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Saving Private Ryan remains an enormously popular war film, but how many of the German vehicles in it were real or fake? Find out the story behind the Tiger tanks, half-tracks and Marders, and the effort director Steven Spielberg underwent to ensure his film looked authentic.
Dr. Mark Felton FRHistS, FRSA, is a well-known British historian, the author of 22 non-fiction books, including bestsellers ‘Zero Night’ and ‘Castle of the Eagles’, both currently being developed into movies in Hollywood. In addition to writing, Mark also appears regularly in television documentaries around the world, including on The History Channel, Netflix, National Geographic, Quest, American Heroes Channel and RMC Decouverte. His books have formed the background to several TV and radio documentaries. More information about Mark can be found at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Felton
Visit my audio book channel ‘War Stories with Mark Felton’: https://youtu.be/xszsAzbHcPE
Help support my channel:
https://www.paypal.me/markfeltonproduction
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Disclaimer: All opinions and comments expressed in the ‘Comments’ section do not reflect the opinions of Mark Felton Productions. All opinions and comments should contribute to the dialogue. Mark Felton Productions does not condone written attacks, insults, racism, sexism, extremism, violence or otherwise questionable comments or material in the ‘Comments’ section, and reserves the right to delete any comment violating this rule or to block any poster from the channel.
Sources:
‘Saving Private Ryan Online Encyclopaedia’, www.sproe.com
‘Internet Movie Car Database’, https://www.imcdb.org/m120815.html
Credits: US National Archives; Library of Congress; Neiwieser; Daniel Merrett; Cezory Piwowarski; Peter Trimming; Wassen
32 Comments
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This video was destined to be made. And your the one who made it.
Never realised the Duxford mock up was used in Saving p Private Ryan . Seen it many times 😊
Wat is TWATTED mark?!
it's a Mark Felton
Tuntematon Sotilas is the greatest war movie ever made.
Can you explain why you said that the Tiger battle in Fury was a joke or something to that effect?
“The obvious problem for film makers today is” mark feltons incredible attention to detail. This is a great video, can you make a video on Generation War? I thought that was an excellent series.
Can't wait for the movie "saving Britney Griner"!!
The soldiers surrendering aren't German.. they are Dutch.
Given the rarity of tigers especially, the replicas are passable. However, as its often been acknowledged with most WW2 films, even going as far back as the 1950's and 60's, most of the actors playing the parts of combat soldiers were in the main too old. Spielberg incorrectly casts burly older men, most with extremely short hair to play German soldiers. I acknowledge that some of the German forces in Normandy were not front line combat soldiers but occupation troops. Take a look at any WW2 photographs of the Normandy campaign of the German combat troops were mainly quite small, underfed, very young (as were the allied combat troops) and above all, usually quite long haired. Was this done deliberately to make the Germans look like skinheads? The rest of the film is reasonable, ok the bunkers and blockhouses in the opening scene were incorrect but it was a far superior film to the ridiculous Fury where a lone disabled Sherman tank took out a battalion of German panzergrenadiers armed with panzerfausts 🙂
Any number of British or French war time soft skin vehicles would have been accurate as the Germans used virtually anything they could get their hands on. Never really liked this movie. Too many inaccuracies (like bald Germans) and plot holes.
The sticky bomb tiger hasn't been in pa for many years. Ww2 armor in Florida owns it and has fixed it up to running with a new camo. I have videos of it on my YouTube channel from a very long time ago when I used to help keep it running (ish) and at reenactments with the bob stug3. It's a shame ww2 armor replaced the 2nd road wheel on the right side and got rid of it. That's how you could easily identify it as the spr sticky bomb tank
It seems that Mark Felton enjoys being hypercritical about anything American! The Brits are very fortunate that FDR chose to put a major effort towards defeating Germany first. Otherwise, they might have been speaking German!
Good, work even looking at the sound, made by the Tanks. I am USA army retired, M1A1 tankers. I always wondered about the sound, at first I thought the movie used some type bulldozer to make the sound of the tracks and engine.
Even as a kid, I was usually disappointed by the lack of effort filmmakers put into using correct (or correct-looking) equipment. Movies from the sixties and seventies were particularly bad for this. Patton may have won seven Oscars, but the battle scenes were infuriating for a kid who built plastic models and knew those were NOT German tanks. While I knew the Tigers in this film were Soviet mock-ups, I appreciated that they were decent ones. Thanks for the detailed descriptions. I’m glad to know that someone besides me obsesses about things like this.
Although I'm not really sure what happened to it, I'm surprised Spielberg didn't try to find (although he may have) the tiger tanks from "Kelly's Heroes". Those were fake also, but looked really good, and they ran.
I did a Battle of The Bulge reenactment back in 2006 (I think) at Fort Indiantown Gap, PA. Someone with deep pockets had bought one of the Saving Private Ryan "Tigers" (the first one Tom Hanks took out) and had it shipped to the States. I was doing 101st Airborne and I can tell you sitting in a foxhole watching that thing slowly clank up a snow covered dirt road is a memory I will not forget!
A lot of those post-was Czech arms made their way to the nascent state of Israel for its defense.
The 2nd tiger rezides in gary indiana. Has also been used in history channel,"when weather affects history". Was there as allied extra.
Given what you said about the lack of original German kit, they did an excellent job with what they had!
Is Paris Burning, Come and See, and The Pianist all have genuine German pieces.
Thank you sir mr felton you the man who tell us truth behind movie who make more money than the viewer pay ticket to watch pte ryann but actually is a true storey only creator film was that
Mark Felton throwing shade at Fury. lol
A great insight into an interesting film; as usual. But could you please do one on ‘Shaving Ryan's privates’, a film that came out shortly afterwards. Many thanks.
I'm amazed that any of these videos ever get a thumbs down.
3:35 Those were Czeck troops pressed into service into the German army.
From my research, rarely if ever did Americans come up against Tiger tanks as seen in the ending scene, only mark 3's and 4's and panthers. Only the British fought Tigers.
We need to go back in time, and save some Tigers.
The fact that it wasn't a real Tiger broke the fourth wall for me, but I've aways been to clever for me own good; which sucks.
An interesting "fake" military vehicle story: For the film "Red Dawn" in the early 80s, the Soviet T-72 tanks were built by the props department as real Soviet equipment was impossible to get. The film crew started noticing some rather "serious" looking men in suits following them around, asking questions of the crew. Apparently, the props guys had done such an accurate reproduction of the T-72s that the CIA wanted to know exactly where the filmmakers got them!
Still better than the movies they make now with all that CGI crap..