The following LiveLeak video is a clip from a German TV program. The clip contains propaganda footage from East Germany showing of some of the 'toys' the former Democratic Republic built to indoctrinate children in the joys of serving the communist party state. I have to confess that if when I was 6 or 7 years old someone had offered me the chance to play war in a engine powered mini-T-55, I would have signed up for the Thälmann Pioneers. Of course not signing up for the Pioneers and later the FDJ in the old GDR would have had consequences. Being a child of the West born in 1975, I have much to be thankful for at Thanksgiving.
The following is an image from the Bundesarchiv showing a Kinderpanzer in a GDR parade in 1979.
Update on Tuesday, December 1, 2009 at 09:59AM by
Chris
Additional information on the Kinderpanzer is coming to light based on an email I received yesterday. It looks like the target shooting in the clip was just effects work, no working main guns on the Kinderpanzers! I will try to post some still images of this mini-tanks tonight.
Update on Tuesday, December 1, 2009 at 03:02PM by
Chris
Last week Berlin Kurier published online a short writeup on the man who they claim came up with the idea for the Kinderpanzers in 1950s.
The economy is in the tank and the energy drink business has lost is luster. But things were not great for Coca-Cola Amatil'sMother energy drink even before the financial melt down. Coca-Cola Amatil is the the Australian bottler and distributer for Coca-Cola products in Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, and Indonesia. In 2006, Coca-Cola Amatil released Mother to compete against V and Red Bull. After 18 months of lack luster sales and numerious bad reviews concerning taste and cost, Coca-Cola Amatil took action and changed the forumla for Mother to make it more palatable while doubling the size of the can to 500 mL and keeping the price per can fixed.
Desperate times require desperate measures, so in June of 2008 some bright lad or lass in the Coca-Cola Amatil marketing department green lighted a commercial featuring a surplus Centurion Main Battle Tank crushing a truck filled with 10,000 cans of the old Mother energy drink. You know a company is desperate when they publicly destroy their old products to convince would be customers to buy their new and improved offering.
No word if all the boys and girls in Australia and New Zealand rushed out to the store to stock up on the new and improved Mother energy drink. No references to Mother can now be found on the Coca-Cola Amatil corporate website, but at least we have the commerical to enjoy on YouTube.
In 1978 work started on a documentary about the Battle Re-enactment Associate (BRA), the UK's first organized World War 2 reenactment group. The finished documentary was titled "It's All a Game." No reference to the documentary can be found on IMDb, and a detailed write-up on the documentary can only be found in Issue No. 24 of After the Battle Magazine from 1979. The good news is that thanks to the World War 2 Living History Association (WW2 LHA) it's possible to watch the documentary. The WW2 LHA is the direct descendant of BRA and to celebrate their 30th Anniversary in 2008, the group posted the "It's All a Game" documentary in three part YouTube. The documentary is notable on this blog just because of the armoured vehicles involved in the final 'Battle of Molash' scene, but also for the passing references to the several period war films productions.
So with no further ado, courtesy of WW2 LHA: It's All a Game...
The Start of British WW2 Reenactment Part 1
The Start of British WW2 Reenactment Part 2
The Start of British WW2 Reenactment Part 3
And as further bonus 2 more related YouTube vids - Russell Harty Meets The B.R.A
And The Battle of Pebble Mill (Late 1970s) B.R.A Action
Ok, I have been slack for a long time now, and this post contains no original content but I could not pass it up.
Ladies and Gentleman I give you Centurions chasing Judas in Jesus Christ Superstar...unless your into musicals the fun ends around 1:30.
Major Hat Tip to Tom Hall who posted the YouTube link in the General Discussion group at Missing-Lynx and who came up with the post title that I pretty much shamelessly ripped off.
A detailed build page has immerged for the new FV 432 based Panzer III Ausf. M that made it's first public appearance at this past weekend's War & Peace Show.
The new vehicle is associated with the reenactment group Kampfgruppe StahlKrieger and it's as fine an example of the black arts as I have ever seen.
The 2009 War & Peace Show has wrapped up in the UK. Photos of this year's event are already up on the official site and no doubt thousands of images are being loaded on photobucket, smugmug, and flicker accounts as well as more than a few videos on YouTube. The photo albums on the offical site are very well done, but the gallery that caught my eye was the one with the aerial photos taken from a helicopter during the event. The aerial images give a true idea of the size of the event for those who have never to been. The event is a great place to see an amazing collection of hundreds of vintage vehicles - armour at the show included universal carriers, M3/M5 Halftracks, M3 & M5 Staurt Light Tanks, M8, a M18, a M24 Light Tank, a number of M4 Sherman variants including a BARV, a Comet, a Centurion and Centurion ARV, a Valentine Duplex Drive (DD) amphibious tank, a T-34-85, a T-55, a T-72, a BMP-2, a Staghound, Ferrets, a FV 433 SP and all manner of breds of FV 432s. Not being there and only having the photos and videos to go by I am sure I missed a few notable AFVs.
On the repo side, note should be given to the FV432 based Panzer III that made it's first appearance at the 2009 show. Other notable reproductions that appeared in past Beltring shows and were present this year were Mick Hodgkinson's T-55 Tiger, Jon Phillip's old FV432 StuG III and one of the extended hull FV432 StuG IIIs that Steve Lamonby's crew at Plus Film Services built for Band of Brothers. There was also a interesting Vietnam Gun Truck, it's a bit off the radar screen but its amazing to see how many people in Europe are involved in Vietnam War reenacting.
In April of 2007 Peter Jackson in partnership Fran Walsh and Jim Jannard produced a fifteen minute dramatic short about World War I entitled Crossing the Line. With a cast and crew of only 30, the film features aerial dogfights, bayonet charges, period artillery and a reproduction British Mark IV tank. Filmed during the course of only two days the short was created to demonstrate the potential of Jannard's of new Red One digital camera, which at the time was only in the alpha prototype stage. The full trailer for the short can be found on YouTube and the New Zealand Herald has the story behind the origions and results of the project. The Jannard's Red website also has stiles from production and BitTorrant and HTTP links for shorter version of the tailer.
The British Mark IV reproduction seen in the full length trailer below is the same vehicle seen in the WW1 reenactment battles at the Omaka Classic Fighters Airshow. The vehicle has a plywood and steel frame body on a modified tractor chassis.
I was browsing the WW2 history section of a local book store and I could not help but notice that the cover photo on the latest printing of the Cornelius Ryan's trade paper back verison of "A Bridge Too Far" was straight out of the 1977 Richard Attenborough movie. I guess the cover art department could not find a better real image from the battle for Arnhem? Hey but the burning prop vehicles look cool...
The following are two interesting photos of recent Chinese built VISMODs. The first image is from the 2007 Chinese war film "Assembly (Ji jie hao)." The image shows a film prop replica of an American M26 Pershing. My initial theory was that this prop vehicle was based on a Chinese light tank chassis. This theory was incorrect (see comment section of this post). My revised theory is that this M26 VISMOD is based on Soviet Ia-12 tractor chassis or a Chinese built tractor patterned after the Ia-12. The theory is based on the running gear arrangement and details of idler, roadwheels, return rollers, and drive sprocket used on Ia-12. The best resource on Soviet tractors is Tankograd's book Tyagatshi: Soviet Full Tracked Artillery Tractors of WW2 in Red Army and Wehrmacht Service. There are also some good photos and color profiles of the Russian Ia-12 on Oliver Missing's website Engines of the Red Army in WW2.
Despite the major limitations imposed by the choice of surrogate chassis, the Chinese film production went to a great deal of trouble to build a off scale but realistic looking upper body and turret.
Chinese Mini-M26 VISMOD
The second VISMOD tank is from the Chinese People's Liberation Army. It is a Chinese Type 59 dressed to play the part of an enemy American M1 Abrams MBT in war games.
Chinese OPFOR Abrams
Update on Wednesday, December 2, 2009 at 10:41AM by
Chris
I was wrong about the chassis of the M26 VISMOD. As pointed out below in the comments, its not a Type 62 Light tank chassis. Sorry for taking so long to pick up on this error.
Update on Tuesday, December 8, 2009 at 06:44PM by
Chris
My latest theory is that the VISMOD M26 is based on Soviet era Ia-12 tractor or maybe a Chinese built copy of that vinterable Russian WW2 tractor.
Building 1/2 and 3/4 scale miniature tanks is a popular past time for some paintball and airsoft enthusiasts. The following video clip highlights the steps involved in building of a 3/4 scale WW1 Renault FT tank from an old tractor chassis. It's worth visiting the builder's YouTube Channel for more clips documenting the progress of the project.
Today's YouTube clips shows a T-54/55 Tiger I conversion carried out by a unknown group(at least to me) in Hungary. A number of good photos and videos of this well dressed vehicle taking part in Eastern European WW2 reinactment battles can be found on the web. By my count there are at least three T-54/55 Tiger I conversions in operation with various European reenactment groups. Carl Brown's old Tiger in the UK, this Hungarian vehicle and a vehicle in Russia.
The following YouTube clips are of the Sherman built for the film "The Great Raid" being taken through it's paces at the 2009 Melbourne Steam Traction Engine Club Rally. This Sherman tank prop was also used recently in the DreamWorks SKG the HBO TV mini-series "The Pacific." The Sherman is based on two cut up former Australian Army M3 "Grant" hulls that have been patched together to form a single chassis with the a new replica M4 welded steel superstructure and fiberglass turret. The Grant to Sherman conversion was carried out by a crew from FX Illusions in Queensland.
Update: 20 July 2009 - The Gold Coast company FX Illusions built Japanese and M4 Sherman props for "The Great Raid." I have corrected the text of the post to give credit where credit is due.
Having published a series of "retro-lozenge" posts dealing with replicas of British World War I tanks, it's only fitting to post a YouTube video of the replica of World War I German A7V tank that paraded around the green today at Tankfest 2009.
The replica A7V was built over the course of 3 1/2 years by a crew led by Bob Grundy. The vehicle's chassis is based on two Fordson County Crawlers that have been mated together. A steel frame built on top of the chassis supports the marine plywood and fiberglass body. The hundreds of rivets that cover the 'armoured' body of the vehicle are made of washers domed in a press and screwed on to the plywood and fiberglass that stands in for steel plate. Another feature of the replica is that all the guns of the vehicle are linked and can be moved from a common location inside the replica. The vehicle is only a cosmetic reproduction, but given the level of work Grundy and his crew put into the external details it's hard to find fault. Peter Jackson's WW1 Mark IV British tank replica was built in New Zealand in a similiar fashion as Grundy's A7V. Jackson's Mark IV it has given good service during the WW1 reenactment battles at the Omaka Classic Fighters Airshow in New Zealand for several years, and one can only hope Grundy's A7V will make many more appearances at events in the UK.
Grundy's replica is named and painted to represent the German A7V 504 "Schnuck" that was caputred by New Zealand soldiers in August 1918. A photos and detailed history of the original "Schnuck" can be found on the excellent Landships website.
The vehicle seen at Tankfest is only the second replica A7V runner in existence. The first replica was built in Germany in the late 80s/early 90s and now on display at the Panzermuseum Munster in Germany. The German replica is an almost exact copy of a A7V based on surviving a collection of vintage A7V components, period drawings and as built drawings of the sole surviving A7V 506 "Mephisto" which is on static display at the Queensland Museum in Australia."Mephisto" was captured by the Australian troops in 1918 and shipped back to Australia as a war trophy in 1919 The effort to build the Munster A7V replica is documented in Wheels & Tracks Issue 35. The Prime Portal website has several good photos of the Munster replica painted to represent the German tank "Wotan."
As a side note, the man with the camouflaged German helmet seen riding driver compartment cab of the "Schnuck" replica at Tankfest is Maxwell Hundleby. In 1990 Hundleby co-authored with Rainer Strassheim what many believe to be "the" book on the A7V. The book is almost impossible to find now and sells for well over $200 US if you can find it. Rumor is that Hundleby provided input into the construction of Bob Grundy's "Schnuck" and that he is working on a new book.
I am going through my list of war movies (+TV series) and trying to recall all the films with scenes even remotely trying to depict Allied characters fighting in France from June to September 1944.
My list so far - They Were Not Divided (1950) The Tanks Are Coming (1951) D-Day the Sixth of June (1956) The Longest Day (1962) Combat! (1962 TV series) [1962-1967] The Victors (1963) Patton (1970) Kelly's Heroes (1970) The Big Red One (1980) War and Remembrance (1988 TV mini-series) Saving Private Ryan (1998) Band of Brothers (2001)
I really hope this list is not complete because its depressing to think that Oddball's crew in "Kelly's Heroes" is the best film depiction of American tankers in France during the summer of 1944. My list is even more depressing if there is only one film that tells a story about British soldiers after D-Day. "They Were Not Divided" was great film for 1950, but Operation Goodwood is basically covered in a single tank charge scene. No offense to the Welsh Guards, but should they have to stand in for every non-American Allied ground combat unit in Normandy? Are there any stories about Canadians or the Poles? Someone please tell me I am wrong, and that the BBC did a dramatic 12+ series on blokes from unit X fighting in...
As a side note... I know most people don't have a clue about what happened in Normandy between June 7th and final closing of the Falaise pocket on 21 August (Operations Perch, Epsom, Charnwood, Goodwood, Goodwood, Spring, Bluecoat, Cobra, Totalise, and Tractable). But anyone that has read the unit histories and had the good fortune of knowing veterans, knows there where some great stories with incredible characters that are not figments of anyone in Hollywood's imagination. There has to be a way to find a paying audience...
Yesterday the media was abuzz with stories from 65th anniversary ceremonies at the Normandy beaches. Politicians made speeches and TV channels ran the usual documentaries. A day later the Normandy headlines are largely washed away. What happened after the battle on beaches ended? If you are dependent on the main stream media and Hollywood it might be difficult to find out.
Never read a Sven Hassel book, but the following youtube clip put me back into the spirit of posting again. How often does one get to see 80's C-list American actors in German uniforms and surplus SU-100s battle it out with T-34-85s? There is reason why there are some many clips of from this movie on youtube with heavy metal soundtracks. Watch and take in the full measure of its entertaining badness.
Jacques Littlefield died this past week at the age of 59 after a long battle with cancer. Mr. Littlefield was the founder of the Military Vehicle Technology Foundation. I never had the chance to meet Mr. Littlefield, but I did have the chance to correspond with him by email. He was a gracious man, who always took time to answer my questions. His obituary was posted on the Missing Lynx discussion group, but I am going to take the liberty of reposting it here.
"Jacques Mequet Littlefield, Tank Scholar and Collector Jacques Mequet Littlefield, who assembled one of the largest private collections of military vehicles in the world and championed open space in the mid-Peninsula, has died in Portola Valley, California. He was 59 years old and had battled cancer for the past decade. Jacques fascination with armored vehicles began in his childhood when he started building plastic models of tanks. While in college, he built his first scale model, radio-controlled tank. He acquired his first full-sized vehicle in 1975. In 1998 Jacques set up the Military Vehicle Technology Foundation to manage his collection of over one hundred fifty vehicles and restore new additions. The collection ranges from a World War II era U.S. Army M3A1 wheeled scout car, the first acquisition, to a Soviet-era mobile Scud Missile launcher, and includes such famous tanks as the U.S. Sherman and Patton class; U.K. Centurion, Conqueror and Chieftain; German WWII vehicles including a Panther; and Soviet-era Russian tanks. The complete inventory is available at www.milvehtechfound.com. Jacques was considered a scholar and expert on the history of armored warfare and the foundation helps serve the interests of authors, historians, educators, the defense industry, veterans groups, model makers and the entertainment industry. The collection is housed at Pony Tracks Ranch in the hills above Portola Valley, which the family acquired in the mid-1970s. Pony Tracks was the country estate of former San Francisco mayor and California governor James "Sunny Jim" Rolph, Jr. Over the years, Jacques restored many of the old buildings on the ranch, such as the stables, and acquired additional property helping to maintain open space in the hills above Portola Valley. Jacques was the son of the late Edmund Wattis Littlefield and Jeannik Mequet Littlefield. He was born November 21, 1949 in San Francisco, California. His father was CEO of Utah International and served on many corporate boards during his career. He is survived by his mother, a strong supporter of the arts and a member of the Chairmans Council of the San Francisco Opera; his brother, Edmund Littlefield, Jr.; and sister, Denise Littlefield Sobel. Jacques also is survived by his wife, Sandy Montenegro Littlefield, and five children: David, Scott, Allison, Jacques Jr. and Jeannik, and one grandson, Kingsley. Jacques grew up in Burlingame and attended Cate School in Carpinteria, California before studying at Stanford University where he received his Bachelors degree in 1971 and an MBA two years later. He worked for Hewlett Packard as a manufacturing engineer before focusing solely on building his museum and restoration facility. Jacques served on the boards of the George S. Patton Museum in Fort Knox, Kentucky, the Cate School, the Coyote Point Museum for Environmental Education, the Hoover Institution, the California Academy of Sciences, and the Filoli Center. He was a member of the Bohemian Club and Captain of the Sempervirens camp. A viewing will be held at Roller Hapgood & Tinney Funeral Directors, 980 Middlefield Rd in Palo Alto, on Saturday, January 10, 3:00 to 6:00, and a public memorial service for Jacques will be scheduled for the near future. In lieu of flowers, the family suggests a contribution to one of the organizations Jacques supported: The Patton Museum, Cate School, the Coyote Point Museum for Environmental Education, the California Academy of Sciences, the Hoover Institution or the Filoli Center."
As a memorial, on the day of his death (7 Jan 2009), Jacques's restoration crew took the MVTF's Panther tank out for its first drive with the turret installed. This and other YouTube videos of vehicles in the MVTF collection can be seen on the caddydave YouTube Channel. Great pictures of the MVTF collection and its on going restoration projects can be found on Toadman's Tank Pictures.
A Panzer III replica shows up in the trailer of the newly released Edward Zwick film "Defiance."
This vehicle is notable for being one of two Swiss Panzer 61 based "Panzer III" film prop conversions carried out for the 2001 film "Enemy at the Gates." At least one of these Pz.61 "Pz.IIIs" also made an appearance in "All the Queen's Men" (2001) and "The Pianist" (2002). The Swiss Pz. 61 or 68 makes for a decent, yet oversized Pz.III surrogate, but based on the side profile of the Pz.61 "Pz.III" the following photo, I keep wondering if someone is going to make a go at a Russian KV-1 or KV-2? I know there is a limited market for WW2 replica Soviet tanks and I am sure souring spares for obsolete Swiss tanks is difficult, but a KV-2 would be impressive on film. Heaven forbid someone could always put a giant Balkan Cross on it!
After not writing anything for several months, a post over on the Missing Lynx stirred me from my slumber. "When Trumpets Fade" is a 1998 HBO TV drama set during the the Battle for Hurtgen Forest. The film gets rave reviews on IMDb and other film sites, and some like to hail it as the low budget antithesis of Speilberg's Saving Private Ryan.
Now getting down to business. The battle scenes were filmed in Hungary with surplus Soviet era equipment used as props for German panzers and artillery. The ersatz panzers are heavily modified Soivet manufactured 2S1 Gvozdika 122mm self-propelled howitzers. As seen in the following images the front hull and turret has clearly be been reworked, "Schuerzen" like side skirts added to the hull and turret, driver's and hull bow gunner positions added to give the vehicles a panzer IV like appearance. Significant work was also done to the rear of the vehicles going as far as to fabricate a oversized panzer IV like exhaust muffler. At least two 2S1s were used in the filming. Credit to first identify these vehicles goes to great a Japanese website whose name I can not write here because of my poor Kanji and Katakana skills.
The German "88s" used in the film are Soviet 85mm M1939 (52-K) anti-aircraft guns. These guns were used in WW2. A number of 52-Ks were captured and reused by the Germans against the Soviets on the eastern front.
The following Bundesarchiv image from January 1943 is a good example of a 52-K in German service on the Ost Front.
After World War II the Soviets supplied most its Iron Curtain client states with 52-K guns, and the weapons served with Warsaw Pact forces well into the cold war. Today the 52-K is popular prop Flak/Pak gun in WW2 films, with prop guns being used in movies like Downfall.
If you are interested the Battle of the Hurtgen Forest then pick a copy of Robert Rush's "Hell in Hurtgen Forest" or Douglas Nash's "Victory Was Beyond Their Grasp."
Squarespace released a major update of their software, and so the last few days I have been at work updating templates and making basic revisions to the style of the blog. A quick survey of some of the older journal posts in the archieve showed a number of broken links and corrections that need to be made. The content on the links page and the Amazon Armor List also in needs of a major cleanup effort.
Sunday, November 29, 2009 at 05:37PM ;)
Chris
;)
