Patton

You know I just watched Patton again for the first time in a very long time and was simply amazed at the fact that those crafty nazi’s managed to go forward in time to capture US M-24 chaffees, go back in time, repaint them and issue them to units in africa. Not only that but they must have truly improved them as they decided to use them in the battle of the buldge instead of tigers and panthers. :stuck_out_tongue:

On a side note there couln’t have been more M-24’s than shermans available to make this movie? So why use M-24’s?

lol

Paradox01

From my memory, they were “German” M47’s. At the time the movie was made, they were the front-line tank in the US Army. The US Army helped with the making of the movie, so that is what they used. Accuracy wasn’t a big issue in those old war movies anyways. Still a geat movie though.

It depends on where the movie was film and available AFVs.I asked a similar question on another forum.For example,there are tons of Shermans in ‘A Bridge Too Far’ and none in ‘Patton’.Both movies were filmed only a few years apart I believe.

Probably boils down to budget. While watching the bonus materials on the Patton 2-disc DVD, they talked about filming in Spain. On the reasons for using Spain, is that in one relatively small county, you can get just about any type of outdoor setting that you like. And another is that you have the Spanish Army. Apparently the Spanish Army were very cooperative with film makers to the point of having a dedicated liasion officer whose main job was to coordinate with film producers. They could supply extras, vehicles, logistics, and basically take a lot of the heache out of coordinating everything all for one nice price. Because the Spanish army had M-24’s, M-26’s, M-48’s etc, that’s what was used for the filming.

I think the Battle of the Bulge used a similar approach, although they were kind of clever in casting M-24’s as the American Shermans and the heavier iron as the German Tanks

Andy

Abarne is right. The equipment was Spanish army stuff. That’s why the propoderance of M24s. Nowadays, CGI would probably have M3 Lees and Pz IIIs and Pz IVs in Africa and correct Sherman types and Panthers in NWE. It’s still a remarkable movie!

Yeah, but all of today’s CGI would never replicate the look of old war movies. Gotta love 'em.