I recently got back into model building after a long hiatus. I have never built a diorama before and it really appeals to me now. I know that many of you have watched the movie “Kelly’s Heroes”. What I want to do is build a diorama of the courtyard towards the end of the movie when they role into the city of Nancy and see the three German Tiger tanks. Here is my problem though: I just started getting into military models and am not able to identify the tanks exactly as my knowledge is very limited in this arena at this time. I am going to build this diorama in a 1/72 scale and any suggestions as to what kits to use for this are appreciated. I am actually doing the research on this as there are a few guys here that are interested in building this. I am in the military and stationed in Iraq so we are sending all the info back home to my wife so she can purchase the items through our local hobby shop, so this could very easily become a lengthy project. But when finished I plan to send any and all pics into this site.
You and your bro’s stay safe, brother Dan. I don’t remember the tanks right now, but someone will come along and tell you. During the holidays, know that you are not forgotten. All my love to my fellow vets !!
I believe they were Russian T-34’s mocked up as tigers. But i’m not sure, as I am more of an aircraft guy and i dont know much about armor. I just remember hearing that someplace. Best of luck to you boys over there. Know that there are a bunch of us over here suporting you. And that contrary to popular beliefs and stereotypes there are still many millions of us that appreciate what you’re all doing. THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!!
The Tigers were build up on T-34 Chassis, with upper hull, deck and turret being built up to look like a Tiger (just compare the running gear on those with photos of T-34s, it’s identical).
The Shermans, if I’m not mistaken, were the Sherman Firefly.
That’s such a great movie. My wife hates war movies, but watched that with me a while back and loved it!!! [8D]
As stated the tanks are T34 chassis with a Tiger build up on the upper hull. The cool thing in if you look close enough, the smoke dischargers are in the right place and in some of the close up shots you can see the zimmerit. The movie was filmed in Yugoslovia (Bosnia/Herzegovina) and the Shermans were supplied by the Yugoslovian army since they were still using them well into the 70’s.
One of the other things you’ll see is the sniper team in the bell tower is using a a Russian Moisin Nagant M91/30 PU rifle . While a neat piece of trivia not likely for a US unit in France in this period.
Not much I can add - the chaps have answered everything - I was going to build the dio a few scenes later, where the 3 Americans confront the SS Sgt on Foot - couldnt get the figures in Australia though- still looking. The pleasing part of the movie was that they were able to make the Tigers look like Tigers, compared to “Patton” which came out about the same time, where all the DAK Panzers look like American M60’s with a coat of paint and some crosses painted on.
Yes, I was very impressed with the “accuracy” of the Tigers in that movie; a lot of movies will, as mentioned above, simply give an M26 or an M48 a coat of Dunkelgrau & call it a Tiger. Somebody obviously did their homework for that movie, right down to the location of the radiator grills and the exhaust pipes. Made you realize just how imposing a Tiger could be at close range, even 60 years later.