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Tanks, But No Tanks: Difference between revisions
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(Import from TV Tropes TVT:Main.TanksButNoTanks 2012-07-01, editor history TVTH:Main.TanksButNoTanks, CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported license) |
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{{trope}}
{{quote|'''Skinner''': "Tanks? Oh come on, this is ''too'' inaccurate!"<br />
'''Professor Frink''': "[[Wild Wild West|Then you're going to hate my]] [[Steampunk|steam-powered]] [[Spider Tank|super spider]], [[Oh God, With the Verbing!|with the crushing and]] [[Jerry Lewis|the stomping and the webs made of NYYYLONNN!!]]"|''[[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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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.
Similarly to its sister tropes this is often out of practicality more than anything else, especially if you're not [[Backed By the Pentagon]] and just don't want reality to get in the way of [[Tank Goodness]]. Just find something vaguely tank-like, add a coat of stereotypical (but historically inaccurate) panzer gray paint and a few crosses and ''voila''! instant Tiger. And--let's be honest here--aside from a few vehicle enthusiasts and history buffs, most viewers [[Viewers
There are several ways to get around this trope. One is to use surplus or 'backup tanks' from modern armies such as Russia or Spain: Most T-34 and Sherman tanks used in WWII films were not actually from the war but modernized vehicles from the immediate postwar period. Another is to take a more common modern or contemporary vehicle and give it a cosmetic makeover to give it the appearance of the correct historic vehicle; sometimes these conversions can be quite sophisticated with only a few detail differences such as turret location and suspension design that only dedicated military vehicle enthusiasts would likely notice (These folk are often called "rivet counters" in the trade and are usually considered to be very annoying people). Finally, there are always models of both the real and the Computer Generated variety, which naturally come with [[Special Effects Failure|their]] [[Conspicuous CG|own]] sorts of problems.
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Feel free to post aversions here, as they're rather rare and always a pleasure to see.
{{examples
== [[Anime]] ==
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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 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centurion_tank Centurion] tanks. Especially if said movies are not [[Backed By the Pentagon]].
* Overlapping with [[Just Plane Wrong]], the American military vehicles in ''[[Mars Attacks (Film)]]'' 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 ''[[Nineteen Forty One]]'' 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.
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