I dare to say that it is not that unique for WWII vehicles to be found these days, usually they are buried in river, swamp or other similar place. Given that they have been hiding for almost 70 years, the elements took their toll on them, and they are not in the best shape.
When a friend recently sent me a link to the video below, I didn’t pay much attention at first. However as I was watching it, I was amazed by the state of this Stug. After being pulled from the bog and cleaned from mud in few minutes, it presented spectators with perfect paint job and markings as clean as if applied yesterday. Even more surprising is that after a short while, as the vehicle was pulled away, the wheels and tracks of the vehicle started moving. One would wish modern cars would have the same quality…
Yesterday I saw this trailer on the Youtube and the only thing I can say is: WOW.
I did not know that there is another movie with the theme of Stalingrad battle in the making, but with the movies coming from Russia this is not that much surprising. Having watched the trailer few times, it seems that we are in for a visually stunning piece ,production and camera seem to be excellent. I loved the music with the trailer, I think it perfectly matches the mood the trailer was intent on invoking. Another positively contributing should be the fact that this being Russian movie, it is more than likely that no Hollywood “stars” will be in it (apology to the few good ones, but simply I don’t see them fit in here).
Another thing I like is that the movie is going to be in Russian (of course), but the German dialogues will be left in German and will be sub-titled, which is quite unique.
In terms of historical accuracy, it is too early to make a judgement, there are few things (I don’t want to use term mistakes) that are clear from the trailer – The Panzer IV tanks visible in the clip are not 100% accurate as this tank at that particular time did not have side skirts (schurzen), the use of these started in mid-1943, about 6 months after the Stalingrad battle. Also attachment of these skirts to the hull as can be seen in the clip is not correct. But this is really nitpicking – I think the filmmakers went to great length to replicate the Panzer IV and I appreciate that they did not use Tiger tank, as is favourably being done in movies. In one of the shots you can see markings of the 24th Panzer Division on the right front fender of the tank. This division actually did fight and was annihilated in the Stalingrad battle. Kamen Nevenkin’s excellent Fire Brigade book does not provide order of battle for this division prior to its reconstitution in 1943, but from other sources it is apparent that the division actually had 12 long-barreled Panzer IV tanks at this time.
In any case, this movie being Russian made is to be expected to present “Russian” view of the battle, not saying there is anything wrong with this. Movie is directed by Fedor Bondarchuk (son of the internationally acclaimed Sergey Bondarchuk), who has already been mentioned in this blog thanks to his great movie 9th Company (see the post here).
According to wikipedia, this movie is to be released this year and it is the first Russian and non-American movie to be produced using the IMAX format.
I don’t know how about you, but I cannot wait to see this one…
I confess I feel more than a bit jealous every time I see a photo report from a European model show. While I think that Toronto is a great place to be a plastic modeller, thanks to its modeling community and bunch of good friends I have in this hobby, there is something about the local model shows, that makes me feel…yes, jealous. The models I can see sometimes in local hobby stores or on friends tables are often top quality, but when the time of a model show comes, display tables usually leave me asking for more…
One of my most favourite model shows in Europe is the one in Mosonmya…. well just say Moson. It has been few years ago that I have seen first pictures from this show and it was clear to me that the quality is top of its class. This years show seems to be no exception. Luckily there are some good photo reports from this show that we can enjoy and draw inspiration.
To see one of them, please use this link (first pages are figures, real stuff begins on page 4). Thanks Mario!
I guess I am bit picky when it comes to the war movies, so there is ony handful of those I really believe are really worth watching. With the exceptions of well-known two TV series by HBO, this genre seemed to be out of favour with film producers in the past years.
No wonder I was then bit surprised when I have learned about the new TV series (again) which perhaps could be coming to the screens in short time dealing with the topic of WWII. The surprising part is the origin of this new series - it is made in Germany. In the country which sometimes still struggles to come to terms with its past, this new series has been highly praised. It has been dubbed to be the German Band of Brothers, though its theme is different from the HBO’s series.
Unsere Mutter, Unsere Vater is a three-part series (approximately 90 minutes each part), which tells story of five young Germans from the beginning of the war till the end. Two of them are soldiers in the Wehrmacht and lives of the rest are of course unavoidably impacted by the war. The series is not a war movie, though there are some quite good combat scenes, the focus is however on retelling fate of the people during the wartime.
The series brings few new things to the genre – primarily new view of the German soldier, which in most movies is just the typical nondescript “bad guy” on the other side. It gives different faces to individual Germans, either in the Army or outside of it and shows their experiences and views of the war.
Being different, the series unavoidably already attracted criticism. Poland is attempting to stop the distribution due to the Poles partisans being presented in the series as a being antisemitic, which is not untrue, but was not typical. Producers are also being accused of portraying Germans in the light of “Nazis were the others…”
Regardless of these points, I believe the series is worth watching. There is a trailer on youtube and I was able to find the full three parts there – though in German with Russian subtitles – with my remaining knowledge of both languages I was so-so able to get what was going on. For anybody interested in English version may need to wait till the series gets into regular distribution.
During my recent travels through the virtual world, I have arrived at the diorama site, which is truly unique – JBA Dioramas. I have seen one of the author’s pieces long time ago on the armorama site and it immediately attracted my attention (it was the diorama Sokol depicted above).
The theme of this site is not really armour, though there is a military side to most of the work that can be seen here. What really make this site stand out from all the others is the uniqueness of the ideas behind the dioramas. Almost all of them are as if from a different world, as a window through time and space, reflecting unusual and surprising stories. Sometimes it is difficult to guess what exactly is the story about as it often feels almost esoteric… It is difficult to express this visual experience in worlds, you just have to see it….
In addition to this, most of the work by author is scratchbuilt, there are some hints of few model kits used here and there, but majority of the pieces are truly one-of-a-kind. If you are wondering how the dioramas were done, author also offers few quite extensive articles and build logs.
So if you are looking for an inspiration or just want to see something you haven’t seen before, go and have a look:
History is often these days being considered as dealing with past things, places and events and most of the people would find it hard to simply connect with the past, in many cases their own past. Russian photographer Sergey Larenkov has in my opinion greatly helped to bridge this time gap by connecting today’s places with past events. By carefully combining recent photographs of famous (as well as less famous) places with the historical photographs he has created unique and interesting collection showing us what these places looked like during WWII and brought them to life.
You can find the collection here, it is well worth looking at…
(Photograph at the top is sourced from the page linked above.)
Among many forum posts on Armorama site, there was one posted recently that I have found to be very helpful. Author has posted a link to an online gallery with a vast selection of WWII photographs from the Normandy as well as other French regions. The photographs are from variety of sources and I found them to be a great source of reference. So before that particular post gets lost in the vast space of online forums, here is the link:
While going through the day’s news online I have watched this interesting BBC report from the tank graveyard in Afghanistan. There are some great shots and closeups of rusting Russian tanks and APCs laying scattered in a field nearby Kabul. Checking on YouTube you can find even more videos from this place, so the report itself is not that original but it still offers very nice and inspiring views.
Being in the process of building and painting the M1A1 I wanted to find out more about the conflict in which this tank played a prominent role – the second Iraqi war or as it is being known - Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). There is plenty of literature out there to choose from, rather than going for a comprehensive book on the military aspect of this conflict, I was looking for a first-hand account of the conflict seen through the eyes of the US soldier in a Abrams tank. There are few books that I have discovered on Amazon, the first one was Takedown by Jim Lacey. Then I discovered that there are other books by his fellow soldiers, which I could download in Kindle version on my tablet and have decided for the Heavy Metal by Capt. Jason Conroy and Ron Martz. As the Captain of the Charlie company of the Task Force 1-64, Jason Conroy recounts his path with the company before the war – the time spent first on training in the US and then in Kuwait and then the active combat part of the war. There were few facts in the book, that I have found interesting. First was the nature of the training the tankers underwent before the war, primarily the tactical and unit-level training in both the “normal” role as well as in the role of the opposition force.
As I have already blogged here recently, I am a big fan of modeling magazines. I consider them to be constant source of new modelling ideas and inspirations. Usually I keep few of them at hand to go through the latest builds and reviews when there is a spare minute, such as during the daily commute or lunch time.
Many of modelling magazine has already entered the digital age and have been available to owners of handheld devices – smartphones and tablet for a while now. While I consider a smartphone not very much suitable device for reading (based on my own experience), tablets are different league…
If there is anything more forgotten in the history of warfare than the Korean war then it must be the story of the Canadians participating in this conflict. If you walk into an average bookstore in Canada, the chances are slim that you will find anything dealing with this part of our history, simply because there is not that much book on this topic.
That was one of the reasons why I was surprised when I spotted the latest publications by the Legion Magazine, specifically dedicated to this topic. This booklet is unique and I find the format and content very appealing, almost makes me feel I must be the target audience. On 100 pages, this booklet literally overflows with photographs and maps. The coverage is very diligent – involvement of Canadian Army, Navy and Air Force as well as Special Forces have dedicated sections. Major combat actions, such as Battle of Kapyong have its own short articles and overall the book is focused on telling the story of the Canadians who lived and fought through this war. It is difficult to find any shortcomings, I would personally welcome if the publication would be little more extensive, but that’s very minor point.
For anybody interested in the Canadian Military history, this publication should not be missing on the bookshelf. For armour enthusiasts this publications nice collection of reference photographs (generally here is not that many of them). It can be obtained in any bookstores or any good place selling magazines (in Canada, I’m not sure if anyone from abroad would be interested).
For more information, see website of the Legion Magazine here.
For any military or history fan, Osprey publishing must be a well known name. The list of books published by this company is perhaps the longest among its peers and many of them have found home on my bookshelves. One of me most favourite books is Osprey’s Battleground – The Greatest Tank Duels in History.
This book builds on the series of Osprey books that pitch against each other famous tank opponents from history of warfare. Osprey has released few titles in this series, but Battleground is not jut one of them. Previous books were each covering single episode fomr history – e.g. Tiger vs. Sherman Firefly or Centurion vs. T-55. Battleground is effectively compilation of 5 of these books:
