Fury

[Jericho941]

Just saw it. Wouldn't call it an action movie so much as a horror story about a tank.

It was pretty good. Except for the dinner scene. Made it hard to empathize with the crew. By the end of that I was starting to think "I really don't care what happens to these assholes." But it got better.

[blackeagle603]

Saw it last night with my son and daughter #3. IMHO worth seeing on a big screen.

[Jered]

At least it didn't have Quentin Tarantino.

[PawPaw]

Watched it last night with my son. They got a bunch of the trivia correct, like the abbreviated fire commands that tankers use under stress. And the mud. Lots of mud.

[slowpoke]

Watched it last night with my son. They got a bunch of the trivia correct, like the abbreviated fire commands that tankers use under stress. And the mud. Lots of mud.

So those date back to WW2 and weren't created afterwards? I know the hand signals in Band of brothers became doctrine after WW2 and 101st didnt use them then.

[PawPaw]

Watched it last night with my son. They got a bunch of the trivia correct, like the abbreviated fire commands that tankers use under stress. And the mud. Lots of mud.

So those date back to WW2 and weren't created afterwards? I know the hand signals in Band of brothers became doctrine after WW2 and 101st didnt use them then.

I don't know if the fire commands were used in WW2, but I certainly recognized them, as a '70s era tanker.

[arctictom]

I saw it although it is unlikely that in April 45 the Allies were short troups or tanks , but liked the harsh characters.

[Greg]

I saw it although it is unlikely that in April 45 the Allies were short troups or tanks , but liked the harsh characters.

Haven't seen the movie, but yes the Allies were surprisingly short of front-line troops. It was particularly noticeable with tank crews. Reason was casualties. Losing crews faster than new ones could be trained, so there were often more tanks than crews (wrecked tanks could be salvaged and repaired, wrecked crews could be buried).

It wasn't uncommon for front line units to have several hundred percent casualties (not all at once, of course).

And the British were simply at the end of their manpower resources. For anything. Late in the war if they wanted to man new construction they laid up old ships to free up crew for them, for example.

[PawPaw]

I saw it although it is unlikely that in April 45 the Allies were short troups or tanks , but liked the harsh characters.

Pitt's character made the statement that until a previous action, he had the best bow gunner in the 9th Army. That tells me that at the start of the movie, he had just participated in cleaning up the Ruhr pocket, which took a lot of troops and equipment. The 9th Army, you might recall was on the north of the American line, wit the Brits to their north. During the Battle of the Bulge, the American command was south of the buldge, so the 9th Army was given to Montgomery for that battle and wasn't "cut" nack over to American Army Group command until the end of the Rhineland campaign. It is entirely possible that American units were short of troops during this part of the war.

Still, the basis of this movie was founded on company and platoon-level tactics, and the producters seemed to do a good job with that part of the movie. I was particularly struck by the image of then firing in the forest and tress falling over. The first time I saw that I was a young shavetail and was simply astounded. Last night when I saw it again, I was pleased that they had gotten that detail correct.

One interesting side note: The name of the tank was Fury. Historically, tankers name their tanks, but they're required to use the first letter of the company level assignment. I was in "C" Company, 4/37th Armor, so my tank names were Chi-Tu-Kemu (my first tank) and Cap'n Crunch (my second tank). If we assume that this historical detail is correct, then the good sergeant was assigned to an outfit that starts with "F", which makes him a cavalryman, because Cav Troops are historically named E-F-G- or H.

[Jericho941]

Well, if we wanna get really detailed, all the Shermans should've had no trouble penetrating the Tiger's front armor at the range shown in the fight, so this should've been... basically this. (3:33-3:47 if the time index link thing doesn't work)