I Had No Ideer ...¹

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Whilst casting about for something to write about (still not in a fiction-writing mood, pretty long dry spell) I stumbled upon this website. (Go ahead chase the link, it has pictures of one of juvat's favorite things, wrecked tanks.)

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.

The M41 Walker Bulldog (shown below) was used as a stand in for the M4 Sherman (also depicted below, in the same photo, which to me is kinda cool. The Sherman is in the background for those who don't know.)

M-41 Walker Bulldog
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Now the M-47 Patton (shown below) was used in the film as a stand in for the mighty Tiger II (which is shown after the Patton).

M-47 Patton
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While it's obvious to me that the Patton and the Tiger look nothing alike, movie goers in the '60s weren't quite as discerning as to one versus the other. No doubt some of the ETO vets in the audience knew the difference. No doubt quite a number didn't. Huh? What?

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.

Panzerkampfwagen Tiger Ausf. B "Tiger II"
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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.