https://forum.warthunder.ru/index.php?showtopic=119649 Its in Russian but looks good to me!! Oct. 29th - Nov. 2nd.
Silly Dihm... British don't exist!... like Santa and the Tooth Fairy. Personally, I look forward to recreating scenes from Fury... especially the exploding parts.
The part where the Tiger shoots at and bounces off the Sherman probably won't happen. Just a heads up.
That shot is so improbable, and the return shot so ridiculous based on the angle of fire and impact, I just cant believe it.
Spoiler: observation about "tank scenes" in Fury I just interpreted it as the Tiger crew was poorly trained (same for the troops they took on at the end). Why else would they be in a first generation Tiger at the end of the war? The fact that they also chose to charge three oncoming Shermans rather than keep at a more favorable range supports this further. They also chose to take out the weaker 75mm armed tanks before the last Easy 8. I know the movie did a poor job of explaining it (and probably never even considered the above factors), but it is plausible. Also, a battle between two veteran tank crews at long range would probably be a pretty boring affair for Hollywood and John Q. Public. Seemed like every battle was at pretty short range in this movie for dramatic effect... and on that, I think it succeeded. I particularly enjoyed the "bits of dude" flying out of the foxhole in the first tank battle.
I couldn't find any video. I feel like such an outsider. Not having seen the video, perhaps the video hints at germans being nerfed or americans being boosted, or both? Actual penetration of a projectile is unaffected by crew skill - this might be shocking news to RPG Grind Gamers who think that you can unlock higher damage and firerate for your weapon by fighting and winning a lot. In real life a 500kg multi purpose bomb acts the same way regardless of user and same goes for any other weapon from rifle to tank cannon.
I just realized you were talking about Fury, the movie. Certainly 88mm shell can ricochet if it's been fired from sufficient distance and depending on what exactly it hits and at what angle. Though, ricochets themselves can be almost as bad as proper hits due to the pressure bell (term?) effect. There were many instances in WW2 where a tank was hit and the round ricocheted, the tank hit would be fully operable except that the crew would abandon it with blood running from their ears. As for WW2 and individual incidents, due to the sheer length and scale of the conflict a surprisingly high number of legends and myths are actually true and often verifiable if only there's any hint from where to look. Many instances were documented and others can be verified by cross referencing official records from multiple sides. Stuff like full sized Battleships being taken out by a single salvo and so forth, impossible shots,.. pilots who down enemy aircraft with just 20 rounds or pilots who can hit the fuel intake of a heavily armored plane and take it out with single short burst,.. Even instances where multi purpose bombs were used successfully to take out an enemy bomber by dropping them from a figher onto the bomber. The best sniper of the war didn't even use scope. Sometimes a single man or team, last men standing were able to stop whole battalion's advance. Whole air squadrons being taken out by couple dozen commandos.. the list goes on. And one of my favorites, raids involving hundreds of planes aimed at enemy capital bombing empty cape - thinking they were bombing their target and reporting success. Another of my favorites - Saburo Sakai, japanese Zero-pilot had engaged what appeared to be TBF Avengers and he was hit by tail gunner to his head blinding his right eye and he was temporarily blinded by the blood until his tears cleared his vision. The bullet had in fact penetrated his skull and right side of his brain paralyzing the left side of his body. Later he resumed combat operations with just one eye and after a dogfight against the enemy he was trying to regroup with his wing - it was a common practice that pilots would regroup and fly back in formation - he had some difficulty in identifying the planes with just one eye and he accidentally tried to regroup with 15 Hellcats who must have been as surprised as he was. The planes kept attacking him for 20 minutes but he survived. And to end my rambling, funny story where 6 BF 109's were available to intercept formations of up to 100+ soviet fighters and flying 6-7 sorties per day where the soviets counted 1000+ sorties with these massive wings, weather allowing. The defenders hardly suffered any casualties and sometimes reported that in the heat of the battle some of the enemy chased and fired upon each other. All sorts of things happened in that war.
The word heroism is to me a mis-used one. That dude pulled off something ridiculously difficult and lived to tell the tale. He had skill and desperation. Its not really heroism in my book when you #1 goal is your personal survival and you're moving down tens of other people. I'm not saying he's a bad guy, just that the 'hero' moniker is over used in war contexts.
I was going to post this two paragraph thing in response on why I think in some ways you are right (yes, American patriotism sometimes gets way out of hand) and some ways you are wrong (any dude who puts his life on the line to kill a whole lot of fascists is still a hero in my book), but talking about the finer points of what heroism should mean is not appropriate for this thread. Should probably be in the Off-topic forum for starters. I partially blame myself for bringing up Fury (good movie, go see it). And thanks for the book link, Dihm. It looks like an interesting read.
Read: Tigers in the Mud for more stories! Otto Carius (who lives to this day) is one of the world's highest scoring tank aces. He recounts many of his adventures in his PzKpfw VI Ausf H in the winter of 1942 on the eastern front, leading up to 1945 and his capture by Allied forces after surrendering. He was in command of a Jagdtiger column by then. Back on topic - I will be pursuing the US Tank line rather diligently - it's the turreted tank-destroyers like the Hellcat and the Jackson that I'll be after, and of course, the later Sherman tanks.
There's no village small enough not to have heroes. Everyone has them, who those heroes are tells a lot about the people. Different people have different heroes. About 'war-heroes', I just find it a bit odd that the unlucky guy who got hit by an artillery shell is less of a hero than another guy with a machinegun who gets stuck in a bunker without exit and unloads all of his ammo on incoming waves of enemies trying to kill him. If that machinegunner dies then he's not considered a hero by some of the people who consider him a hero for surviving and killing lots of enemies. For me these stories are not really stories of heroism but interesting stories of how individual people have survived hell. Those who opposed genocide, extreme eugenics and fascism, I think all of them were heroes to the last man, regardless if they were a air mechanic or died on the first day. I also would consider resistance forces as especially heroic when they had the courage to stand against fascism without weapons, training or hope of success, when their own government and many of their own people fought against them - to see through the lies and propaganda and to be able to resist it. One person who earns the title hero just as much as any allied soldier or anti-fascist resistance fighter: Wilhelm Canaris. He worked as head of Abwehr, military intelligence. He pretended to be in line with his superiors to grow the power and importance of Abwehr so he could use it to oppose the nazi regime which he was disgusted with. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Canaris He leaked information about many german plans and operations to allies and also actively contributed to the failure of several german operations during the war. He also foiled Hitler's plan to kidnap or murder the Pope and king of Italy. One source, von Tippelskirch iirc. claimed that landings to Britain were also foiled by various abrupt technical and logistic difficulties produced by Canaris. There are also instances such as when there was mass flight of jewish refugees from Denmark (iirc) to Sweden that during the night when they crossed the narrow sea germans were unable to send any patrol boats out as they were all 'being repainted' simultaneously. Canaris was executed in concentration camp after the failed assassination plot against Hitler. Before that there were also plans to simply overthrow Hitler and declare him to mental asylum based on insanity that he had developed from exposure to poison gas during WW1. He could not take part in the actual assassination plot as he had been caught by then and was placed under house arrest.
Another interesting book I want to read, Stuka Pilot, by Hans Ulrich Rudel. Battle: The story of the Bulge is arriving in the mail today, exciting!
Something more on topic: was trying to find a list of the tanks that will be available for US forces and found this: Sadly, it is very very fake. It appears there is still no info yet, but I can still dream for a Super Hellcat. Fun fact: the Hellcat plane and Hellcat tank were actually the same vehicle (Transformer Autobots) in WW2.
