Movie - "Fury"

Went to see the movie Fury last weekend.  It was a good, but not great movie, but it does give me some good wargame ideas.

The reason that I say it was good, but not great was that it falls into that Holywood trap of "War is Bad!"  In recent years most of the war movies from Holywood has focused on how deadly war is, and war IS deadly.  However, sometimes it isn't quite as deadly as Holywood makes it out to be.  At the beginning of this movie, I could pick out all of the people that would die, and the ones that wouldn't die.

Spoiler Alert!

I knew right off the bat that all of the other tanks would be knocked out and their crews killed.  I could even pick out that the new guy would be the sole survivor.  Everyone who get shot is killed!

That isn't the case in real life.  Plenty of people that get shot survive.  They often have horrid injuries to overcome, but they live.  They are evacuated to the rear where their wounds are treated.  The ambulance isn't instantly hit as it drives away.  They even can return home without their ship being sunk, or their airplane crashing.  That was something that Band of Brothers did well.

Also, not every crew member in a tank will die when it gets hit.  I know an older lady who's brother was in a Sherman in North Africa.  His tank was hit, and all of the crew bailed out except for the assistant driver.  He went back to help the driver out, but while he was there, the ammo exploded and he as well as the other crew member were killed.

If we wen't by Holywoods ideas, then we would never have to worry about forward hospitals, because you either get a minor scratch and keep fighting, or you get killed.

The good thing about the movie is that the tanks looked authentic.  They didn't use M24 Chaffees for Shermans, and M60s for Tigers.  There were actual Sherman tanks and Tiger tanks, as well as Greyhounds and other authentic looking vehicles.  It was great to see Germans use Panzershreks and and Panzerfausts.  The fighting tactics were pretty good also.  They used fire and maneuver instead of just sitting and having a long ranged slugfest.