Greatest Tank Battles (2010– ) User Reviews

Heavy metal

[nickenchuggets · 7/10 · 6 May 2024]

For the past 107 years or so, tanks have been the ultimate armored force on battlefields all around the world. I've always enjoyed shows like these because war history is one of my strong suits. The show spans basically the entirety of tank warfare, from their introduction intending to break the bloody stalemates of World War I to the 1990s during the war in Iraq. While the show does have quite good visuals and actual veterans of the battles to help illustrate how the events might have looked like, my first gripe with the show already comes into focus. For me, this show is only surface level history, which is fine, but the program usually forgoes details on the vehicles or battles in favor of a more entertaining experience. When they bring up the tanks being used in a particular engagement, they'll usually just mention its name, country of origin, how much armor it has, and its gun caliber. While this might bother me just a bit, the only two episodes I saw so far are both good, despite centering on roughly the same event: the Nazi invasion of the USSR. The people being interviewed are probably long dead by now, but what they talk about really shows how even average teenagers were willing to jump right into such horrendous wars during this era. The average age of a ww2 soldier was something like 19 or 20, and the Soviets alone lost over 20 million people defending their country. The show also goes into the tactics tank operators and crews would utilize in order to accomplish missions and stay alive, such as angling their armor. Sloped armor is a simple but revolutionary invention made during ww2 that gave armored vehicles armor plating that was angled a certain way, typically on the front since this was the spot were the tank was most likely to get shot. If an enemy tank shell hit the armor at an oblique angle, it would often veer off and not damage it. Tank crews would take advantage of this and position their tanks in certain ways to reduce the likelihood of a shell penetrating. As the war went on, new countermeasures to tank ammunition would be brought in, such as the American practice of putting sandbags on some areas of M4 tanks, or the germans adding spaced armor to their later tanks. Basically a large plate of metal positioned parallel and some distance away from the primary armor, it was designed to detonate tank shells before they had a chance to damage the vehicle itself. This concept probably evolved into what is today called reactive armor, which is two pieces of metal with an explosive wedged in between. The idea being, if a missile or rocket is shot at the tank, the explosive in the armor will blow up and release blunt force that the tank can withstand. In any case, this is a mostly interesting show if you like reading things about military vehicles, as I have loads of books on this subject. Just don't expect it to be as in depth as a more history oriented show.

old fashion war doc show with CGI

[SnoopyStyle · 7/10 · 28 October 2016]

It is a Canadian show on the History channel. It takes maps, archival footage, CGI, talking heads, and written accounts to recreate battles involving tanks. It is an old fashion TV war recreation documentary show using CGI. The show was made around 2010 and does have some limitations. There are no people in the CGI. It is mostly a little dated but it works by concentrating on the machinery. Each episode dissects a specific battle from all sides concentrating on the tanks and other machinery involved. It gives the show a good narrative flow. Each one is a compelling story explaining the weapons and tactics in the battle.

The History Channel as it once was

[skyking-14 · 7/10 · 25 November 2023]

This is a solid, fact-based, historical documentary. The sort of fare that made History Channel what it was at its best. I won't go into how far it's fallen here, but these were better days.

There are only two flaws that I really take issue with here,

#1 is that returning from each commercial break seems to lead to a reiteration of the final 60-90 seconds before the commercial break. This is redundant, and annoying.

#2 is that when the eyewitness is a non-English speaker and requires translation, the volume of the non-English speaker, and the sound effects are higher than the translation, making it very hard to hear and understand the translation. This requires turning on Closed Captioning to be able to understand what's being said.

One humorous element here is the German tanker who repeatedly proclaims how much better their tanks were than the Sherman and how the Sherman had no chance, was easy to defeat, etc. Yet, they LOST!

"Greatest Tank Battles" is an action-packed 20 -part series that brings to life...

[cristal_pallace · 10/10 · 18 November 2012]

"Greatest Tank Battles" is an action-packed 20 -part series that brings to life the most gripping and monumental tank battles ever fought, through stunning CGI animation and eyewitness accounts. Filmed on battlefields across the world, this new original series puts viewers in the heat of the battles, witnessing historic armored combats through the eyes of the very men who manned the tanks and fought to the finish.

"Greatest Tank Battles" brings the full fury of mechanized warfare to the screen for the first time by analyzing the weapons, defenses, tactics and using ultra-realistic CGI animation. The viewer experiences the complete picture of tank warfare: a General's-eye view of the battlefield, a soldier's-eye view of face to face confrontations and meticulous technical analysis by military historians. From the mighty 88mm cannon of the Second World War German Tiger, to the thermal imaging target system of the Gulf War M-1 Abrams - the series examines the significant technical details that shaped a century of battle.

"Greatest Tank Battles" will for the first time take viewers through the hatch and inside some of history's most legendary tanks, allowing them to see the battle through the eyes of tank commanders and their crews. They'll ride along with some of some of the greatest tank aces, discovering how they were able to make kill after kill, often against overwhelming odds, and escape with their lives.

Their stories bring to life epic conflicts such as those on the Eastern Front where 100,000 tanks clashed in history's biggest war. But some stories push ever farther a field to bring eyewitness accounts of pivotal tank battles in Korea, Vietnam and the Middle East.

"Greatest Tank Battles" takes us deeper into the mechanized battlefield than ever before revealing the delicate balance between man and machine - between victory and death- it puts viewers in the commander's seat and sends them into the heart of the action.