When Trumpets Fade

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."