Battle of Dompaire

[Panzermechaniker]

Until I started delving into my present project tank Free French M4A3 (76)"Champagne" I had never heard of this battle. It was a very serious defeat for the Germans. "Champagne" was knocked out but all the crew survived and there is an interview with the driver of her and an explanation of exactly how the Panther got her. So while researching as much as I can for an idea of the general weathering and how the storage was placed on the French Shermans and having unearthed a lot of still images I finally stumbled upon this superb documentary. Although it is in French it is an excellent combination of actual footage, beautiful fully functioning restored French Shermans, Wolverines, halftracks and support vehicles. Plus some very good footage of Panthers and P-47s in action. Not the usual AI produced YT video footage with the same old shots that aren't even relevant to the subject. Here is the link. My French is basically non-existent these days. Maybe 50 words so I'll link a short video in English that is very good on describing how the whole battle went. The researching the history is one of the best benefits of this RC tank hobby. It's well worth an hour's time

The documentary

phpBB [video]

and the English video on how the battle was waged

phpBB [video]

[MonsieurTox]

Thank you very much for this documentary. It's very well done and informative, too bad subtitles are not available for those who don't speak french.
It gaves me a lot of ideas for my builds !

[ColemanCollector]

That's definitely going to be worth a watch
Thanks for the link.
50? Beat me by 2!

Mike.

[Panzermechaniker]

Yes a French M-10 would be really cool. I liked the way the French named all their tanks and tds as well as numbers. In both documentaries the descriptions of the movements during the battle of the various vehicles the names are used rather than a number so much easier to visualize how the battle progressed and which vehicles got knocked out and their location. I actually was surprised there ware no subtitles but the restored vehicles being driven properly out in the wild in the re-enactments is worth it alone. Plus it's very well filmed and the tanks and countryside look great on a large screen. I have never even given a thought to going to that area of France. Definitely on my bucket list