laststandonzombieisland

Growing up, one of my favorite movies was Kelly’s Heroes. If you have ever seen it (please do), a young Donald Sutherland plays “Oddball” a U.S. Army SGT commanding what is left of a platoon of M4 Shermans from the 6th “Super Sixth” Armored Division. You see the Sherman was a great tank– but a German Tiger, with better armor and a 88mm gun, could make swiss cheese of it, which often tended to put Sherman crews on edge. In fact, its a major plot point of the movie as Kelly (played by Eastwood) convinces Oddball to go up against an SS Tiger platoon guarding a bank behind enemy lines.

Always with the negative waves, Captain Steuben….always with the negative waves.

Well it looks like Hollywood is taking on the old Sherman v Tiger trope again in the upcoming film ‘Fury’ in which a Sherman tank assigned to the 2nd Armored Division (“Hell on Wheels”) during the fighting in NW Europe in 1945 takes on the best that the Germans have to offer.

The film is directed by David Ayer and the tank manned by an ensemble cast that includes Brad Pitt (how can you not like Inglorious Basterds), and Micheal Pena (say what you will, but End of Watch– which Ayer both wrote and directed– is the closest genuine ‘cop’ movie that has ever been made).

Interestingly enough, the film will also have Scott Eastwood in it (Clint “Kelly” Eastwood’s son) and will have the first use of a REAL live Tiger tank borrowed from the Bovington museum in it. Note: the ‘Tigers’ in Kelly’s Heroes were actually Yugoslav (JNA) army Soviet-made T-34 tanks that had been vismodded.

“April, 1945. As the Allies make their final push in the European Theatre, a battle-hardened army sergeant named Wardaddy commands a
Sherman tank and her five-man crew on a deadly mission behind enemy lines. Outnumbered and outgunned, Wardaddy and his men face
overwhelming odds in their heroic attempts to strike at the heart of Nazi Germany.”