“Fury” puts tank warfare front and center in a depiction of the Allied final push into Germany in 1945.

In the movie, a U.S. Army sergeant (played by Brad Pitt) commands a medium-size Sherman tank in battle against Nazi forces that have superior firepower, including a well-equipped Tiger I heavy tank. The film features the last working Tiger tank in the world.

The Sherman tank (officially called the Medium Tank, M4) was the most widely deployed tank in World War II. This workhorse vehicle was used by the U.S. Army, U.S. Marine Corps and the British, Canadian and Free French forces. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, 49,324 Sherman tanks were made between 1942 and 1946.

The M4 was a reliable tank, but the German Tiger heavy tanks outclassed it by far. The Tiger I (officially known as Panzerkampfwagen VI Tiger Ausf. H) was deployed on all German fronts during WWII. The formidable tank weighed 50 tons (54 metric tons) and was heavily armored. About 1,350 Tiger tanks were produced in total, between August 1942 and August 1944.



During a scene in “Fury” four M4 tanks go head-to-head with one Tiger I, and only one M4 survives the fight.

An M4 Sherman like the one featured in the film could penetrate the upper frontal hull of a Tiger 1 from about 1,600 to 3,300 feet (500 meters to 1000 m), while the Tiger could knock out an M4 from the front from about 2,600 feet (800 m), according to a Tiger crew instruction manual.

Both tanks used in the film — the Sherman M4A3E8 and the Tiger 131 — are authentic, and belong to the Tank Museum in Bovington, England.

The Tiger 131 was built in Kassel, Germany, in February 1943 and was shipped to Tunisia to join the 504th German heavy tank battalion, according to the Tank Museum’s website. On April 21, 1943, the Tiger was taken out of action by a Churchill tank of the British 48th Royal Tank Regiment, and was captured and repaired. On September 25, 1951, the Tiger was given to the Tank Museum.

The Tiger was “one of the most feared weapons unleashed by the Nazis,” capable of destroying an enemy tank from more than 1.2 miles (2 kilometers) away, Richard Smith, the Tank Museum’s director, told the BBC.

Yet despite its ferocity, the Tiger wasn’t invincible. Its tracks would freeze up with mud and snow in the winter, which Russian forces used to their advantage in battle. The tanks engines were underpowered, making them difficult to drive. Tigers also faced problems because of their large size. Since few bridges could handle the Tiger’s weight, the first version contained a snorkel that allowed the tanks to cross rivers up to 13 feet (4 m) deep, but later versions lacked this feature, according to the History Learning Site. If you want to know what story inspired the movie, you can find it on:

Link to original article: https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2015/09/10/wwii_tank_crew_that_inspired_the_movie_fury_108455.html

Image: http://waralbum.ru/259414/

Visit: Tank story #7

Guardian of Hitler`s last days

Americans produced a lot, so the Germans needed to be more advanced in producing their arsenal.

King Tiger was a spectacular tank! Advanced optics, powerful gun and quite a speed for its weight (690 hp; 8 gears forward and 4 in reverse; a max speed of over 40km/h – that was quite impressive for 1944 when it first saw combat).

Germany could never come near the production capacity of US alone, not to mention USSR as well as UK and Canada so they needed to build better equipment that would be superior to whatever Allies and Soviets could produce. Such examples are not only seen in tank production but also in other instances of German arsenal.

In Berlin on April 1945 heavy fighting took place as the Red Army was pushing deeper into the city.

At some point, King Tiger no.314 which was commanded by Georg Diers got the orders to set up a defensive position close to Reichstag and the Führerbunker. As they got closer to their objective, the crew inside the tank noticed increased Russian radio traffic. When King Tiger arrived to the scene, Diers spotted around thirty Russian T34s to his right close to the Kroll Opera House building.

After briefing the crew, Diers stormed around the corner, opened fire and managed to knock out almost all of them. King Tiger no.314 destroyed 39 Soviet tanks (IS-2s and T-34s) during the last days of the Battle of Berlin, and the largest part of this number had been achieved during this engagement.

This happened on the afternoon of 30 of April 1945, the same day Hitler killed himself. Following the Hitler`s death, some Germans decided to attempt a breakthrough and escape the Russian encirclement. For this final attack, all running vehicles were placed together, with the King Tiger under the command of Diers.

The assault started just before midnight on May the 1st. There were many high-ranking Germans in the group, including Martin Bormann. They tried to push through Friedrichstraße station.

King Tiger no.314 pushed forward through heavy fire losing all infantry support in the process. Ironically, despite the successful advance of the tank, it was disabled soon after by a German mine.

Georg Diers and his crew abandoned the tank. But, they failed to reach the Allied lines. All of them, except his loader Alex Sommer (who was shot in the stomach and declared missing), were eventually captured by Soviets. They were all released from captivity in 1949, four years after the war. Diers later wrote a book called “Tiger in Berlin“.

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In August 1944 during the Red Army`s Lvov–Sandomierz Offensive in Poland German and Soviet tank titans clashed with each other. Three King Tigers started their attack on bridge over the Vistula River. But something unexpected happened – they had already been spotted by one Red Army tank commander. Three well hidden T-34/85s, supported with Soviet infantry, were waiting together in the bushes.

When King Tigers were about 200 meters from Soviets, T-34 opened fire at one of King Tiger’s side armor, using APDS (Armour -piercing discarding sabot) rounds. The first two shots had hit the German tank and failed to penetrate the armor, but then the third one hit the turret and caused the ammunition to explode, sending the turret flying into the air; the German crew was killed on the spot.

The T-34s continued barrage and shots had hit another King Tiger 3 times but again did not penetrate thick and strong frontal armor that Tigers had. A fourth round hit just underneath the main turret and again caused ammunition to explode, killing the entire crew.

The last King Tiger tried to escape at full-speed but was pursued and disabled by the T-34s. The T-34s shots could not penetrate this King Tiger’s thick armor, but they caused big chunks of armor to come off and fly inside the German tank, cutting 3 of the crew members to shreds. Last crew member was slightly injured and was taken prisoner by the Soviets.

But that’s not all! The immobilized King Tiger was captured, then repaired and moved to testing grounds at Kubinka for the Soviets to examine it. The result was staggering:

King Tiger had a tendency to breakdown. The tank broke down every 10 miles. During the transfer to their testing grounds and getting to suitable rail transport the Soviets found the cooling system is insufficient for the excessively hot conditions of the Russian sultry summer. The engine tended to overheat and cause a failure of the gearbox. The right suspension of the tank had to be completely replaced, and its full functionality could not be re-established. The 8.8 cm KwK 43 in terms of penetration and accuracy was found to be on par with the 122 mm D-25T which proved capable of passing a round straight through and out of the captured King Tiger’s turret at a range of 430 yards.

The welding of the King Tiger (even with the usual careful German craftsmanship), was significantly worse than the similar designs of Tiger I. This meant that even when the shells were unable to penetrate the King armor, they caused the plates to break into smaller pieces, which would cause injury or death to the crew sitting inside.

In December 1943, huge Soviet operation wan on-going. Whole north part of SSSR was liberated. Even so, still there was some difficulties. One of the kind story goes for Lieutenant of T-34, Stepan Tkachenko, who got stuck with his tank in a half-frozen swamp close to Pskov (not far from Estonian and Latvians border).

After the whole crew was killed only radio operator Viktor Chernyshenko left alive. During the night he found another tank driver and joined by another tank driver Alexey Sokolov, who secretly reached the tank from the positions of the Soviet troops. But, he couldn’t put tank off the swamp embrace and save his colleague.

Still, Chernyshenko and Sokolov decided not to abandon the T-34 but to fight, and for 13 days they resisted fierce attacks by the German infantry. With just several cans of meat, a bit of sugar, several biscuits and just the water which dripped into the tank from the swamp.

Frozen, hungry and sleepless, the two Soviet soldiers fended off the continuous barrage of German attacks until on December 30 the Soviet troops broke through the enemy lines towards the solitary T-34.

In the end, Alexey Sokolov died the next day after the rescue. Chernyshenko managed to survive the battle, but unfortunately had to have both legs amputated.

Link: https://www.rbth.com/history/329862-3-greatest-victories-t-34
Image: https://66.media.tumblr.com/17bd54b845dd4de960eaf69bc1eb9def/tumblr_ox2tm7PKUw1w636mro1_1280.jpg

Can you imagine yourself sitting in dead-frozen T-34 tank in the middle of river, for several days? And that’s not all…

Captain Gavriil Polovchenya and his tank crew got stuck in a river near the town of Andreapol, in winter 1942, one of the coldest ever. Until they were waiting for support to get them out of the mud and frost, an unexpected “help” came – Germans arrived and surrounded the tank.

Captain Polovchenya ordered absolute silence so that German outnumber ears don’t spot their moves or voices. In absolutely frozen T-34 there were only living dead so to speak.

Although the Germans couldn’t open the hatch, they thought that the tank had been abandoned and decide, for no known reasons, to dragged already heavy T-34 out of the water. On January 15, the Germans sent T-34, with tank crew that was stuck inside, not knowing for them, to Andreapol, while the Polovchenya and others inside continued to keep dead silence.

Next morning Soviets start the motor and attempted a breakthrough, not knowing what their chance was. Somehow, they stumbled on the town streets, firing, smashing, crashing Germans, their equipment and everything else on their way to liberty. Dozens of German soldiers, over 30 military cars and trucks, and 10 artillery guns were destroyed, as the T-34 flee to Soviet position, victoriously.

That same day Andreapol were released from claws of German army, that couldn’t realize how they tricked and embarrassed they were.



Inspiration text: https://www.rbth.com/history/329862-3-greatest-victories-t-34

Image: http://www.invisiblethemepark.com/2013/02/soviet-t-34-tank-cutaway-1950/

Two brothers in swimming tank

This story is just one among many others that was written by the people who was involved in WWII and collected by BBC. Contributed by Mr Laurie Burn that was a tank commander in Sherman tank, located in Sword Beach, Normandy, France.

The D-day and voyage

His first impression of the beginnings of D-Day was that there was simply no joy in crossing the Channel in a flat-bottomed boat! He had hung a bucket on the back of their tank, and it was one continuous stagger to the bucket to be sick and then back. In his story he is saying that he even wanted everything to sink, that much weight he had in his guts.

His brother Pete and he were members of the same Sherman tank crew. Co-driver and a gunner. And name of their tank was ‘Icanhopit’, but by the end of the war they were in ‘Icanhopit 4’. You can guess why…

Endurance under the stress situations were done in submarine station in Gosport. Weeks of sitting in an so-called improvised tank turret, in a 20ft-deep concrete bath poured by 2,000 gallons of water in, testing nervous system of Sherman tank crews!

The DD tanks!

You may wonder why but you must know that Sherman tank was known as one of the swimming tanks, because they were duplex drive vehicles. They could float even they had 32-tonne. Collapsible canvas screen fitted raised or lowered by means of compressed air in bottles. Once the screen was raised the tank was driven by two propellers from the main engine and steered by rudder and a very long tiller. That’s how Sherman tanks were very seaworthy.

Under the most terrific bombardment off the French coast they crossed the Channel. Unbelievably big and vast Armada of ships was behind them: battleships blazing off their big guns; rocket projectile ships launching hundreds of rockets; and the RAF bombing the landing area. When they heard „floater“, they knew this was it and they need to go there for what they were prepared to. Seeing photos before that, they knew how coast looks. Photos of the area at Ouistreham, where they were to land, start to be reality.

Becoming a man

After they begun to float Sherman tank were all so low in the sea, he looked more like rowing boats, but that was part of the surprise plan. “It was 6.30 hours. H-hour was 7.25 – we were to land at H 7.5 minutes. The bombardment went on and it was about this time that I stopped being a boy and became a man, because the landing craft carrying the infantry troops and commandos began to overtake us and some of them simply went over the tops of the tanks.”

7 minutes late

Among the dead bodies, Pete and his brother looked up and saw a massacre. They were about seven and a half minutes late arriving on the beach, but as soon as they dropped the floater screen, incoming high tide flooded the engine compartment. Before they evacuate, they fired guns as long as they could!

They troop sergeant, who had safely landed his tank, reversed to them and took them on board, and then, amid all the shooting and mayhem, he calmly dropped them off by the sea wall. 33 out of 40 launched tanks survived and made a real contribution to the battle.

Hope in this one is strong

First night they prevail all mortar attack, waited in an orchard in Hermanville, digging a trench under tanks and convincing them self that they are safe from harm. But from that day they only slept in tanks. Trenches didn’t help a lot.

First day of war for them was over, a day for which they had trained as a crew for 2 years, and they succeeded… to survive. It never crossed their mind that we could lose the war, they were too young to think otherwise.

That’s a story of one of the first Sheman tanks crew, that landed in France, on D-day.



Inspiration text: https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/84/a2044784.shtml

Image: http://the.shadock.free.fr/sherman_minutia/duplexdrive/duplexdrive.html

When World War II began, Zinoviy Kolobanov already had serious military experience. For example, he fought in the Finnish War of 1939-1940, during which he escaped from a burning tank three times.
In 1941, Kolobanov commanded a tank unit during the German advance toward Leningrad (now St. Petersburg). Near the village of Voskovitsy, Kolobanov’s unit got the order to defend the road leading to the town of Krasnogvardeysk (now Gatchina, 26 miles outside Leningrad). With only 5 heavy KV-1 tanks at his disposal, Kolobanov moved his unit to an important crossroads where he ordered two tanks to block the two roads to Krasnogvardeysk. Meanwhile, he strategically parked his tank 300 meters away in a hull-down position, such that it was barely visible.
As the German tanks approached their troops were overly confident, some even sitting on the hulls with hatches open. Clearly, they didn’t spot Kolobanov’s tank in a hull-down. Andrey Usov, Kolobanov’s ace gunner, destroyed the first and the last of the 22 tanks in the enemy column, effectively blocking them on a narrow road surrounded by swamp. The rest of the tanks were all lined up before Kolobanov’s tank just like in a shooting range.
Amid the turmoil, some of the enemy tanks’ ammunition exploded, while others slid into the swamp, rendering them motionless, yet they fired fiercely. Fortunately, KV-1 tanks proved almost invincible to German guns. After the battle, there were over 100 hit marks on the hull of Kolobanov’s tank, but none had pierced the armor. Kolobanov destroyed 22 enemy tanks, and his entire unit destroyed 48 in total, stopping the German forces.
Shortly after his most famous battle, Zinoviy Kolobanov was seriously wounded and recovered only in 1945. He lived in Minsk until his death in 1994. Kolobanov’s win was considered so incredible and audacious that many didn’t believe it. When in the 1970s Belarusian TV wanted to make a story about Kolobanov’s feat, it was disapproved by superiors as preposterous.

While we are progressing and improving KPB, it is clear that many expect a lot from us and we strive to achieve the expectations that are put before us.
We pay special attention to every detail of the game, and in March, our Panzer Battles should see the brightness of your screens.

In the meantime, articles like this give us a special motivation to keep up with our work!

Please read an article, there are also many other good stuff that is coming out soon.

https://www.wargamer.com/articles/war-games-for-pc-2019/

When it comes to historical games, historical accuracy has a lot of value. Read the next chapter of our Dev Diaries to know more about how we keep the balance between historical accuracy and the gameplay.

https://www.klotzenthegame.com/developer-diary5-interview-with-mario-bursik/

This Friday we decided to take a step back and see what tanks we haven't mentioned yet. Today's post is dedicated to Panzer II Ausf. C and T-26. Check the description of each tank below and don't forget to tell us which model you like more and why.


Panzer II Ausf. F

Panzer II Ausf. F is a light German tank designed to fill in for the larger Panzer III and Panzer IV models while they were developed. Nonetheless, Panzer II played an important role in early war during the Polish and French campaigns and was used in North Africa and on the Eastern front against the Soviet Union. The hull was designed with a flat 35 mm plate on its front, and the armor of the superstructure and turret were built up to 30 mm on the front with 15 mm to the sides and rear. The tank was armed with a 2 cm KwK 30 L/55 auto-cannon and MG 34 machine gun. The 2 cm auto-cannon proved to be ineffective against many Allied tanks, but the tank was very light and mobile. Panzer II was replaced by more effective Panzer III and Panzer IV models by 1941.


T-26 model 1933

T-26 model 1933 is a Soviet light infantry tank used in World War II and during the wars in the 1930s. The turret was cylindrical, relatively low, simple in design, with rear storage, housing a high velocity 45 mm gun with anti-tank capabilities. The secondary armament consisted of three machine-guns which were provided to cope with dedicated anti-tank crews. At the beginning of Operation Barbarossa, T-26s were the most numerous tanks in the Red Army. Despite a clear superiority over the German Panzer I, II and some parity with the Czech-built Panzer 35(t) and 38(t) fielded by the Wehrmacht, they were no match for the 50 mm and 75 mm armed Panzer III and IV which formed the main cluster of every Panzer Division. Their relatively thin armor could withstand Pak 36 gunfire, but not any other German anti-tank gun. As the war progressed, the T-26 was gradually replaced through attrition by the vastly superior T-34. The remaining T-26s participated in battles with the Germans and their allies during the Battle of Moscow, the Battle of Stalingrad, and the Battle of the Caucasus.