A World War II German Panzer crew stationed in Greece. Commander, loader, driver, radio operator and gunner.
They're all based on the SS Panzer crew seen in The Darers Go First Raid, an episode of the classic 1960s World War II adventure series The Rat Patrol. I drew them as cats instead of squirrels because all my Germans can't be squirrels, and changed them to a Heer crew because there's less stigma attached to them than to the SS and I'm trying to move away from the SS anyway. That, and I think the Wehrmacht wreath insignia is more beautiful than the plain SS skull and crossbones. It was a simple matter of substituting the wreath for the skull; the uniforms are otherwise more or less identical to what was seen in the episode.
The commander and loader are based on series regulars Manfred Lating and Norbert Meisel, who kept reappearing in different episodes as different characters (anytime someone was needed for a German-speaking supporting role, one or both of these guys got tapped to do it). I made the commander blonde whereas Lating has brown hair, though. He's tentatively named Sturm, after another one of Manfred Lating's characters in The Kill At Koorlea Raid.
The "gunner" was a bit tricky. The guy he's based on was never seen in the tank and gets killed attempting to snipe Sam Troy with a scoped K98 so I had to guess at what his role in the tank may have been, and I settled on bow gunner. He also had gray hair but I made him blonde so he'd appear younger. There's a sixth Panzer crewman from the episode still to be drawn as a furry, who also is never seen inside the tank so what role he has among the crew I'm unsure (mechanic?). Oh well.
FYI, in typical Hollywood fashion, what the dialogue in the episode keeps referring to as a "Mark III" Panzer in the episode is actually a Sherman painted Afrika Korps yellow (odd as it's intended to be an SS tank, but I guess desert camo is desert camo) and given German markings to play the part. Ah, 1960s TV, you were so charmingly lazy.
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9 years, 6 months ago
10 Apr 2015 05:15 CEST
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