Howdy folks,
I've been a lurker forever, but had to jump in here on a few points. Please excuse the length (what a way to make a first post LOL). ;-)
Re: movies featuring Panzer IIIs and IVs, "Thye Guns Of Navarone", "Anzio", "The Great Raid", "D-Day-The Sixth Of June", "Decision Before Dawn", "The Longest Day", "Patton", The Bridge At Remagen", "Force 10 From Navarone", "The Battle of the Bulge", "A Bridge Too Far", "The Dirty Dozen" and "The Big Red One" are NOT movies you want to see for reference. Mainly because in nearly all of these movies, all of the tanks, no matter which side is depicted, are M48 Pattons (a vehicle that appeared long after the war).
In a sense this is kind of a funny wink from the directors when in the movie, "Patton", the Germans, Americans, and British are all using the same exact tank named after Patton himself. Ya gotta love the part in "The Battle of The Bulge" when the German weapons officer brags about the new King Tiger and unveils... you guessed it, a Patton.
Some movies, like "Kelly's Heroes" (my favorite WW2 movie) actually feature T-34s made to look like German tanks. The Tigers in the final sequence are all T-34s. They have turrets that look like Tigers, but one look at the roadwheel configuration and it's all over.
"Saving Private Ryan" and "Band of Brothers" are similar in that they do the same thing- use surplus T-34s and make them look like German tanks. The exception is the Marder that blows away the tower that the sniper is in. For that, I believe they bought a Swedish G-13 (Swedish version of the Hetzer Jagdpanzer 38(t)) and converted it to look like a Marder III. Saving Private Ryan is mindnumbingly innacurate on a number of points about German ops and equipment. A big example off the top of my head is when the guy sticks the machine gun against the driver's port and fires into the Tiger. Bzzzzt! WRONG. The Tiger's driver's port contained six (!) layers of armored glass and was impervious to anything under 20mm. In real life, Captain Miller would have been killed from his own bullets ricocheting back into him.
Re: the Tiger (P), chassis No. 003 was made into a command vehicle used on the Eastern Front for Schwere Panzerjager Abteilung 653. For more info (and tons of photos) on the 653rd, check out "Combat History of Schwere Panzerjager Abteilung 653" released by JJ Fedorowicz publishing. This battalion used Ferdinands (later converted to Elefants) and finally Jagdtigers, so they had a lot of heavy, prestige weaponry. Reading the book with statements of people who actually used these vehicles, you find out that contrary to what many armchair generals and quasi-historians say, the Elefant and Jagdtiger were excellent vehicles when deployed properly.
True enough about the Wehrmacht calling the Sherman, "Ronson". But they more often called them "Tommy Cookers"... ;-)
A point about the Panzer IV's inability to carry anything larger than the KwK 40 L/48- before the war, some Russians came to visit the German tank works. They couldn't believe that the Panzer IV was the biggest tank in Germany's arsenal ("THIS is your 'heavy tank'?")and were shocked that the Germans regarded the Panzer III as their main battle tank. In fact, the Russians accused the Germans of hiding their "real" tank strength, but were assured otherwise and eventually left satisfied. In 1941, after encountering the T-34 and KV-1 & 2, Guderian understood why the Russians asked the questions they did and why they were satisfied when convinced that Germany possessed nothing on the scale of the then-secret T-34 and KV series.
Regarding "Schurzen", Tirta, it's okay to say "skirts" or "aprons" since that's all "schurzen" means. After all we don't use the German word "kannone" when talking in English about a "cannon" or large "gun". ;-) Charlie you're right in that schurzen weren't introduced to the Panzer III until Ausf. L.
There are a ton of books out on Panzers (I have a room dedicated to most of them LOL), but some nice little reference books are Ian Allen's "Tanks In Detail" series. They cover the Panzer III through VI as well as the Jagdpanzers (Panzers made to destroy tanks and built with armored casemates instead of turrets to carry larger guns in in a tough, low profile form), are cheap and a nice size to fit in your work area. They have nice drawings and photos. Internet sites are good, but sometimes you need a book thanks to the ease of use of having it in your work zone.
Speaking of Jagdpanzers, somebody said that the Panzer IV didn't carry anything larger than the KwK 40 L/48. While true for the turret tank, the Jagdpanzer IV Lang carried the L/70 which was a developed version of the Panther's gun. I've built one in plastic and photos can be found here (scroll to the middle of the page):
http://homepage.mac.com/karybdis/gallery/PhotoAlbum35.html
The rule of thumb for Jagdpanzers are they carry the main gun of the next numbered tank's turret gun. In other words:
Sturmgeschutz III Ausf. G and later versions of the F/8 (not technically a Jagdpanzer, but used as such) carried the 75mm StuK 40 L/48 developed from the Panzer IV's gun.
Jagdpanzer IV Lang carried the KwK 42 L/70, developed from the Panzer V Panther's gun (mainly without muzzel brake that was removed by crews).
Jagdpanzer V Jagdpanther carried the KwK 43 L/71 used by the Panzer VI Tiger II and the Jagdpanzer VI (P) Ferdinand and Elefant.
Jagdpanzer VI Jagdtiger carried the KwK 44 L/55 128mm gun that was to be used on some versions of the experimental Maus monster tank (although the Maus was planned to eventually carry a 150mm gun). The Maus was Panzer VIII, and Panzer VII would have been the Löwe ("Lion") but since further work was done on the Maus and E-100, the upgunned numbers skip a version in the case of the Jagdtiger.
Charlie, you may be interested to know that the name "Guderian's Ente" wasn't really used all that much. I've talked with four different Jagdpanzer IV veterans (from four different vehicles) who have said they never even heard of that term in wartime (one said he never heard it at all until I brought it up). They seemed to think it was something likely said by a few people and then took a life of its own in popular history. But for their part, the name meant nothing. This isn't the first time this has happened. "Blitzkrieg" was a term thought up by an American journalist writing for Time magazine- it did not originate with the German army. Sturmpanzer IV Brummbar wasn't referred to as such by their crews, who actually called it "Stupa". And so on...
Last but not least, regarding paint schemes, an excellent article by the experts Jentz and Doyle on paint schemes can be found here:
http://www.missing-lynx.com/panzer_facts.htm
((deep breath)) And with that wandering and needlessly verbose dissertation about Panzer minutiae, I'll disappear back into lurking mode. Thanks to growing up in Maryland, home to Aberdeen Proving Ground, and my father having a lot of friends in the professional armor modeling industry, it's safe to say this stuff is in my blood. Cheers!
