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Bundeswehr training vids


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On YouTube are a series of training or for-internal-consumption videos produced by the West German Bundeswehr during the late 1980s. Predictably for training films, they are optimistic about World War III, but nevertheless at least provide modelers with images of the Bundeswehr in the late Cold War. They show many things, from individual soldiers' uniforms and gear, a mobile maintenance crew, what (the Bundeswehr thought) infantry combat might look like in wartime, and so forth.

Plus, some are dramatic! I kinda wonder if they got real Bundeswehr troops to do the acting, or hired actors. (Spend your mandatory service years preparing for your big Hollywood break!) The attention to detail and grittiness is reminiscent of somewhat contemporary war films, such as A Bridge Too Far.

Here’s a series on how to kill a tank. The first video begins with a lengthy discussion of the history of (German) infantrymen killing tanks. A little surprising to me is that the Bundeswehr candidly used World War I and II German films. The rest show combat scenes, and most interesting, a team of mechanics who appear to have set up shop in a civilian farmyard. (Offhand, I think these guys could be easily reproduced using Tamiya’s World War II tank ammo loading and tank repair crews). Again, this would be 1980s Hollywood-worthy war drama if it wasn’t for the soothing, even narration that sounds like it’s from a nature documentary.

Edited by Fishwelding
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