hey everyone i'm johnny and today we are taking a look at the tanks featured in
band of brothers there are a lot some real some fake some frankenstein creations so
let's take a look at them all and the battles they are featured in in order of appearance
tank scene number one this is a brief scene and not a combat scene but i do appreciate it because
it features the m4 sherman with the wading modification these modifications are designed
to take in air and dump exhaust well above the tank with their almost ocean liner like stacks
wading shermans were water tight and used primarily during d-day as they were dumped onto
beaches where some of them would face deep water that would normally disable an unmodified sherman
notably the shermans in this clip were actually canadian grizzly shermans dressed up to look the
part but still big props for using real shermans and adding some realism to episode 2 the d-day
episode aka day of days tank scene number two is a lot of action this is episode three Carentan
and features one of the best battle scenes in Band of Brothers that's the battle of the bloody gulch
which was fought in june of 1944 located about one mile southwest of Carentan in normandy france
off screen this saw some of the german 17th ss panzer grenadier division and six Fallschirmjäger
regiment go up against of course the us 101st airborne division which was reinforced by elements
of the us second armored division which you see here in the form of sherman tanks well hello
these are again the real deal being sherman grizzlies used for the fact that they are more
readily available to the studio operating out of the UK where the miniseries was filmed the town of
Carentan was important for allied forces because it served as a link between omaha and utah beach
in the real battle of the bloody gulch 60 Shermans faced off against 12 panzers
many people question this particular scene because we see several superior German tanks
and tank destroyers such as two StuGs and a Jagdpanther arguably one of the
best tank destroyers of the war retreating to several Shermans however when we consider that
off-screen this battle saw 60 American tanks versus 12 german the retreat makes more sense
the egg panther in this scene is a T-55 mock-up and the StugS are British fv432 armored
personnel carriers which are great mock-ups considering they originally looked like this
the martyr threes in this film are the same used in saving private Ryan with
tom hanks and steven Spielberg being part of the production team on banner brothers
and this bazooka scene actually did historically happen and it was critical to protecting the
flanks of the exposed e-company allowing time for D and F companies to fall back into
position episode 4 the replacements focuses on the unsuccessful military operation called
operation market garden which took place in September of 1944. it was actually the
largest airborne operation to date even bigger than that on d-day the objective of
this operation was to circumvent the north end of the defenses protecting Germany known as the
Siegfried line however it depended on quickly seizing bridges and was ultimately unsuccessful
just to quickly highlight every time you see a german half-track in Band of Brothers what
you are looking at is not a german Hanomag but an almost identical and authentic post-war Czech copy
virtually all world war II movies featuring a german half-track uses a post-war check version
now in this battle scene in neu in Holland, we come across two shermans
again the Canadian grizzly variant as well as an authentic British cromwell
armed with the same 75-millimeter ordinance as its sherman counterpart
these three allied tanks are about to go
up against a tiger one and a Jagdpanther waiting an ambush
now the tiger one we actually see in this scene is just a tiger turret welded onto a t-34 chassis
which is also famously used in the movie saving private ryan
the only real operational tiger 131 in the
world lives at Bovington Camp and that can be seen in the movie Fury
one impressive feature of this scene is actually how the tiger one knocks out the Cromwell behind
the Sherman tank effectively cutting off the Sherman from any retreat now it's forcing the
Sherman in a one-on-one engagement with the tiger which is most certainly going to lose
now although the tiger one is certainly a very cool tank along with the Jagdpanther we see here
historically what you actually would have seen in the battle outside Neuen Holland would have
actually have been hands or fours and panthers but understandably the production crew was limited
in what they could obtain Band of Brothers is also kind enough to finish off this scene with
a german armored vehicle parade sadly next to a burning sherman featured here is an armored car
a StuG and again our Czech half-track this time with a pack 40 75 millimeter anti-tank cannon
StuGs are more effective in this sort of terrain versus what we witnessed at the battle of the
buddy gulch cities and forests with predictable lines of advance from enemy armor negate a StuG's
disadvantage of having no turret allowing them to wait an ambush with their strong frontal armor
lastly we have episode 7 the breaking point aka battle of Foy which took place in december of
1944. Foy was a small town occupied by the Germans in the early stages of the battle of the bulge
and just one of the many battles that took place during the campaign easy company would eventually
capture the town after it change hands between German and American forces a total of four times
the tanks what's probably more famous than the actual tanks in this scene is captain
spears involvement with them this is the famous scene where we see captain ronald spears rush
through the center of foy to connect with item company in order to prevent the german retreat
spears blows right by a StUG as well as an 88 anti-aircraft gun
and our tiger one mock-up which is again the same mock-up we witnessed earlier
for its famous and a historic feature in earlier episodes and saving private ride
hollywood loves a tiger and well so do i just don't always trust it on film
in this scene it is particularly easy to identify the tiger as a mock-up
as it can be viewed from its side note the tigers one turret is incredibly far forward
such as the turret would be on the t-34 which this mock-up is built on
a genuine tigers 1s turret is positioned more towards the center as you can see here again on
tiger131 featured in fury a movie that seems to enrage and delight many tank movie fans
thanks everyone for watching this brief breakdown of the tanks used in band of brothers
it is not a comprehensive or complete review and i am not a tank expert
so if you want to add to the discussion please feel free to do so in the comments section below
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