Tank Duel in Cologne

I have encountered this 10-minute long rather remarkable short documentary titled "Battle for Cologne" before now. However, with my ongoing obsession with German tanks of World War Two thus far this year, I was roaming across Youtube this past weekend and encountered it once again. For reasons I cannot fathom, I have not previously shared this here. Tonight I am finally getting around to sharing it here. This is perhaps the most famous tank duel in history if for no other reason than it was filmed and photographed more than any other in history. It featured a German Panther tank versus two American M-4 Sherman tanks, of which it destroyed one of them in a single shot, killing three of five crew members and forcing the other tank to retreat. An American M-26 Pershing tank came to their aid and hit the German tank thrice, killing one of five crew members. The "Battle of Cologne" occurred on March 6, 1945, in a final stand for the Germans. The dead German gunner can be seen, legless, laying dead atop the turret of his tank as the second shot from the Pershing tank hit as he was exiting the turret a few seconds too late. Another, more detailed analysis using the same footage, but with the addition of some computer animations and more accurate analysis can be viewed below.
*NOTE: there is some graphic violence in this historic footage as the Sherman tank commander (who died a short time later) can be seen sans the lower part of one leg stumbling out of his tank and a dead German sans both his legs can be seen atop his tank as fire erupts out the hatch next to his remains.

Loving Tigers

As I explained about a month and a half ago HERE, I have been oft-obsessed with Tiger tanks thus far in 2017, particularly the Tiger II design. Not mentioned in the aforementioned post, is my second-place obsession with the Tiger I (seen in the above meme in the bottom half), which although not quite as bad-assed as the Tiger II, actually looked very much more bad-assed IMHO. My younger-brother-by-another-mother, Blake, shared this meme with me yesterday. I love it and it still speaks to my oddball mind and its obsessions and wanderings.

King Tiger

I started this month mentioning something relating to the World War II-era German military (Wehrmacht) and in particular, the Germany Army (Heer). I'm finishing this month on a similar note. For reasons I cannot fathom, I have been obsessed with the World War II German-era Tiger II or Königstiger (King Tiger in Anglo-American English). In idle moments I find myself regularly imaging myself commanding one such tank in a final futile battle somewhere in western Europe towards war's end destroying a lot of American (esp. M4 Shermans) and British tanks (esp. Cromwells) and tank destroyers (such as M10 Wolverines) before being forced to surrender after running out of ammo. I have a strong feeling this is a metaphor for something. I sure hope I'm not engaged in a lost cause at present and don't realize it. Below is a sample of the tank to which I refer. It was the best tank in the world up into the 1950s and some are still being used in the Syrian Civil War right now as a measure of how great they were and still are.

A Tank's Death From Two Perspectives

It seems tonight is tank death night on Eclectic Arcania. While researching details of the previous tank death story I found this video sequence from the current Syrian Civil War taken earlier this year. It is "dash-cam" footage or rather, armored personnel carrier and tank turret footage from a Syrian Government armored mechanized forces' offensive operation in the Damascus suburb of Darayya. There, they clash with rebel forces whom are utilizing urban warfare techniques sans any heavy weapons. We see footage of the death of a Syrian Government T-72 tank (at least that is what it is identified as by various different sources) as viewed from the aforementioned type of film. We also see spliced into this mostly government footage near unto the end the same tank being hit but from the perspective of the Syrian rebels whom killed that tank and its three-man crew. Fascinating (to the point of mesmerizing) stuff and there is nothing graphically gruesome for those of you who are squeamish and like to be forewarned. Note: I have now seen quite a bit of Syrian Civil War battle footage. It seems the rebels are always Al Akbar-ing after every damned thing they do that works out from blowing up an occasional tank to downing an occasional chopper or jet. Something tells me they need to leave God out of this unholy business.

Death of a Tank

I found this the other night while looking up something else on Youtube. You know full well how one can easily get distracted and lost on Youtube following one interesting link after another. This is a very haunting short film showing the immediate aftermath of a USMC M4 Sherman Tank flipped over and on fire after driving over a Japanese tank-killing landmine on Okinawa on the morning of May 14, 1945. You see fellow marines try to put the fire out and dig out their trapped and endangered comrades but it is to no avail and they (and you) must watch the crew get "brewed" alive as the British called it when a tank crew got burned in their rig.