How about Band of Brothers?
Anybody remember the scene shortly after the capture of Carentan, where German Jagdpanther are forced to retreat from Shermans? I know it’s probably historically accurate, but I still don’t understand why they would retreat?
Was it the larger number of the Shermans, or why did the superior Jagdpanther retreat?
I think if I were in ‘any tank’ and an unknown number of enemy tanks appeared by surprise on my unprotected flank I would leave in haste.
‘Better to run away and fight another day’
Also without a turret the German Jagdpanther was an ambush / long distance engagement weapon. Lots of Shermans running round it would have got behind it in the end and found a soft spot, and then Night!! Night!!
Good point.
One other weird thing I noticed, though, was that the MG-Gunners for the Shermans were not sitting inside the turret, but actually stood on the back, behind the turret and operated the turret mounted MG.
What was up with that, I can’t remember any other movie/photo/whatever where the gunners have to stand behind the turret, totally unprotected.
Oh sure, watch “Patton”.
Ok so they stood behind the turret in BOB and Patton the movie but would it be done in a real life engaugement?
They probably looked at their maps and realised they were in the wrong place. 
All the Jagdpanthers were positioned against the British at the time this fighting is supposed to have taken place
probably more than that by the late sixties and late seventies little ww2 german armor was left so hollywood and it’s dod advisors had to improvise
LOL well spotted Redcoat!!
sure you don’t mean redcoat?
err Yes!
lol…
thank god for the edit function…
If you read Stephen Ambrose’s book ‘Band Of Brothers’ (on which the mini series was based) you will see that according to the men who were there that is pretty much what happened… the tanks of the 2nd Armoured are described as ‘making a mess’ of the German forces. Although, it’s not clear as to whether there were tanks in the German attack at the point the Shermans & infantry from the 29th Division arrived in support of the 506, & it is suggested that the German tanks actually backed off earlier in the battle after one of their number was taken out by a bazooka round. So it may have been the case that when 2nd Armoured appeared, they were facing infantry (or more accuratly German paratroops fighting as infantry.)
Yeah, I only saw the movie… from the way you described it, it sounds like a quite half-hearted attack on the German side, though? Were the tanks too expensive to be wasted on infantry?
I don’t know about expensive (in monitary terms), but it’s probably fair to say that the tanks were considered too valuable a commodity (from a war fighting point of view) to be used efficiently in that particular engagement. The troops of the 506 were geographicaly below the German’s position, making it impossible for the tanks to engage them since they couldn’t depress their guns sufficiently. And attempts to get them in a position where they could engage the enemy put them into a vunerable position (namely climbing over a Normandy hedgrow exposing their poorly protected underside, where they were shown to be prey to the 506’s bazookas). It’s probably a case of common sense dictating the tank’s withdrawal.
Neither do I think it was half hearted attack… the battle started at 6:30am, & it wan’t until 16:30 that the 2nd armoured’s shermans arrived. So 8 hours of close quarter combat (the B.o.B. series correctly depicted the narrow distance between the opposing forces) hardly seems a half hearted attempt.
The german forces were planned for a counter attack against Carentan.
It consisted of the I./37 (from 17th SS-Panzer-Grenadier Division Götz von Berlichingen) and II./6 (from FJR.6 of the 2.Fallschirmjägerdivision).The armour belonged to 1./SS-Panzer-Abteilung 17 ,the kompanie was only fitted with StuG IV.
Two were knocked out.
Source:Götz von Berlichingen volume 1 by Jean-Claude Perrigault and Rolf Meister
As Redcoat mentioned earlier,the only Jagdpanthers in Normandy belonged to Schwere PanzerJäger Abteilung 654.This unit fought in the British sector notably against the 6th Guards tank brigade near Caumont.On 30th of July the Guards lost 11 Churchills against two Jagdpanther in only two minutes.
source:Panzers in normandy by Eric Lefevre.
So sorry for being late, honorable ladies and gentlemen, but until now I was unable to find some relevant photo-materials for this thread. Nevertheless, that problem is resolved now – hence here we go:
For the later hollywood movies theyb usually use an old T34 hull which is still very much available in eastern europe today and buid up a suitable superstructure on top.
Absolutely correct, my dear Mr. Gojulas, and that practice actually was introduced by late Yugoslav film industry in mid sixties, when former Yugoslavia represented an interesting country because of its wide variety of shooting sites, price competitiveness, skilled filming personnel and availability of genuine wartime equipment.
Here you have an realistically recreated battle sequence taken in 1969, during filming of the best ever made Yugoslav war-movie (actually a big-budget co-production between Yugoslavia, West Germany, Italy and the USA! ) - The Battle of Neretva (Bitka na Neretvi), which won worldwide respect for the battle scenes verity undertaken in the best motion picture standards.
T 34/85 as the German tank (Battle of Neretva, 1969)
This beautifully preserved example of the T 34 in the preliminary plan represents an original, non-modified Soviet machine. But another T 34, specially converted in great detail by specialists of the Yugoslav Peoples Army to resemble German Tiger I is completely visible in the rear of this striking exterior scene. Three T 34 machines were actually converted into Tigers for this project, and they were well used in another joint-venture movie project filmed in ex-Yugoslavia - Kelly’s Heroes.
That’s certainly a great photograph, but if you hadn’t mentioned it, I wouldn’t have been able to tell that the thing in the back is supposed to be a Tiger :neutral:
Of course, the Germans certainly used captured T-34s and put them to good use, equipping entire units with them…
Here’s one, pulled from a bog after 56 years, and it still has German markings showing:
The preservation (that presumably being submerged in mud for 56 years has afforded it) of that tank is astonishing…
Do you know what became of that particular T34?