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Tanks, But No Tanks: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
{{quote|'''Skinner''':
'''Professor Frink''':
|''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]''}}
Writers often play fast and loose when it comes to vehicles. They are usually [[Just Plane Wrong]], and use [[Artistic License Ships|artistic license when it comes to ships]]. This applies to armoured vehicles as much as anything else, either getting details wrong or using stand-ins.
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In most war films, particularly those set in the Second World War, historical tanks and armored vehicles will be replaced by either modern or more widely available contemporary vehicles that have either been painted in appropriate (or at least stereotypical) color schemes or given cosmetic makeovers to disguise their foreign or anachronistic features. The amount of effort that goes into this varies rather wildly.
There are many very good reasons for this. Antique armored vehicles are actually quite scarce. Tanks have never been particularly attractive on the surplus market since they are huge, heavy, fuel-guzzling lumps of steel useful for little else beyond waging war (often not even that, as older tanks are quite poor against newer but common anti-tank weapons) or making war movies. Surviving contemporary vehicles in operating condition can be hard to find and incredibly expensive to hire, transport and maintain for filming, in part because tanks tend to be just so flipping ''big'' and in part because military vehicle collectors are often understandably leery of renting their rare and often irreplaceable treasures to people who are just itching to [[Stuff Blowing Up|crash them, burn them, blow them up or drive them off cliffs.]] Many surplus vehicles are historical artifacts belonging to museums and likewise cannot be used recklessly or destroyed. Some of these vehicles may belong to countries you are technically at war with. And if you're filming a wartime propaganda movie at least half of these vehicles are going to belong to the enemy.
And many of these vehicles—particularly those from the defeated Axis nations—were never exactly common in the first place and survivors may not even exist: fewer than 500 King Tiger tanks were produced (as opposed to 47,000 M4 Shermans) and many contemporary Italian or Japanese vehicles were produced in even smaller numbers. (Even being [[Backed by the Pentagon]] won't help if all of the vehicles you need are scattered in small pieces across remote Pacific islands or buried in the Russian steppe.) Next, as the Sherman production numbers above suggest, filmmakers naturally took advantage of the huge glut of cheap surplus U.S. Army equipment in the immediate postwar period. Finally most contemporary armoured fighting vehicles have either been scrapped or met their end on the battlefield. Even Hollywood cannot destroy a tank twice.
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{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* An odd example occurs in ''[[Martian Successor Nadesico]]'' when the Mecha pilots battle alien-possessed WWII German Tiger tanks from an abandoned tank factory [[Critical Research Failure|in Kursk, Russia]].
* Another example occurs in ''[[009-1]]'': Tigers again, this time in an unspecified "eastern block" country.
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* Averted in ''[[Lord of War]]''. Not only were the tanks in one scene all real, but they were all sold right after filming completed. The scene actually had to be rushed because the arms dealer they were borrowing the tanks from had an unexpected buyer.
* Many movies where a variant of an M1 Abrams tank makes an appearance are likely using convincingly mocked up [[wikipedia:Centurion tank|Centurion]] tanks. Especially if said movies are not [[Backed by the Pentagon]].
** Even though ''[[Transformers (film)|Transformers]]'' was actually [[Backed by the Pentagon]], they still had to use retired M60 Pattons for the tank depot at SOCENT. Indeed, there is no real Abrams in the film, the Decepticon Brawl who appears to be have the Abrams as his Alternative Mode is really the same Abrams mock-up from ''[[xXx: State of the Union]]'' (built using commercial vehicle parts) with some additional visual mods tacked on.<ref>Specifically the film crew added two four-shot missile pods on the second turret, a mine plow on the front and a woodland camouflage paint scheme.</ref> This is most obvious when he goes to run over a car in the final battle and he only takes out the roof and windows without pancaking the thing like a real Abrams would.
** [[Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen|The Sequel]] did have actual an Abrams used for the finale, but the trope still pops up when the Marines arrive with Army M2 Bradleys.
* Overlapping with [[Just Plane Wrong]], the American military vehicles in ''[[Mars Attacks!]]'' are all Russian and European. This is because the film was denied backing by the real-life military, apparently because they weren't happy that the [[Brown Note|Indian Love Call]] song was depicted as being more effective at defeating the Martians than the military.
* Famously averted in the Steven Spielberg comedy ''[[1941]]'' which used an accurate full-scale replica of an M3 medium tank built on the chassis of another one of the huge family of M3/M4 based vehicles. Just another reason why this movie went so spectacularly over budget.
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** Though given the state of the UK and the world in general, it's not inconceivable that a few Chieftains would be reactivated.
* Averted in Finnish war film [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0378848/ Tali-Ihantala 1944]. The tanks used on filming the movie were ''the actual individual tanks which had participated in the real life battle 1944'' and been stored in Parola Tank Museum, Finland, and restored back to working condition by volunteer enthusiasts.
* ''[[The Pentagon Wars]]'', which is a humorous retrospective on the development and the Bradley
** This trope is even lampshaded in-universe where one of the designers is reluctant to add a turret to the Bradley because it would be mistaken for a tank by the enemy and thus be a priority target -- ''the last thing'' you want for a vehicle designed to transport troops.
* In the "real close, but not quite" we have the classic "starring Bogart" ''Sahara''. "Lulubelle" is an actual M3 tank, which is appropriate to the period (the Gazala battles), and several of the American training crews did end up getting into battle (on the "wrong" side of Africa). The problem is, it's a Lee (the US Army version), not a Grant (British version, the turret design's the give away). The Brits did get
* ''[[To Hell and Back]]'', the [[Reality Is Unrealistic|semi-true]] autobiography of [[Audie Murphy]]'s [[WW 2]] service, has him jump into a burning M4 Sherman to fire its .50 caliber [[BFG|machine gun]] at German troops, in the action that earned him the Medal of Honor. He actually jumped into an M10 Tank Destroyer, although the two are very similar (The M10 Wolverine Tank Destroyer was based on the Sherman.)
* The movie ''[[Stripes]]'' presents us with a scene set behind the [[Iron Curtain]], in which a "Russian" tank menaces some of the heroes. It is clearly an M60 series tank with a few visual mods tacked on.
* Averted in Sam Peckinpah's ''[[Cross of Iron]]'', which used real, Yugoslav-made, T-34s in several scenes. Although the models used would be slighty anarchronistic for the 1943 the film is set in.
== [[Live
* ''[[Hogan's Heroes]]''. The episode "One Army at a Time" used an American M7 Priest self-propelled artillery vehicle painted up in German colors to represent a generic German AFV. It was a good choice because the Priest is an obscure enough vehicle that most of the viewing public (particularly back when the show first came out) wouldn't know what it really was... The same Priest had, however, previously tried to stand in for a Tiger tank in an earlier episode called "Hold That Tiger", which wasn't such a good choice as the two look nothing alike...
* Subverted in ''[[Space: Above and Beyond]]''. In the episode ''Pearly'', the Marines of the 58th Reconnaissance Squadron, AKA "The Wildcards", are in danger of being overrun by enemy forces when they take shelter inside an [[Awesome Personnel Carrier]]. Only thing is, the driver of the vehicle keeps insisting that it is in fact a tank. Aside from that, by all appearances, Pearly ''should'' probably be considered an APC, since it's relatively roomy inside with space for a squad of Marines to ride around in it.
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* One ''[[Adam-12]]'' episode had a scene where the boys pulled over an M8 armored car only to discover that it was duly registered and thus perfectly legal to drive on the street. However, both the boys and the owner, who presumably should have known better, kept referring it as a "tank" throughout the entire scene.
* The "German" halftracks in ''[[The Rat Patrol]]'' were all American halftracks in German markings.
* ''[[The Dukes of Hazzard]]'' episode "Follow That Still" mostly averts this trope with M113 APC being played by a real M113. It does get referred to as an armored personnel carrier to the point that it borders on [[Insistent Terminology]] but it gets called a tank twice (though to be fair one of the people who calls it that is [[The Ditz|Roscoe]]) and the fact the cannon is still functional despite it being surplus purchased for a museum. In real life, any cannon on a decommissioned military vehicle would be sealed at the breech so it can't be fired again; in the show it just has an easily-removable spike in the barrel.
* A Challenger I showed up in ''[[Doctor Who]]'' as part of the forces who shoot down the Racnoss mothership. While such modern vehicles are rare to see in fictional media - ''especially'' science-fiction - Challengers, as main battle tanks, are not exactly optimised for anti-aircraft duties.
* ''[[The Walking Dead]]'' features a (surprisingly clean, all things considered - shouldn't it be covered in bits of zombie?) British Chieftain standing in for an abandoned M1 Abrams. This is most obvious because of a scene where Rick climbs in the tank through the belly hatch. The Chieftain has that but the Abrams does not as it sacrificed hull integrity.
** Later, when {{Spoiler|the Governor attacks the prison mid-way through Season 4,}} he is assisted by a M60 Patton which has been retired from service since the 90s. They handwave it by having the driver bringing it from Fort Benning; it would only be there as a museum piece which would mean it wouldn't have a functioning gun.
* Averted
* Likewise averted in the follow-on miniseries ''[[The Pacific]]'', though in this case the reasonably accurate Japanese tanks had to be created using CGI due to a lack of surviving originals.
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* ''[[Company of Heroes]]'' has the M26 Pershing tank available to American forces in Normandy circa June 1944. Historically, it did not see action until February 1945, and then in tiny numbers for field testing. The [[Expansion Pack]] ''Opposing Fronts'' features a Bergetiger Recovery Vehicle, of which exactly ''one'' was ever used in real life. This has lead to theories that it was used for something completely different.
* ''[[Battlefield Play4Free]]'' has the so-called "light tanks", which are actually LAV-25 & BTR-90 [[Awesome Personnel Carrier|APC]]s.
** The ''Battlefield'' series has been guilty of this trope since the original game. ''Battlefield 1942'' has only one real heavy tank for the Heavy Tank class -- the infamous [[Nazis With Gnarly Weapons|Tiger I]]; the Red Army's Heavy Tank is the T-34/76 Medium Tank which is treated as having better armor and a better gun than its Medium Tank counterpart the T-34-85 (which actually has a larger gun and turret and the same armor); while the Allies get the M10 Wolverine Tank Destroyer (which has a bigger gun than its medium counterpart the Sherman but the same armor as it is built on the same hull). The ''Road To Rome'' expansion added the Armored Car class which used the M3 Grant and Carro Armato M11/39 Medium Tanks for the Allies and Italians respectively. The base game also has Axis factions sharing armored vehicles when any such activity was far less extensive than the Allies' Lend-Lease Agreement. The ''Secret Weapons of WWII'' expansion has the M8 Greyhound Armored Car in the Medium Tank category for the British Commandos.
** ''Battlefield: Vietnam'' put both M50 Ontos Tank Destroyer and the M551 Sheridan ARAAV as Lights Tanks. To be fair, however, the Ontos does fill the Tank Destroyer niche in-game complete with an NVA/Viet Cong counterpart listed as a Scout Car, and the Sheridan is a light tank in all but name.<ref>The Sheridan isn't called a light tank due to internal politics. First it was referred to as a reconnaissance vehicle because it looked better than having two tanks (the other being the failed MBT-70 program) in the ledgers given to Congress; later, the Armored Reconnaissance Amphibious/Airborne Vehicle designation was created to avoid calling it a light tank as the current doctrine was focused on Main Battle Tanks being the only tanks.</ref>
** ''Battlefield 2: Modern Combat'' has the Middle Eastern Coalition using the 2S25 Sprut-SD Tank Destroyer as their tank. Even weirder is that the original PC version of the game had them using more appropriate T-90s. They had a model for T-72s from the abovementioned ''Battlefield: Vietnam'' but they went for the Sprut which is only used by the [[Russians With Rusting Rockets|VDV]]. They also have the BMP-2 IFV as a light tank and the BMD-3 IFV is used in the same capacity by the [[Chinese With Chopper Support|PLA]].
** ''[[Battlefield: Bad Company]]'' erroneously has the M3A3 Bradley, BMD-3 Bakhcha, and 2T Stalker as the Light Tanks for the US Army, Russians and Middle Eastern Coalition respectively when they are all Infantry Fighting Vehicles. The Stalker deserves special mention as it and the MEC's main battle tank the Black Eagle never left the prototype stage in reality; both were canceled before the game came out but these next-generation designs are used not by the Russians who designed them but the Middle Eastern Coalition. [[Fridge Logic|Outside of the fact the MEC only appears in the final level, why would the Russians still use older Soviet designs and export their next generation ones?]]
** ''[[Battlefield 3]]'' is not as bad as the other entries as all the tanks are real tanks. However, this trope does still occur due to questionable placement of vehicles in the campaign. For example the Iranian Army is shown using T-90As when in reality they use modified T-72s (which also appear in the campaign), and the [[It's Raining Men|VDV]] uses BMP-2Ms instead of the actual air transportable BMD line which does get referenced in dialogue in the same mission.
** ''Battlefield 1''":
*** The game lacks faction tanks (unlike previous entries), which makes for Entente tanks (such as the Mark V Landship and Renault FT-17) which were captured and used by the Germans so often it outpaced their own tank production, but not so much for the German A7V "Moving Fortress" which had only 20 built.
*** The tank category also features the Pierce-Arrow Anti-Aircraft Armored Lorry (erroneously stated to be used by the French, when it was built for the [[Brits With Battleships|Royal Marine Artillery]]) and the Garford-Putilov Armored Car.
*** The inclusion of the French Char 2C, the only operation superheavy tank in the world. It wasn't in service until 1923. It would have been more appropriate to use the FCM 1A<ref>A prototype 30 ton superheavy design that was offered as an alternative to the larger C model which was ultimately selected.</ref> which had been built during [[WWI]].
** ''Battlefield V'':
*** The "Light Tanks" includes two actual light tanks (the German Panzer 38T and Japanese Amphibious Ka-Mi), three armored cars (the British Staghound T17E1, American M8 Greyhound, and German Sdkfz 234 Puma<ref>Itself an erroneous name, as it refers to variant of the 234 which was armed with the 50mm gun intended for the Leopard light tank. The stock 234 seen in the game is the 234/1 armed with a 20mm gun. The 50mm is an upgrade along with the 75mm L/24 gun from the 234/3.</ref>), and an amphibious landing vehicle (the American LVT).
*** The heavy tanks class has the Churchill Gun Carrier Tank Destroyer and the Sturmtiger Self-Propelled Artillery.
*** The US is depicted as using the T48 Gun Motor Carriage Tank Destroyer, which wasn't used by them because it was passed over in favor of the M10.
*** The Valentine AA Mk 1 SPAA was a fictitious vehicle meant to stand in for the real Crusader AA vehicles.
* The first ''[[Command & Conquer]]'' used upgunned M2 Bradley IFVs as the Brotherhood of Nod's "Light tank". ''Renegade'' changed them into small (and quite low-profile) tanks.
* Subtlety averted in the [[Halo (series)|''Halo'']] franchise. While the [[Hover Tank|Covenant Wraith]] appears to be a case of this trope being the counterpart to the [[Tank Goodness|UNSC Scorpion MBT]] despite the main weapon behaving more like a mortar than a tank cannon, [[All There in the Manual|the official lore]] refers to it as an Assault Gun Carriage instead of a tank.
* ''[[Call of Duty]]: World At War'' has a wrecked Tiger II tank show up in a mission during the Siege of Stalingrad in 1942 a year before it was designed and two before it entered service. There is also the level where Private Dimitri gets to control a tank in a series that often avoids the [[Do-Anything Soldier]] trope but it also misidentifies the tank as a T-34-85. The tank is equipped with a [[Kill It with Fire|flamethrower]] making it the OT-34-85.
== [[Real Life]] ==
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* The British CVR(T) series of '''reconnaissance vehicles'''. Though if one defines "tank" as "tracked armoured vehicle with a turret-mounted gun and no space for infantry" then the Scorpion and Scimitar fit the bill, designed primarily for the reconnaissance role or not. Reconnaissance has always been the primary role of light tanks anyway.
* The Stryker - being an eight-wheeled gun platform - isn't too likely to get confused for a tank, but the same probably couldn't be said for the M2/M3 Bradley and Linebacker IFV/CFVs. They're armor plated, have a gun turret, tracks, but their primary function is [[Awesome Personnel Carrier|carrying troops into battle]] and giving them fire support in combat. [[Incredibly Lame Pun|Tanks]] to their speed and their ability to carry and launch anti-tank missiles, they do make for a respectable threat to enemy tanks on the battlefield. Though originally it was worried that their aluminum armor would make them too vulnerable to enemy fire, even after some steel plating was added on the sides, in practice the only Bradleys destroyed in combat have been [[Friendly Fire Index|at the hands of American M1 Abrams tanks]].
* The Russian BMP line of amphibious infantry fighting vehicles often get mistaken for tanks because of the tank-like shape and the size of their turrets and main guns. Though they ''have'' replaced the PT-76 light tanks in practice.
* News sources, and particularly [[The BBC]], have a tendency to mistakenly regard any armoured vehicle (especially those with tracks) as 'a tank', which can lead to confusing headlines about the Iraq conflict and so forth.
* In Germany, every tracked and armored vehicle is actually and correctly refered to as a Panzer, as "Panzer" simply being German for "armour" (in Dutch, it's spelled "Pantser", which somehow manages to look less scary - [[British English|especially if you're British]]). The Gepard Flakpanzer (Anti-Aircraft-Tank, based on Leopard 1 chassis), Marder 2A5 Schützenpanzer (ICV), Biber Brückenlegepanzer (Brigde-layer, based on Leopard 1 Chassis), Leopard 2A6 Kampfpanzer (MBT), Panzerhaubitze 2000 (Self-Propelled Howitzer). Even nontracked Vehicles like the Spürpanzer Fuchs and Spähpanzer Luchs (6x6 and 8x8 wheeled, lightly armored vehicles) are referred to as such, although not classifying as tanks at all. Correct German term for "tank" specifically would be "Panzerkampfwagen", and "Panzer" is a loose equivalent to English "AFV" (armoured fighting vehicle).<ref>[[Mind Screw|which literally translates to Panzerkampfwagen.]]</ref>
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* When you get right down to it, none of the early tanks—the British Mark I & IV, the French Schneider & St. Chamond, or the German A7V Sturmpanzerwagen—were tanks, as they all lacked turrets and had guns with limited traverse. The first recognisable tank was the French Renault light tank, which featured a rotating turret and modern shape.
** Yes and no - they weren't tanks because they weren't water tanks, but at the time a rotating turret and "modern shape" had nothing at all to do with the definition of a tank in a military sense. The original tanks were just called "tanks" to hide their real nature. Besides, if a turret were really part of the definition, that would leave the Swedish S-Tank (Strv 103) MBT in a bit of a spot...
** The S-Tank is in that spot. It is a Tank Destroyer by all other countries' definitions of a tank as brought up to John F. Kennedy when he expressed interest in acquiring them.
== Troping ==
* The first troper to describe [[Audie Murphy]]'s famous stand in the [[Draft Dodging]] article (under subversions) placed him in a burning tank instead of on an M10 tank destroyer - a tank-like vehicle with thin armor, an open turret, and a big gun. That said, the definition of "tank destroyer" gets complicated. The British had two classifications for tanks: "Infantry" and "Cruiser." Infantry tanks were heavily-armored yet slow and, as they were mainly intended for infantry support, only rarely equipped with armor-piercing ammunition. Cruiser tanks were fast, lightly armed vehicles intended to engage and destroy enemy armor. The US used the same distinctions but called them "tanks" and "tank destroyers" respectively. Gradually, as armor got heavier and engines got better, both were merged into the single "main battle tank" category that dominates the battlefield to this day. Categorisation gets even more complicated when Soviet and German tank destroyers are factored in. Vehicles such as the SU-85 and Jagdpanther (based on the T-34 and Panther respectively) were simply turretless and sometimes up-armoured versions of an existing tank chassis, mounting a limited-traverse gun in the hull that was typically bigger than the original tank could carry.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Did Not Do the Research]]
▲[[Category:Artistic License Indexes]]
▲[[Category:Tanks, But No Tanks]]
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