As mentioned in the Trivia section, these were actually Russian T-34 tanks with fake Tiger hulls built onto them. There were three 'Tiger' tanks in Clint Eastwood's movie 'Kelly's Heroes' (1970) that were also T-34s with mockup Tiger hulls.
Does anybody know if the tanks from 'Kelly's Heroes' are the same ones used in this film?
- Lord, have mercy on a country boy
No, they're not the same ones as used in Kelly's Heroes, they were built by Steve Lamonby and his crew at his PlusFilms workshop in the UK. He also built/supplied most of the vehicles used in Band Of Brothers too.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0483615/?ref_=ttfc_fc_cr527
You have to remember the Kelly's Heroes "Tigers" were made in Czechslovakia 30 years before SPR was even released. I don't know if any of the KH "Tigers" even still exist, and even if they did at the time of filming they'd have had to be transported from the Czech Republic to the UK. I think the crew who made the SPR "Tigers" certainly were inspired by the ones in KH though.
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Thanks for the info. I need to watch 'SPR' again to see if I can spot any differences between those 'Tigers' and the 'KH' tanks.
- Lord, have mercy on a country boy
I always get the idea that they pretty much copied those in KH. Most (all?) of the Tigers in use by 1944 would have been the later pattern with steel rimmed roadwheels, late cupola and minus the Feifel air cleaners on the rear, but the ones in both SPR and KH represent the earlier version. Even the key symbol of 1st SS Panzer Div. is on both vehicles.
It's moot really as US forces didn't meet up with Tigers at all in Normandy and, indeed not until September. According to US armour historian Steve Zaloga US forces were only in combat with Tiger Is six times in NW Europe 1944-45, although they did face it's bigger brother, the Tiger II, many more times.
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