Tanks, But No Tanks: Difference between revisions

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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.

One of the most common mistakes is to treat all armoured vehicles as tanks. Armored cars, self-propelled guns, armored personnel carriers and several other types of armored fighting vehicles can be and frequently are misidentified as tanks, just as every warship is a 'battleship' to most civilians. In real life all of these vehicle types and more are commonly lumped together under the catch-all term "Armored Fighting Vehicles" which is usually contracted to just 'armor' or, if you want to be all snooty about it, AFV (no [[America's Funniest Home Videos|relation]]).

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 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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* The German Tiger tanks in ''[[Battle of the Bulge]]'' (1965) were actually American M47 Pattons ([[Color Coded for Your Convenience|colour-coded grey]], when German tanks of this period were dark yellow with camoflage), and the American M4 Shermans were actually M24 Chaffee light tanks (in camoflage, when American tanks of this period were olive drab). On the bright side, this did make the US tanks look appropriately smaller than the German ones, as well as using [[World War II]] era Chaffees.

** Only two Chaffees saw battle in December 1944.

* The remake of the Second World War film ''Die Brücke'' used Swiss Panzer 68s as stand-ins for the M4 Shermans. While the tanks look suitably "old", they do not look like Shermans, and Shermans also didn´t have multiple countermeasure pods and other, "modern" stuff attached to them. What's even more ridiculous: later in the movie, an M4 Sherman can be seen. Why the heck didn't they use it in the first place?

* ''[[Saving Private Ryan]]'' had 2/3 scale mock-ups of Tiger tanks based on the chassis of Soviet T-55s and almost genuine (see below) Marder III tank destroyers (confusingly referred to as "panzers" by the Americans). A 20mm flak gun deserves mention as well; often encountered during the war, never before seen in a movie. The half-tracks were mostly Czechoslovakian copies of the German Sdkf 250 built after the war and the assault guns were based on post-war British [[Awesome Personnel Carrier|FV432]] chassis. The vehicles representing Marder IIIs were modified Czechoslovakian Panzer 38(t)s (one of them a Swedish licence-built model). This was in fact the vehicle that the Marder III was based on in the first place, for bonus recursive accuracy points. While the Marders may seem tactically out-of-place (poorly-armoured tank destroyers have no business taking on infantry units in urban settings, after all), tank destroyers and artillery vehicles were occasionally deployed in the infantry support role when more conventional tanks or dedicated ''Sturmgeschutz'' armoured vehicles were not available. All said, it is reasonably justifiable, especially considering that the ''Heer'' units just behind the beaches had an absolute parking lot of old armoured vehicles and a Marder (of any type) would be one of the BETTER ones available.

* ''[[Red Dawn]]'' had the mistake in-movie where one of the cast called a ZSU-23-4 "Shilka" Self-Propelled-Anti-Aircraft-Gun a tank. Granted these were typical high school kids with no formal military knowledge. The film ''did'' have rather accurate T-72 mock-ups, to the extent that (allegedly) the CIA demanded to know where the film-makers got them.

* ''[[Kelly's Heroes]]'', filmed in Yugoslavia, used Russian T-34s that had been modified to look like German Tigers (there are only 6 Tigers in existence and only one is in serviceable condition). The Tiger replicas were already available since they'd been made for an earlier government sponsored historical film. The most obvious giveaway is the location of the turret, which is much too far forward for a real Tiger, and the suspension, which lacks the Tiger's characteristic overlapping roadwheels. The scale is also off. The movie also used Yugoslav army Shermans since they still had them in reserve in 1970.

* ''[[A Bridge Too Far]]'' used mock-up Panzers based on modern German Leopard tanks with what appears to be plates of cardboard painted grey with Iron Crosses on the side attached to the vehicles. Possibly also due in part to the scene being filmed on location, and anyone over the age of 40 would probably be less than pleased at seeing accurately mocked-up German tanks rolling through the streets. Allied vehicles, on the other hand, were reasonably accurate. [[Backed by the Pentagon]], in this case the Dutch Army.

* 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.

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* 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.

* ''[[Children of Men]]'''s famous cityfighting scene features an obsolete Chieftain tank, presumably because the film-makers couldn't get their hands on a state-of-the-art Challenger II.

** 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 AFV (as well as all the waste, corruption and sillyness that went on in the Pentagon during it) was evidently not [[Backed by the Pentagon]] - while the schematics seem to correspond, the actual "Bradleys" being tested throughout the movie look more like Soviet [[BT Rs]], and were most likely just 8-wheel flatbed trailers with a cardboard structure on top.

* 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 Lee's by Lend-Lease later, but not during those battles.

* ''[[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.

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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.

* 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.

* Averted major-ly in the miniseries ''[[Band of Brothers (TV series)|Band of Brothers]]''. The Allied tanks were genuine M4A1 Shermans and A27 Cromwells, the armored cars were genuine M8 Greyhounds, the halftracks were genuine M5s. On the German side, they used the Czech-built, German-designed halftracks and the replica Marders and Tigers from ''[[Saving Private Ryan]],'' along with very convincing replica Jadgpanthers and Sturmgeschutz IIIs built on British FV432 APC chassis.

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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 first ''[[Command ~~and~~ Conquer]]'' used upgunned M2 Bradley IFVs as the Brotherhood of Nod's "Light tank". ''Renegade'' changed them into small (and quite low-profile) tanks.

* 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.

== [[Real Life]] ==