and firing.

4. Those grenades went off right next to Brad Pitt's character inside the turret. Would there really be anything left for "Machine" to give a touching goodbye to?

Oops. Matt Damon was not in this movie. I have a hard time distinguishing between Brad Pitt and Matt Damon.

With 3, can't for the life of me remember what book it was from but it talked about what made a good tank commander and a veteran driver commented about how his Brad Pitt was very familiar with the performance of German tanks, and that as long as they reacted fast enough the Sherman could move faster than the Tiger's turret traverse. Makes sense that if confronted in the open by a Tiger at close range that's just brewed up one of your platoons tanks, your best bet is to get ahead of the traversing barrel and try and line a shot up in the rear. I think in that scene what Brad Pitt does is historically reasonable, but I'd like to know why the idiot Tiger commander thought sticking round in the open was a smart move.

From a gaming standpoint, Sherman stabilizers for allowing shooting on the move is known enough to be a game mechanic for Flames of War; yes, I know FoW is fodder for not being historically accurate but I've read about the gyro-stabilizer in technical discussions of the tank in other sources.

I know it's not as accurate as firing from halt and I also understand you had to keep below x speed for it to be of good effect, but it's a thing.

The gyro-stabilizer on the Sherman only worked for azmuith, not for elevation. It kept you pointing at the target so you could get off a quick shot when you did a short halt. I have read that some tankers considered it a pain in the behind and it tended to break down often.

Another "tank"-type movie was "Courage Under Fire" with Denzel Washington and Matt Damon…

Just to clarify, the account I read never discussed being faster than the Tiger's turret traverse for the purposes of getting a shot off, it may have been but I think it was for the purposes of just getting away.

I'd call A Bridge Too Far to be partly a tank movie.

With 1, Rick Atkinson's "An Army At Dawn" describes the use of green tracer rounds by the Germans in Tunisia.

Direct fire smoke as they used at the beginning of the Tiger fight is something I've read about in several sources. But it was used more to cover an advance rather than the retreat to the tree line we saw in the movie.

Seemed like the Germans were rather bad shots. Taking a lot of time between shots and then missing or glancing off. Poorly trained troops is one possible explanation or it might have been Hollywood.

Missed shots were a reality. Reading how many rounds the Germans fired in some of the battles in North Africa for the number of hits recorded illustrates that even experienced soldiers missed more than they hit, including tanks and even 88's. Of course, the shimmer effect in the desert didn't help.

I recall one tank commander writing in his memoirs '88mm shells hissed through the corn, it was gratifying to know that the Germans could miss too' (his squadron was under fire from the 102nd SS Tiger battalion on Hill 112 at the time).

The number of misses was too high. This was close range fighting where the German AT guns were firing from cover without having been spotted (and the second AT gun never fired till after the first one was destroyed?)

The AT gun shot that ricocheted looked more like a glancing blow. As for the Tiger, how shots did Fury get off when the Tiger didn't fire once? Three? Well, had to have been a green crew in that one – otherwise the Tiger would STOP advancing the instant it cleared the smoke.

As for the Grenades, yes Brad's character would be recognizable after it went off. Remember the couple of grenades that went off right next to Popeye in Band of Brothers – just a shot through the cheeks there.

The large number of "misses" in the movie is partly dictated by the decision to use real tanks. If they had gone CGI they could have blown up plenty.

Most grenades used by the Germans were offensive grenades i.e. mainly a concussion effect with limited fragmentation. They did make a slip on segmented band that would increase the fragmentation effect but not sure how readily available it was.

BTY, AP (armor piercing) are AT rounds.

I think the hit that you think penetrated all the way through the Sherman was suppose to be a glancing hit on the turret.

I am not very familiar with all the rounds used by American ww2 tankers. What I intended by "AP" was anti personnel rounds or HeaT rounds. "AT" would be anti tank or Sabot. I know HeaT stands for high explosive anti tank. We used them for soft targets and infantry. Sabot was reserved for tanks and maybe bunkers.

Sorry for the confusion. The round going through the sherman was more of a joke than a fact. Although I did read on one of the other Fury posts that a 88 round did go clear through the guy's tank and exploded after it exited.

It is similar to the tanker myth about the NbC system on an M1 tank. If the tank gets a tiny little pin hole breach the depressurization of turret would suck all the crew out the hole. It is one of those stories you tell the new guys to freak them out.

What I want to know is why the Tiger tank did not displace after getting the kill? I agree with Dynaman. It must have been a very green crew.

> Sorry for the confusion. The round going through the sherman was more of a joke than a fact.

There is an episode of "Greatest Tank Battles" about the Bulge (I think). Sherman went up to a hedge and just when it got there the barrel of a Jagdtiger stuck through. Jagdtiger fired and took out a huge chunk of the turret – went right straight through and nobody was hurt. Of course a Jagdtiger is a whole different story then even a Tiger…

I watched a few of them on the Flicks of net. They were pretty good. It was really interesting to hear the actual veterans give their accounts of being a tanker.