Cromwell historical videos of  Tanks produced by Cromwell including Panzer, Tiger, Sturmgeschutze, Sturmartillerie and many others .  These Cromwell and Pegasus military videos are available from the Military Shop, a division of Cranston Fine Arts.  

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DVD order code DVD1008.   Price £12.99.

Tank Battles - El Alamein to the Volga.

Hitlers trail to glory was blazed by Panzers.  In Poland, Western Europe, North Africa and Russia they repeatedly overcame enormous odds by combining radio communications, tanks and Stuka dive-bombers to wage Blitzkrieg - lightning war.  Using such revolutionary tactics, commanders like Erwin Rommel rewrote the rules of tank warfare.  However, Rommels reverse at El Alamein was the first indication that the tide was turning - and on the Eastern Front the German defeat at Kursk was to confirm it.  The Nazi armoured advance had seemed unstoppable - would Hitler succeed where Napoleon himself had failed?  The Panzer was a potent symbol of German invincibility, but it was tactics - not technology, that brought success.  In mounting Operation Citadel against Kursk, Hitler set up the greatest tank battle in history.  He needed an unqualified triumph to shine like a beacon and avenge the humiliation of Stalingrad.  He had reckoned without the Soviet T-34, built in half the time of a Panzer and easier to maintain in inhospitable conditions.  The German pincer movement was finally mounted in early June 1943, but after a week both Northern and Southern armies were at a standstill.  Soviet Packfront tactics - rockets and artillery, backed by tanks and infantry - proved a costly but effective answer to Blitzkrieg.  The worlds biggest ever tank battle at Prokhorovka saw 1,500 tanks on the battlefield - but as the dust settled, it was the Germans who licked their wounds.  The action ground on for 20 more weeks - but Citadel was doomed, and with it Hitlers chances of remaining in Russia.  Russia was the anvil on which the war machine was broken and the Panzers had finally lost their myth of invincibility.

Video run time 55 minutes. Order code PEG1226. Price £7.50

AVAILABLE ON DVD. PRICE £12.99  ORDER CODE DVD1028

The Panzer - The Story of Adolf Hitlers Infamous Panzer Divisions

Battle tanks decided many battles during the Second World War.  Some 25,000 were produced in Germany and some 250,000 by the Allies during the conflict.  Yet despite overwhelming odds, the German Panzer Divisions became legendary.  Just as a cavalryman becomes attached to his horse, the Panzer crews still vividly remember their mechanical mounts, the sounds they produced, the smell of fuel and oil, the effects they had on the enemy and also the fact that the Panzer could become a steel coffin in one blazing moment.

DVD Running Time 55 minutes.  Order Code DVD1048.  Price £12.99

The Great Tank Battle of Kursk

The great tank battle of Kursk took place in 1943, when the Germans mounted a huge attack on the Soviet army with a force of some 900,000 men, 2,700 of their most fearsome tanks, 10,000 artillery pieces and 2,000 aircraft.  Codenamed Operation Citadel, the attack was Adolf Hitlers plan to avenge the disaster that befell the German 6th Army at Stalingrad

Tiger - Heavy Tank Panzer VI.

There can be few people who have never heard of the Tiger Tank - indeed, it has come to be seen as one of the most potent symbols of German military power in the Second World War. First committed to combat on the Eastern front 1942, the Tiger and its more formidable successor - the Tiger II, Kingtiger - had, by the time of the defeat of Nazi Germany, generated an awesome reputation that far belied the very small production run of fewer than the 2000 built. The history of this legendary tank is told with particular emphasis placed on combat footage of the Tiger in action, as well as footage of the Ferdinand/Elefant on the Eastern front and the Sturmtiger in action in the Warsaw Uprising of 1944.

Panther - The Panzer V.

The Panther was Germanys response to the shocking experience of encountering the superior Soviet T-34 tank in the wake of the invasion of Russia in 1941. While drawing heavily on the design of the T-34, the Panther was however a more sophisticated machine incorporating features that led many to judge it to have been possibly the best designed tank of the war. This programme covers not only evolution of the Panther design but through the usage of combat footage illustrates the Panther in action on all fronts on which the German Army fought from 1943 until 1945.

Panzer IV Heavy Tank.

In continuous production from 1936 until 1945, the Panzer IV was the armoured workhorse of the German Army in the Second World War. Designed originally as a heavy support tank for its stable mate, the lighter Mark III in the Panzer divisions, it became one of the key instruments of the Blitzkrieg victories, in the early war years. This programme traces the long history of this most versatile of German tanks, and documents a combat career that finally ended with the destruction of the last Mark IVs in Syrian service by the Israeli Army on the Golan Heights in 1967.

Panzer III Medium Tank.

The Panzer III emerged as one of the formative images of German military success in the newsreels produced by the Propaganda Ministry, documenting the Blitzkrieg victories of the early war years. While proving adequate to the task of countering allied armour in France and the Western desert, the fateful encounter with the superior Soviet T-34 tank, following the invasion of Russia in 1941, revealed the technical shortcomings of the Panzer III. Its days as a battle tank were numbered, but it could still be seen serving in the East as a command tank until 1944, and in other secondary theatres such as Norway until the German surrender.

Panzer I and II Light Tanks.

It is one of the enduring myths of the Second World War, that the German Blitzkrieg victories of the early years of the conflict were achieved by their employment of a numerically and technologically superior tank force. In reality, the defeat of Poland and France, Yugoslavia and Greece and the remarkable victories in the opening stages of the Russian campaign and in North Africa, were wrought by German tank divisions equipped, in the main, with light tanks. The Panzer I weighed less than six tons, and was armed with two machine guns and armour barely able to withstand the impact of such weapons itself. It was with these light-weight workhorses, rather than their heavier and more glamorous stable mates, that the Blitzkrieg legend was forged.

Stug III and IV Assault Guns.

One of the most common images of German Armour in the combat footage taken by Goebbels propaganda cameramen in the second half of the war in Europe, was the Assault Gun or Sturmgeschutz (abbr. Stug) From 1942 onwards it was increasingly employed as a tank destroyer, but its origin lay not in that role but in a 1936 order for an armoured infantry support vehicle. The frequency with which assault guns are filmed in action from 1944 onwards, illustrates the manner to which this vehicle was employed as a substitute for the Panzers. By the wars end assault gun units claimed the destruction of no less than 20,000 allied tanks.

Hummel Mobile Heavy Artillery.

From 1940 until wars end, German industry produced a plethora of self-propelled weapons for the German Army. Whilst some of these were purposely designed, others were extemporary affairs developed rapidly using available weapons and chassis to serve the immediate need of the German Army in the field. Those covered in this programme fall mainly into the categories of tank destroyers and self-propelled artillery. This unique compilation of combat footage of these vehicles will allow the viewer to gain an insight into the variety and importance of such weapons to the German Army, up to its defeat.

German Military Vehicles inc. Armoured Cars and Half Tracks.

Seemingly present whenever German combat cameramen were filming, armoured cars and half tracks were as vital to the German war machine as the Panzers. Designed for the vital role of reconnaissance, they ranged ahead of the advancing Panzer spearheads to assess enemy strengths and intentions. Whether on four wheels or employing the more distinctive eight wheel configuration, German armoured cars would be seen as much a symbol of the Blitzkrieg as the Panzers themselves. This programme covers all these vehicles and includes rare footage of the late war Puma armoured car in Normandy.

Panzer - Germanys Ultimate War Machine.

During WW2, the need for capable and qualified crewmen to work with and maintain the equipment became vital. In order to keep up with the demands of warfare, soldiers and engineers were educated partly with training films. This programme shows footage of the Tiger tanks during Operation Citadel, as well as edited highlights of two German Army training films from late 1943 and mid 1944. Including two major military productions, the first of these films was produced to show how to convert the Panther tank, allowing it to successfully deal with the extensive Soviet defences like those it encountered at its debut in Kursk. The second film from 1944, made for the benefit of personnel serving in Sdkfz 251 Ds and the Panzerjaeger IV, may well be the only footage of this type to survive the war. Finally there are sequences showing such machines as the late Model Brummbaer which round off this fascinating assemblage of unique footage of German armoured fighting vehicles from the latter part of WW2.

Guns of the Wehrmacht 1933 - 1945.

The effectiveness of its artillery arm was one of the dominating features of the German Army on the battlefields of the Western Front in the First World War. Indeed, a specific requirement of the Treaty of Versailles was that the new Reichswehr be denied heavy artillery. The expertise and technology that had made the artillery arm so effective in that conflict were never lost. So that when re-armament began in Germany 1933, following the Nazi accession to power, the ground was already laid for the rapid expansion of artillery of all types for the new Wehrmacht. While never acquiring the glamour of the Panzer arm, the guns of the Wehrmacht were nevertheless instrumental in serving the German Armed Forces in victory and defeat through to 1945.

The Russian Front 1941-1945 - Stalingrad to Kursk.

Chasseur a Cheval by Brian Palmer (AP)

Lions Captains by Robert Highton.