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As the title suggests, I was unaware of this place until recently. If I had known of it, I might have ventured out to visit it during my sojourn in Deutschland, but I didn't. So I didn't.
Anyhoo, how I stumbled upon the place is something of an interesting story, at least it provides some insight into how I get ideas for blog posts, those which aren't of a fictional bent at any rate.
I was looking at the old homestead in the Bundesrepublik² via Google Maps and my eyes strayed over the Hürtgenwald region. On my eye's way from Waldfeucht (where I spent seven plus years) to the Hürtgenwald I noted something odd, the annotation "Panzerwracks (M41 Walker Bulldog Panzer, M47 Patton Panzer)."
What? Tank wrecks? Why are American tank wrecks of a non-WWII nature there, near Aachen? Well, turns out it's a Bundeswehr³ training area, which, if you had chased that link above, is not a place to wander about when the Germans are shooting at things. Apparently it's only used during the week (Monday - Friday) as the German Army is very much a nine-to-five gig these days.
CORRECTION: At any rate, I wandered through the photos and realized that the two types of tanks there (I only saw two types) were both used in the movie Battle of the Bulge, which though very entertaining, was rather ahistorical. The M41 was NOT in the film. The Shermans were portrayed by M24 Chaffees.
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| M-41 Walker Bulldog (Source) |
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| M-47 Patton (Source) |
While it was common in the ETO for every enemy tank to be called a "Tiger" and every cannon an "88," in truth those two things weren't all that common. So many vets could have gone through the whole war without ever having seen a Tiger. But hey, when you film a movie in Spain, and they offer to let you repaint and use their tanks in that film, you do it. Besides which, 1965 was well before the days of CGI⁴.
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| Panzerkampfwagen Tiger Ausf. B "Tiger II" (Source) |
Now in that film, every German tank was a "Tiger," as I mentioned above, the Tiger was a rare beast, most of the German tanks used during the Ardennes offensive in December of '44 were Panzer IVs or Panzer Vs (the Panther). Tigers were rare and didn't get very far. They were slow and used a crap ton of fuel, which the Germans didn't have a lot of. They were relying on capturing American fuel dumps to fuel their advance. One of which they drove right by, not knowing it was there.
Here's a clip from that movie, I have to say it had some big names in it. Having been in the area where the signpost is (Malmedy 17 km and Ambleve 16 km) the terrain in that area looks nothing like what's in the film. Just a caveat, after all, it was filmed in Spain. I haven't been to Spain, but I have been in the Ardennes, many times.
Still, as I mentioned above, it was a very entertaining film. Knowing what I know now it's not quite as entertaining as it was when I was 12. (Yes, Virginia, I was 12 in 1965 when I first saw the movie. I know, I know, I'm old ...)
While I'm showing clips, here's another, of the main topic of the post -
Interesting stuff, perhaps only to me.
Anyhoo, hope y'all had a pleasant and relaxing holiday.
Be seeing you.
¹ An old saying of Buck's, translates to "I had no idea ..."
² Federal Republic ... of Germany. Natürlich.
³ The armed forces of the Federal Republic of Germany.
⁴ Computer Generated Imagery.
while it is easy to make fun of actual combat personnel making every tank to be Tiger, hear me out:
ReplyDeletePanzer IV , the most common German tank of the war had very similar boxy-square silhouette
and fog of war made eyeball mk1 very unreliable, between often low light conditions, smoke, and plethora of distractions like shooting allies and enemy
https://fineartamerica.com/featured/panzer-iv-and-tiger-tanks-w-bg-weston-westmoreland.html look at those 2:
the pz iv actually looks bigger than tiger because of perspective optics
now, imagine trying to discern those 2 at 500 yards, with smokeskreen remnants obscuring view...
as for the guns, it was even more tricky, you see that barrel that is stretching from camo netting and foliage?
it just killed our lead tank, it must be 88!
chances are it was pak40, which was almost as effective at killing tanks as mighty 88, but much easier to haul and conceal.
one thing as a side note, I kept thinking about that US could have tried to put 127/38 naval gun on chassis of sherman - or maybe pershing - to make itself a veritable tiger killer...
No one is making fun of anyone. The "every tank a Tiger" and every German an "88" is documented fact. Many reports from the western theater of the ETO remarked on this. The IV only looked Tiger-like when you installed Schürtzen.
DeleteSarge, I saw that movie when it made it to the re-runs on commercial television. One of the few WW II movies from my youth I really remember (that, and Where Eagles Dare).
ReplyDeleteTanks fascinate me. I have no idea why.
Where Eagles Dare - one of my favorites.
Deletebecause they are fascinating machines!
Deletethey turned warfare from static infantry and artillery slogging matches into maneuver of hundreds of klicks
they have become icons of warring states militaries, symbols of their industrial and battlefield might
That explains some of it.
Delete
ReplyDeleteI liked the bikes... I'm in a flat area now with sidewalks, bike lanes & even a couple of bike trails.
If you're ever in Europe ...
DeleteSeriously, biking is a big thing there.
when your destination is like 20 klicks away, hour-ride in a bike beats traffic jams or waithing for next bus or train
DeleteUnless the weather is foul.
DeleteFun movie and, yeah, even as a kid the M41 and M48s bothered me, but I understood why. At least Battle of Britain had actual WWII planes and models of said planes rather than having the roles filled in by jet fighters or Cessnas.
ReplyDeleteSame with Patton. Great movie, gotta overlook the non-WWII tanks acting like WWII tanks. At least most of the rest of the kit and kaboodle were correct.
And it's one of the things that makes Kelly's Heroes so great, even with the PzKw T-34 Tiger Is.... Good try there gents.
And then along comes Fury, with an actual omigod that's a TIGER!
DeleteI think it must have been in "Patton" with the scene around Bastogne with the postwar US tanks, filmed with a dark filter to look like a night attack, and the sagebrush was casting shadows.
DeleteCould also have been Battle of the Bulge.
DeleteKelly's Heroes and Fury both show the "Tiger terror" factor.
Delete75mm gun on Sherman was hardly useful at all against Tiger, you gotta to get suicidally close and/or flanking to penetrate tough kitty skin.
76mm (3 inch) improved antitank gun fared better, but at longer ranges it had trouble from the front. And some bean counbters in the rear decided in their infinite wisdom, that for the initial Normandy landings only 75mm Shermans would be used...
(Brits went into Normandy with mixing in their own very potent 17pdr upgunned Firefly Shermans into every Sherman company, apparently one of them got Wittman...)
Fury is inaccurate in a number of respects, the Sherman's main gun could penetrate the Tiger's frontal armor at under 600 meters.
DeleteHürtgenwald
ReplyDeleteThe fighting that went on there I can't comprehend. On two occasions a few of us Combat Engineers (circa 1965) were in the area clearing portions under the watchful eye of a very senior NCO and an equally senior Förstermeiser. A spooky place. In the area we worked there were no wrecked vehicles. I think I would have enjoyed being stationed in the area as opposed to Hanau (Hesse).
I swear the place is haunted.
DeleteWhen the movie Battle Of The Bulge came out my cousin asked his father "Want to go see it?" Uncle Jimmy replied "No thanks. I saw the play. Didn't like it."
ReplyDeleteI understand that, very well!
DeleteGreat holiday, thanks Sarge. Hope you and yours enjoyed the day. We called ours "Dining With Deplorables".
ReplyDeleteThanks as well for publishing President Washington's Proclamation. Certainly sets the holiday in true perspective. Would that we had such a man today.
Speaking of movies with real hardware; we saw "Devotion" Wedsnesday night. Most highly recommended!
Adam Makos' book even moreso; one of his others is "Spearhead" (also highly recommended) which goes into the Armor theme of the thread.
Boat Guy
I've read those, can't wait to see the film!
DeleteThe flying in the film is AMAZING! The opening scenes with the Bearcats are worth the price of admission - full disclosure; I love the Bearcat - as did Jesse Brown.
DeleteI don't think "Speahead" will ever be filmed. If they do jowever, I'll be there on opening day.Boat
BG
The Bearcat is an awesome bird!
DeleteAnything with “bear” in its name is awesome.
DeleteAh, there you are. 😁
DeleteUsing Spanish tanks for German tanks in the 60s in that movie isn't as bad as using Spruance Class Destroyers in the 2001 movie Pearl Harbor. It was just a short flyby scene over the back bay of Pearl Harbor where some ships are awaiting scrapping, but still. Us military types are quite brutal when it comes to military accuracy aren't we?
ReplyDeleteYes, I remember that! Really frosted me.
DeleteSprucans at PH 2001 were absolute bottom of bad tech displays in the movies...
DeleteFFS, there are WW2 DD afloat, which could have been easily shot and copy-pasted into background of PH...
With CGI you don't evem have to do that. Sloppy editing on the part of an ignorant civilian staff.
DeleteHey Old AFSarge;
ReplyDeleteI remembered another WWII Movie "A Bridge Too Far", They tried to be realistic, but they had to use a lot of postwar Armor because German Tanks were hard to find whereas Shermans were everywhere.
There was a lot of that going on back then.
DeleteCool site. I had the good fortune to visit the outdoor tank exhibit at Aberdeen before they packed the lot off to Kentucky. Actual acres of tanks from all over. Even a WW II german tank used for AT weapons testing. Not a Tiger, Panther CiIRC
ReplyDeleteNow that I travel to Maryland a lot, I sure wish Aberdeen still had all those tanks.
DeleteAs an official olde pharte, I was fortunate enough to visit Aberdeen in 1960-61 when all those tanks you saw out in the field were actually INSIDE, the old museum building, along with a most impressive small arms display along the upper level walkway and in the director's office. The tanks still had their original paint then. (After moving outdoors the tanks got repainted at least once with little regard for original colors.) Inside the museum there were a Panther and Pzkpfw IV and a T-34/85 (IIRC), which had sections of the hull cut away to view the interior and mechanical details.
DeleteThis trip was with a high school chum and his uncle who was an old friend of the director, COL G. Burling Jarrett, whom we met. I wish I had known then how important he was in the ordnance world to fully appreciate his awesomeness, and the fact that the Aberdeen Ordnance museum was largely the result of his fanatical devotion to collecting ever since WW1. I think that visit spurred my interest in collecting.
He retired in 1966 and two years later, the Army Test and Evaluation Command confiscated the museum building and exiled the museum to an old "splinter" barracks, where it languished for a few years before a private foundation raised money for a modest new museum building for about 15% of the former holdings, the rest placed in storage. Ironically, the old museum building coveted by ATEC was unceremoniously demolished and a new headquarters erected on the old slab. DOD had a moratorium on new construction, but since the old foundation was used they could claim it was repair, not new construction. (Much as the Navy had some with some monitors in the 1870s....)
There was, and still is, a lot to be learned from the study of old weapons and the new ones enemies introduce.
Amen to your last!
DeleteKind of sad that the the Bundeswehr is now a 9 to 5 organization. They are kind of important to NATO.
ReplyDeleteAnd Fridays are half days, no, seriously, I was there.
Delete"NATO" has always meant "Needs America To Operate"
DeleteBG
Roger that!
DeleteBattle of the Bulge used M24 Chaffees to portray M4s. Check it out on imcdb.org.
ReplyDeleteYup, I got it wrong, how did I miss that?
Delete