Or senior officer, if it went that far up the chain of command.
I saw that too later. I think it had more actual screen time for the real Tiger than the movie. 
There were some interesting bits about the mocked up Tiger and mockup for internal shots on the Sherman.
I finally saw the movie, and a few things really stood out to me.
First, April 1945 was most emphatically NOT a time when the US forces were stretched thin and wanting for manpower. It was literally the time when the US forces in Germany were at their biggest. And, it was AFTER the German Army in the west had been effectively destroyed in the Ruhr encirclement and the battles before the Rhine in February and March of that year. April was basically the point when the Allied units ran rampant over Germany- the 2nd Armored (what *Fury *& crew were part of) advanced something like 200 miles between March 28th and April 19th, from somewhere near Wesel on the Rhine to Magdeburg on the Elbe, where they halted according to the limits agreed with the Russians at Yalta.
So in effect, the 2nd Armored moved 200 miles in 21 days- 10 miles a day or more, which is a blistering pace for combat units to advance into enemy territory. Their main concern was running out of fuel, food and ammo, not running into Germans.
At that stage, Pitt would likely have called in an air strike on the column, or artillery or just about ANYTHING other than fight it out in an idiotic, lopsided suicidal fight.
Yes, but … hadn’t American losses in the closing months of 1944 been huge in trying to break the Siegfried line? And weren’t most of the troops poised to break into Germany at the start of 1945 new arrivals from the States with little (if any) combat experience?
IIRC, the Germans broke through the American lines so easily in the Battle of the Bulge because that sector of the front was manned entirely with green troops. It was only because veterans like the 101 Airborne were available to fill the gap that the Germans were stopped at Bastogne. Black soldiers from support units were even reassigned to front-line duty, and Patton was glad to have them.
The Americans may have had overwhelming superiority in numbers, but the Germans defending their own soil both had much more combat experience and were highly motivated to fight, especially the SS and Hitler Youth units.
I’ll give the moviemakers credit: They sure had me fooled! Not once did it occur to me that the mockup wasn’t a real Tiger! :o
I think you’re misunderstanding just how broken the German forces were, and the US troops weren’t green ones straight from the States- by that point, most units had been in combat for months- even the green ones weren’t green anymore.
The Germans broke through in the Ardennes because they attacked where nobody expected them to attack- so they were attacking relatively unprepared troops, experienced and inexperienced. The thing was, even veteran troops would have been overrun considering who and how much the Germans attacked with. The US Army did the rest of it right- pinched the shoulders (look up Elsenborn ridge for an example), and basically channeled the Germans into going where we wanted them to go, and slowed their advance timetable as we did it. They didn’t have the supplies to keep the advance going if the timetable was disrupted, and that’s exactly what happened- they penetrated as far as they did, then withdrew under heavy pressure.
They attacked again further south in Alsace in Operation Nordwind, but were repulsed even more roughly than in the Ardennes. After that, the US troops went on the offensive across the entire front, and encircled the German Army Group B by early April.
The 2nd Armored division participated in the closure of the pocket, but kept advancing afterward. See this mapfor an example of the advances of April 1945. (2nd AD was part of XIX Corps).
By way of comparison, look atthis map and this one, for examples of armored breakouts against enemy opposition. In April 1945, they were moving at twice the rate that they did in Normandy.
And, in large part, the Germans who were still fighting were fighting the Russians tooth and nail, in hopes that they could delay them so that more territory would be occupied by the Americans, British and French, and more civilians saved from the rapes and depredations of the advancing Soviets.
You seem to be very well informed. What is your background with all this?
Not trying to start an argument, just curious.
IIRC their radio had been knocked out, they were immobile, the enemy column was minutes away and there was a soft target behind them that had to be defended. What else could he do?
Genuine question, I am not military.
Considering the situation, they’d have likely just bailed out, and reported the location to their HQ when they made their way back. They likely were the very tip of a Combat Command, which is roughly a regimental-sized unit with about 60 tanks (1 tank battalion) and a couple of mechanized infantry battalions (1000-1200 men), and that combat command was likely coming up the road behind them.
IF that SS unit hadn’t already been wiped out by those advancing US armored forces, they’d likely have just leveled the place with air strikes and artillery, and then mopped up in a combined arms attack. US forces, especially at that stage of the war, weren’t at all averse to using firepower in lieu of actual fighting.
About the only issue they might have had is that late in the war, the US forces had literally advanced almost out of range of their tactical air support, which hadn’t moved to closer airfields yet. That’s not saying they didn’t have air support, but rather that at the extreme end of the advance, they were at nearly the max range for the support aircraft.
Oh… and terentii, I’m just an interested amateur. I’d read about WWII Europe before, and had actually done some study on the Eastern Front, but then watched Fury and thought “Wait a sec… this doesn’t jibe with the description of the March/April drives into Germany that I’ve read about before.” so I started doing some more digging, and found out that the director took some fairly serious liberties in order to make his point.
Personally, I think it might have been even more interesting had Pitt and crew been as bloodthirsty and hard as they were, in the context of the actual German collapse. We could have had some question about how these guys were going to function in society after the war, there could have been some exposition about how inappropriate some of their attitudes and behaviors were toward a defeated German population, etc… and held Norman up as a sort of “control” to highlight how far off the norm they are.
For example, I don’t think that US troops were ever so blase about shooting up Hitler Youth, and from what I gathered (and have heard from veterans) a lot of German women didn’t need encouragement- they were more than willing to offer up sex for supplies, and in many cases, were happy for male companionship of the appropriate age, with most German men either in the military somewhere, dead or captured. (this is from several vets I met- one in particular was an infantryman in the 103rd ID and fought from Alsace through Austria). From what they’ve said, the end of “Band of Brothers” was much more on the mark- they just occupied towns and looted the shit out of anything that wasn’t nailed down, and screwed the women when they could. But it wasn’t a Soviet-style rape-fest.
Instead, their attitudes toward the enemy combatants are shown as correct, if merciless, and their attitudes toward the enemy civilians are seen as no different than the rest of the Americans.
I’d have much rather seen a movie that explored the damage that had been done to these guys as a consequence of the savage fighting in N. Africa, Sicily, Normandy and the subsequent breakout/encirclement, the Siegfried Line fights in fall 1944, and the the Battle of the Bulge a few months earlier. Doing this with the contrast of the general pursuit that was going on in April 1945 would have been much more interesting than contriving a dire situation for US troops in April 1945 that never existed, just so they could make it look more grim and hellish than it was.
Any books in particular you’d recommend on the last months of the war?
I found the US Army’s Center for Military History “green” booksto be very interesting in general on the US participation in the war, as they’re the official histories. Basically you navigate to your chosen theater and period, and there’s the official US Army history in PDF form (or online).
The book detailing the last part of the war is here:
Thanks for the answer bump, I agree that’s what would have occurred in the real world but Fury contrived a situation where that wasn’t possible, as well as the radio being knocked out there was a scene as they were sent on the mission where the senior officer said there’s was only unit between the advancing Germans and the soft target (I can’t recall what it was) and that there was no backup or reinforcements available, if the Fury unit didn’t stop them nobody would.
I’m also not sure it was quite as one-sided as you suggest, there were a lot of SS soldiers but they were lightly armed, the only really effective weapon they had against the tank were their panzerfausts and as they break them open for use they’re told to not waste them as there were no others available.
I did wonder how the American forces could come up against such odds so late in the war but figured it was a local anomaly in a wider allied crushing advance.
But yes I’m not sure why they had to set it in April 1945 when there were more plausible scenarios earlier where American units really could have been cut off. I suppose it was to make it all the more tragic as the war was nearly over.
btw I read an interesting book a few months ago, ‘The Last Escape’ by John Nichol & Tony Rennell about the forced marches of Allied prisoners of war during the collapse of Nazi Germany, not an area that is really covered much.
The guy who gave them the mission implied (or outright stated) that the allied forces had advanced much further. This was essentially behind the lines, where a couple thousand medics and support staff were going to be mowed down by a just-discovered German battalion in the area. Fury was the only defense because everyone else was part of the crushing advance.
Some American units made it all the way to Czechoslovakia before they were reined in and forced to withdraw so that the Soviets could occupy the area.
I’ve been to Blatna, not far from Plzen, and you can visit the manor house where American headquarters were set up in 1945.
Correction: Breznice. Blatna is a bit farther to the south.