Corrected entry: When Kelly convinces the German tank commander to blast the door open so they can get the gold, an 88 mm shell at that close range would have blown the bank apart. But only a relatively small hole is through the doors and the gold in the middle of the floor lies undisturbed.
Scott215
29th Dec 2019
Kelly's Heroes (1970)
2nd Dec 2003
Kelly's Heroes (1970)
Corrected entry: I could be wrong, but I reckon trained soldiers would rather seek cover than to take on tanks with only rifles and submachineguns. In the scene where Oddball's tank squad shoots a German train station to pieces, the Germans fire at the vehicles with their smallarms, even though it's just a waste of ammo (maybe they were just desperate?).
Correction: Soldiers will use whatever weapons they have on hand to defend against the enemy, whether or not they are outgunned or even outnumbered (reference Captain Miller in "Saving Private Ryan" using his .45 caliber pistol against a German Tiger tank). The heaviest weapon the Germans had in the rail yard was a 4-barreled 20mm anti-aircraft gun that would be useless against a Sherman tank, yet, they used it to fire on Oddball's Sherman's, in addition to the small arms the Germans were using against the Shermans.
15th Aug 2007
Kelly's Heroes (1970)
Corrected entry: During the discussion between Crapgame and Kelly in the supply depot, just after Crapgame realises that snatching the gold from behind enemy lines would be "the perfect crime", a jet airliner can be heard flying overhead. Jet aircraft were in use by the Luftwaffe - but only on their side of the lines with the exception of a few recon and bombing missions at the front, specifically on the Remagen bridge in March of 1945, months after the movie's timeframe.
Correction: After watching the scene many times, the sound heard is not of a jet aircraft, but a piston-powered propeller-driven craft that can be prominently heard over the whistling sound that was mistaken for a jet engine.
11th Jul 2005
Kelly's Heroes (1970)
Corrected entry: When Mulligan is sleeping his alarm clock goes off. Kelly arranged to start the mortar attack at 2100 hours (9 PM). The alarm clock does not read 9 when it goes off.
Correction: This scene is an example of the indifference and incompetence of Mulligan's command of the mortars to deliver accurate fire at precise time coordinates, as Mulligan demonstrated in the first part of the movie, when Big Joe complains about Mulligan not giving him "three minutes" before Mulligan started firing off the mortars and dropping them all over the place. For Mulligan to not launch a barrage on time and target is in character.
30th Jan 2005
Kelly's Heroes (1970)
Corrected entry: In the scene in which Kelly and the others must go through a city while it is being shelled, if you look in the bottom right corner you see German troop traffic going through the town with lots of German soldiers walking around. None of them seem too concerned about the shelling, even when it starts falling on the road they are on. There is even an explosion that happens just behind two German soldiers - they do not move and then merely stroll away afterwards.
Correction: The German soldiers are veterans who are used to the shelling and accept it as part of their lives. They would also know what kind of shelling they are under and react appropriately. In this case, the shelling is routine and inaccurate (harassing fire) nothing for veteran German soldiers to panic about.
8th May 2003
Kelly's Heroes (1970)
Corrected entry: Kelly was busted down to a buck private. Why does Big Joe let him have his own jeep and go anywhere at anytime he wants to?
Correction: Crapgame said Kelly was a lieutenant before ("a pretty good one, too"), so he still had connections, influence, and respect from other soldiers, especially those who knew Kelly was the scapegoat for the attack on a hill that wiped out half a company of friendly troops. As an example, notice how First Sergeant Mulligan panics when Kelly requests a favor of a mortar attack - and Mulligan outranks Kelly by several pay grades.
4th Feb 2015
Kelly's Heroes (1970)
Corrected entry: Nazi SS didn't wear black uniforms after 1939.
Correction: The SS Tiger tank troopers in the movie are panzer crewmen whose uniforms were black. Even the Wehrmacht (Regular Army) tankers wore black uniforms throughout the war, as well as being issued camouflage uniforms.
The key marking on the tank plate means the tank is supposed to be from LSH Lieberdstand Adolf Hitler Panzer Div. LSH tank crews wore camo pattern black or grey uniforms. They had Deaths head emblems on the collars of the black tank uniform, often leading to them being mistaken for SS and executed in the field.
Correction: If the shell fired was a high explosive shell, then yes, maybe the bank would have been blown apart, as you say. Since the German tank commander just needed to "blow a hole through that door", then an armor piercing shell would have done the job (as was likely ordered by the Tiger commander) with little damage to the interior of the bank.
Scott215
Your suggestion doesn't fit the facts since there's no hole in the back of the bank.
Mike Lynch