Must See TV Show: Greatest Tank Battles on Military Channel

[Zhivago]

I have behttp://military.discovery.com/tv/greatest-tank-battles/en watching Season 2 of the Greatest Tank Battles on the Military Channel. This week's episode was about the Soviet assault on the Baltic front in 1944. Featured awesome battles with Tigers, StugIIIG's, T-34's, JS2's, and featured some great exploits of panzer ace Otto Carius. If you like Panzer Corps and especially the armor equipment of WW2, you will love this show. Highly recommended! Next week's show is going to be about German and Soviet armor at Stalingrad. Here is a link to the Military Channel wesbite (which contains video clips of the shows):

http://military.discovery.com/tv/greatest-tank-battles/

[ivanov]

I liked the episode about the Desert Storm but the episode about Kursk was pretty poor. First of all, I felt that it was biased toards the German point of view ( it happenes all the time ) and secondly on basis of merit this series does more harm than good. The focus of it, is of the computer animation of the tank duels ( which is high enjoyable indeed ) but it hardly deserves it's title - it should be maybe called "Tank Duels" because it lacks maps, statistics and general overview of the situation, that would help the viewers to gain some deeper understanding of the particular battle. I think the "Dogfight" featuring air combat throught the XX century wars was much better.

[Zhivago]

I liked the episode about the Desert Storm but the episode about Kursk was pretty poor. First of all, I felt that it was biased toards the German point of view ( it happenes all the time ) and secondly on basis of merit this series does more harm than good. The focus of it, is of the computer animation of the tank duels ( which is high enjoyable indeed ) but it hardly deserves it's title - it should be maybe called "Tank Duels" because it lacks maps, statistics and general overview of the situation, that would help the viewers to gain some deeper understanding of the particular battle. I think the "Dogfight" featuring air combat throught the XX century wars was much better.

The new season of episodes is more focused, I think. There's only so much depth and detail they can do in an hour. They did split Kursk into two separate episodes (North and South), But the CGI graphics and interviews with the German and Soviet tankers is what I find most interesting. A German tanker in this week's episode pointed out a weakness in the Russian IS2 tank--he said that in order for the IS2 gunner to load a shell, the gun had to be brought back to level, which took a couple of seconds. This gave the Germans an advantage in fighting this tank because their guns did not require such a procedure. This was a cool, hands-on piece of information from an actual WW2 German tanker. Great stuff.

[ivanov]

A German tanker in this week's episode pointed out a weakness in the Russian IS2 tank--he said that in order for the IS2 gunner to load a shell, the gun had to be brought back to level, which took a couple of seconds. This gave the Germans an advantage in fighting this tank because their guns did not require such a procedure.

That sounds really interesting! I guess that there are better and worst episodes of the series.

[4kEY]

I have the first season on DVD. Will definitely get the second when it comes out.

There's another series called Battlefield that is very good. It came out in the 90's. You can find it in sets of 3 on DVD. They made a newer series of the same name but from what I've read it lacks the quality of the original. However, I have the Kursk dvd from the newer series and it is great.

[Zhivago]

I have the first season on DVD. Will definitely get the second when it comes out.

There's another series called Battlefield that is very good. It came out in the 90's. You can find it in sets of 3 on DVD. They made a newer series of the same name but from what I've read it lacks the quality of the original. However, I have the Kursk dvd from the newer series and it is great.

I remember watching that series on PBS in the 90's. I have never been able to find it anywhere. I have been watching season 2 of Greatest Tank Battles on the Military Channel here in the USA. Great stuff!

[VPaulus]

I remember to have watched those series on TV in the nineties. I thought they were pretty good at the time although they had an annoying musical score.
A god complement to The World at War.

[dan_hnnng]

I going to upgrade my cable package to include this channel.
I love the military channel

[flakfernrohr]

My only complaint is that to make it overly dramatic, they raise the volume of the music so much it drowns out the voices of the veterans and narrator or the sound effects. Typical TV BS.

[VPaulus]

My only complaint is that to make it overly dramatic, they raise the volume of the music so much it drowns out the voices of the veterans and narrator or the sound effects. Typical TV BS.

Fully agree. And it seems to be the current trend for the last 20 years at least. It's complete distasteful.
Even in this aspect "The World at War" is still a remarkable achievement.
Ahh, and not forgetting Ken Burns documentaries, which are usually exceptionally very good. IMO, they best documentaries ever produced by Americans. True classics.