YHR

This is wartime footage, and some of the scenes are unpleasant, but the quality I have not seen before in a wartime video. Almost to the point of making me wonder if it is real.



[link=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTbCLYFF2eg]T-34s in action[/link]

Panther F

It IS wartime footage and the people, the planes and the tanks are real but I doubt it's all war footage as most of it looks to be trial/test footage... not actual combat footage.

Colorization is about as one can expect.



~ Jeff

ausf

Looks like the typical colorization from back in the 80s, it's like watching, 'It's a Wonderful Russian Life' with Frank Bailey played by J Stalin.

There's great info regarding Soviet propaganda war films in Restaryn and Moller's Operation Citadel showing photos of fake Tigers used (they even compare them to the Kelly's Heroes attempts).

I still neat to see these in motion.

Panther F

Now THIS isn't real:


[link=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwlbCLX7aZk]You Tube[/link]


Or is it?



~ Jeff

Rex Ross

Nice recruiting film. I enjoyed seeing how they mixed combat and propaganda footage. There is a scene showing Shermans (at 50 sec.) rolling through a town ..... were Shermans really at Kursk?

Also, I have always wondered.....at 2:18 there is a dead tanker laying on the side of his tank with a small part of the upper sleeve of his tunic on fire. Outside of that, his uniform looks decent. That had to be a set up by the film crew.

Frantz70

found this posted online

According to Mikhail Kolomiets in his book "Tanki Lend-Liza" from Eksprint (Tankovye Srazheniya series), the Red Army received its first 26 M4A2 tanks in November 1942. They were first deployed with the 5th Guards Tank Brigade and the 563rd Separate Tank Battalion of the Northern Caucasus Front. The USSR received 36 M4A2 in 1942 and 469 in 1943.

Regarding their use at Kursk, the same book indicates that the 299th Separate Tank Regiment of the 48th Army of the Central Front had 38 on strength in July 1943 at the time of the Battle of Kursk. (48th Army was on the shoulder of the southern side of the Kursk bulge) So they were certainly present on the Kursk front. Whether they saw any combat is less clear without more research. Kolomiets' earlier book in the Eksprint series "Kurskaya Duga" does not mention them, but then 38 tanks aren't a big deal in a small book about a big campaign and the 48th Army wasn't in the dramatic clashes at the center of the battle.

Looks like some T34-85's in that film too.

bigfiver69

Great clip!

Aside from all three major marks of T34, there are KV1s, Shermans and if you look closely, lend-lease Matilda tanks!

pattoncommander

Saw a few Valentines behind the Matildas. Either way, all variations of T-34s, KVs and Shermans, Russia was using everything that could could be used...Nice film, even as Jeff said, obviously some training and propaganda footage in it...typical for the era.

FreakyDude

that really looks like restaged combat, No shells go off near the camera and some of the dead bodies have rigor set in. You can actually tell the body was laying flat and they rolled it over.