I watched a show once that was a filler program between movies on one of the cable channels (Starz I think). It was a 15 minute piece on faux military vehicles used in the movies. They had Panzer IVs that were originally Sherman tanks but had the upper hulls cut off and new German upper hulls constructed on the chassis. It was very convincing.

They had Centurion tanks dressed to resemble Abrams tanks. To my trained eye, they looked small and the proportions were off, but still were a fairly good representation.

I figured it was an older show because they also had a number of pickup trucks that had been heavily modified to be HMMWVs. Today, they would probably just buy surplus HMMWVs.

Again thanks Rob for the correction, my attention did start to wander as the dinner scene went on.

Anyway back to the tanks, it was great to see a real Tiger in action, I don't mind those T-34/Tigers but still this was fantastic. Just wondering though are there any Panthers or Panzer IVs in runnable condition? I've seen an operational Hetzer at a show in Northern Virginia, guess it really isn't intimidating enough for Hollywood to want to use it maybe?  

As far as mixed tanks, if you lost several tanks out of your 17 tank platoon and you were sent new tanks and crews, you add them regardless of the variant. The Cold War army had something called "WSRO" pronounced Whiz-Row. It stood for Weapons System Replacement Operations. Meaning if your unit lost a weapons system like a tank, you got a new tank (new to you) along with a full crew. Back in the 1980s,  it would be expected to get whatever version of tank was available whether your unit was equipped with M1IP, M60A3TTS, M1A1 or even M60A1 RISE/Passive.

Rob, that's what I got out of that scene as well.

Roy, thanks, I didn't know that engine types were mixed up within units, but it opens up some more display options/dio ideas for me.

And I thing that Bible asking the new guy if he "was saved" right away like that was "in character", and maybe, given the circumstances, appropriate, since statistically new guys were to most likely to become casualties in a hurry.

I still think it was a good movie.  My wife got on YouTube last night and searched "the making of Fury", got some very interesting results.

Yes, "Bible" (LeBeouf) was sitting closest to the kitchen at the dinner table with his back to the windows. All three other crew members (Gordo, Bible & Coon) arrived as the two women, Brad and Logan were sitting down to eat eggs and potatoes (I think that's what they had).

The three of them were quite perplexed that Wardaddy left them out of this quaint little dinner. Of course, their behavior made it quite clear exactly why they were left out. Brad was looking for a brief moment of normalcy in the chaos of war.

Hmmm, maybe I'm a little confused here, was the 'Bible' guy (Swan) there during the dinner scene? The driver (Gordo) and loader (Travis) showed up but I was thinking he sat out with the tank drinking coffee and reading a book, I'm assuming it was his Bible during the whole thing.

Commander- Don 'Wardaddy' Collier, Brad Pitt

Gunner- Boyd 'Bible' Swan, Shia LaBeouf, had a mustache, 'Bible guy' 

Driver- Trini 'Gordo' Garcia, Michael Peria, Latino guy

Loader- Grady 'Coon-#@#' Travis, Jon Bernthal, Clean shaven guy, scar on his nose, biggest guy on crew,  bully, sorta psychotic 

Assistant Driver- Norman Ellison, Logan Lerman, rookie guy

I'll admit I did kinda tune out during the character stuff though and then perked back up during the action scenes so maybe I missed it.  

Edit: Dunno why I didn't check the IMDB for the names in the first place?!! 

@RBaer: Most definitely platoons, late in the fight, had mixed engine type Shermans.  With cobbling together fixed up veteran tanks and pulling in new replacements, this was VERY common.

As for "Bible" asking the replacement "Are you saved" as the first words, that absolutely is not out of character among some people.

Exactly!

Note though, that "Bible" was crying during a lot of the dinner table scene.

Good discussion.  

I think we're actually having quite a worthwhile conversation on it.

What made me think that the "bible" character was psycho was because the first thing he asked the new guy was "Are you saved?!"--not normal stuff like "where ya from? What kind of experience do you have?". And then especially his rather misogynistic attitude and petty cruelties during that whole fräulein scene. He was rather sociopathic...

I agree the movie was somewhat dark in tone, but well it should be. There should be more  terrible and graphic movies to show the awful, grim realities of war. Maybe we wouldn't be so cavalier and willing to let ourselves get involved in them?

Oops....

"Dark" is a good word for it. But I don't see that as a criticism.

My wife and I have had several discussions about this. She doesn't like movies about unpleasant, ugly subjects. I say there are plenty of worthwhile, important movie subjects that are dark by nature. The last big movie that struck me as aesthetically dark - and downright goo my - was Spielberg's "Lincoln." But can anybody suggest that its subject wasn't worth a movie? (My wife liked it too.)

"Fury" made war a dark, brutal, oppressive business. War undoubtedly has other aspects, but that one certainly deserves examination and thought.

Exactly.

I was almost "deflated" after seeing the whole movie. I mean I didn't expect a Disney cartoon or anything, but it was overall pretty dark, even given the context and subject. There are numerous debates raging all over the ether-world, some of it pretty pointless. It's a movie.

But I dug the tanks.

Thanks RBaer, you said it much more clearly than I did. I wasn't trying to stir the pot or get the thread locked- it was just an observation that stuck out to me in a generally 'dark' film.

I'll have to watch "Pale Rider" again....

Re: "Moral". I'll go back to what I was trying to express earlier, what you or I call "moral" in a situation such as portrayed in "Fury" and SPR is relative.

I still think Hollywood took the high road here and, as Gamera stated earlier, didn't do what is so commonly done in movies, ridicule an obviously Christian character.

And for War Daddy quoting Scripture and other words of wisdom, I've run into some folks who were quite literate but were also total sociopaths.

Good movie, but I think that had it not been for the tanks, I might have passed.....

RBaer

I think Hollywood did a much better job of of portraying a praying man than I've ever seen in a movie intended to be a money-maker to date.

As far as the "good Christian" role in a big movie, think that the reward for that category would have to go to Michael Moriarity's character  "Hull Barrett" in Clint Eastwood's " Pale Rider" . He rather epitomized the "good moral Christian" in just about everything he did and said. I really liked his character, and was glad they didn't kill him off.

The one farm that we hunted on was owned by a guy just like him. Prostate cancer took him too young...

Yeah, I was referring to the gunner who seemed to be the most 'positive' of the characters in the movie even as Rob put it that as the gunner his whole job was basically blowing $#$@ up and killing people.  Brad's point at the beginning of the film where he said something about the gunners opinion it's bad to sleep with German women but killing German men is ok kinda spoke to me of the whole dichotomy of the character.

Guess I missed anything you'd call psychopathic behavior from him- Brad and the loader seemed to have the most well... questionable moral attitudes to me at least. I don't remember the gunner shooting at anything but Germans attacking them not those surrendering or non-combatants.

The young replacement was Logan Lerman, most notably the Percy Jackson title character from those kids' Greek mythology Harry Potter rip off series. The Percy Jackson series is thought of as just another Harry Potter style book but instead of being wizards, the kids are the demigod children of Greek gods (Zeus, Poseidon, etc.).

I saw the similarities between Barry Pepper and Shia LeBeouf's characters as scripture quoting killers.

It's been a week since I saw the movie, so my notoriously awful short-term memory is kicking in. But I thought Shia LeBeouf was the young replacement driver and "Bible" was the gunner.

One important aspect of movies like this, whether the movie makers think about it or not, is that they play such a big role in shaping young people's perception of history. (According to the surveys I pass out at the beginning of my introductory U.S. history courses, at least a third of college students can't name two countries the U.S. was fighting in WWII. But they all know who Brad Pitt is.) I don't happen to be a religious man, but it's an historical fact that religion (Christian or otherwise) is a major factor in the minds of many (not all) fighting men. I agree with what I take to be Gamera's point: a movie that seeks to be accurate and comprehensive in its depiction of war should acknowledge that.

Another question on my beginning-of-course survey: "The United States entered the Second World War as a direct response to a 'sneak attack' on an American military base on December 7, 1941. What was that military base?" In the 1980s and 90s at least a quarter of the students typically left that one blank. Then in the spring semester of 2002 everybody mysteriously got it right! Thank you, Ben Affleck and Kate Beckinsale. In the past few years, alas, students have started missing the question again.

I thought one of the most interesting characters in "saving Private Ryan" was the sniper played by Barry Pepper who rayed every time he pulled the trigger. My wife (who IS religious said she found that "the most chilling thing in the movie."

Watched the movie last night, and I can forgive a whole bunch of Hollywood stuff because of how well they did with the vehicles.  The Bovington Tiger? Real Shermans? All the other vehicles scattered around as props? Pure eye candy.

Tactics and gunnery skills were maybe a little "off", but it's fiction, 'nuff said.

Here's a thought: the people who will more than likely make this movie a commercial success and possibly prompt the film industry in general to make more movies this way most probably Do Not Count Rivets. Sure, they mixed Sherman engine types within a unit, something not done due to logistics reasons, but criminy, they had real Shermans and THE Tiger in a movie!

And to briefly address the "Bible" character: Every man at one time or another in his life does something that may appear to others to be a contradiction in moral values, but I think Hollywood did a much better job of of portraying a praying man than I've ever seen in a movie intended to be a money-maker to date.

Oh.......geez, I thought THAT guy was a just genuine psychopath! Surely this wasn't the "positive" character?

Anyway....I just researched this a little bit more, and it seems that that irony is quite the topic on some sites. Go figure? I thought it was just a war movie?

It was Shia LeBeouf character, aka "Bible", that was the Christian character. His job on the tank (gunner) was the primary purpose for the tank's existence; to fire the main gun and kill things.

Gamera

And points for being the odd Hollywood movie to show a Christian character in a generally positive way.

That irony was not lost on me. 

Kinda looking forward to someone doing a dio of the remains of Fury at the end of the film.

RX7850

Hey Rob Gronovius,

Perhaps the intended  effect  was to illustrate the visual of a APT round as it wizzes  towards it's intended  target. No personal experience with AT Guns here,  just an assumption based on what I have read. If the  effects were only intended to add to the production value of the movie , it worked for me.

AP-T (armour piercing tracer): tracer unit in the base. Typical example: american M72 AP shot of 75mm used in M2, M3, M5 guns.

All our tank rounds in use today have the tracer unit in the base. I understand they are trying to show the exchange of tank rounds and that not all shots are hits. Even 120mm sabot rounds traveling at Mach 5 still look more like a thrown football than a laser. By thrown, I mean a parabolic path effected by gravity.

The .50 and .30 cal battles with the Germans and their MG42s would look more similar to the scenes in Saving Private Ryan or Band of Brothers or The Pacific than Star Wars laser blasters they emulated.

But it was just my personal beef with the special effects and didn't lessen my enjoyment of the movie.

 Hopefully the French will soon get on board to avoid letting the Brits get one over on them.

  It'd like to see 'em get on the "rent a tank" wagon

                      with their awesome Tiger II.

Just got back from the movie. A good film but I'm not sure call it a great one.

Great action scenes and seemed mostly outside the usual Hollywood drama to be pretty accurate. I too thought the 'laser beam' effects to depict the shells whizzing over was a little... odd.

The whole scene with the two fraleins stretched on way too long in my opinion too. And yeah I know war is hell and all that but still I prefer films like 'The Great Raid' that show American GIs in a more noble light. Though I guess I can't complain considering the way they went out. And points for being the odd Hollywood movie to show a Christian character in a generally positive way.

Again, liked it, not sure I loved it but worth seeing.

Hey Rob Gronovius,

Perhaps the intended  effect  was to illustrate the visual of a APT round as it wizzes  towards it's intended  target. No personal experience with AT Guns here,  just an assumption based on what I have read. If the  effects were only intended to add to the production value of the movie , it worked for me.

AP-T (armour piercing tracer): tracer unit in the base. Typical example: american M72 AP shot of 75mm used in M2, M3, M5 guns.

I think I yelled a little loud that "theres the Tiger" and "that its real, look". I also like the 251's and some other pieces. They masked it quit a bit with smoke probably because of the color scheme, but I'm not whining….

Rob Gronovius

The Star Wars laser beams were my biggest beef with the movie. Although that was a minor issue. Even the 105 mm and 120 mm tank rounds I've sent down range didn't look like that.

They put stuff like that in to impress hicks like me. lol. As I said, Hollywood definitely got the leg up on this movie.

Yep, that is Tiger 131 from the Tank Museum at Bovington Camp. Got a chance to see it live in action during Tankfest while stationed in Europe. It is amazing to see it up close, plus all the other rolling stock they have.