Zaffod Posted July 11, 2001 Share Posted July 11, 2001 Hey dudes... just thought everyone might be interested in this schtuff.. me n some friends went to fort knox in louiville, KY to see a live reiactment complete with tanks, authentic infantry uniforms and guns! It was really amazing. It was suppose to depict action in germany near the end of the war and involved an american recon group cresting a hill and infiltrating a german at position. They had a hetzer and a jgdpanzer IV out along with a full scale psw that this dude build from scratch! of course there was a kubel and 2 at guns.. camo and everything!! they started off with 2 stuarts comin up and then down the hill at full speed.. pretty cool site to see.. of course, i didnt have my camera! ;-( then one recived a hit and white smoke started pouring out of it.. pretty neat.. by this time the american troops began a close combat shootout with a bunch of ss guys tightly packed in a gully. the tactics of course didnt seem super real.. but ill be damned if the actors themselves didnt look like the real thing. They had an mg 34 a few 30 cals and like 1 50 cal.. the sounds were very 'poppy'.. typical blanks, i guess.. but i remember a few guys with mp 40s that sounded too real.. real cool ****. They even had medics comin to the aid of the fallen guys... though at the close quarters it was at.. they would have been falling a lot faster.. it was all still neat to see nonetheless.. ive never seen any reinactment before... i think they do this thing at ft knox every 4th of july. Anybody do anything similar on their 4th or recently this summer? id be interested in finding out about the variety of ww2 reinactment groups out there.. i never thought there were that many.. funny thing was i was talkin to one or 2 of the guys after it was all over and almost went into the 'HAVE YOU EVER PLAYED COMBAT MISSION, MAN!! ITS SOO COOL!!' speal.. but i hesitated and calmed down.. If anyone is familiar with this, share... Id love to hear about what else is out there... Zaff' out ***************************************** "Unser Boot!!!!!!" -Captain from 'Das Boot' <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jhdeerslayer Posted July 11, 2001 Share Posted July 11, 2001 I've seen that too about ten years ago and it's awesome ! When I was there a couple of P-51's came by and did a strafing run with blanks also. Very cool. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. Brian Posted July 11, 2001 Share Posted July 11, 2001 I've seen these. A guy I use to work with was part of a club, and he even been asked to "join" as a member about 12 years ago. But I started to think about it, and I realized that the guy that was asking me didn't look like he had a full 52 cards in his deck. I'm just waiting for someone to go overboard and use real bullets. In fact, I recall that this already happened a few years ago in a Civil War re-enactment. Made me realize I made the right decision. It is very frightening. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jgdpzr Posted July 11, 2001 Share Posted July 11, 2001 I go to Fort Knox every year (for the past 7 years or so). We always arrive way too early and have to sit around too long. So this year, we decided to arrive just before it started. It has always started at 1:00 (according to our recollection, anyway) but this year apparently they started at noon. We arrived and thought, man, what a great parking spot. Then we noticed there was nobody there practically. DOH! Still, I got to climb around and inside the jpzr IV (which happens to be my favorite AFV of the war) and watch it roll off and up to the flatbed truck. That was cool! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeT Posted July 11, 2001 Share Posted July 11, 2001 Dr Brian, I talked to one CW reenactor about this incident and about another incident. In the first the reenactor forgot to unload his rifle before the mock battle commenced. A few of this reenactors fire real rounds from their rifles as part of shooting competitions, most do not for obvious safety reasons. He simply forgot, according to the study of what happen, to insure that his rifle was unloaded. Major mistake on his part. If you watch closely these reenactments you will notice that when armies shoot they aim skyward. This is to lessen any problems with this and to prevent something such as wadding from hitting the opposite. Given the number of people involved and what is happening the injury rate is unbelieveably low. Compared to drinking and driving it is even lower. The second incident was when a very young person was allowed to load a cannon. He screwed up and rammed hope a powder charge into a barrel that had buring embers. The charge went off and he lost some fingers. First of all there is a minimum age and he was 2 years younger than that. Secondly, he didn't properly insure that the cannon was cleared to receive a charge, but that was most likely due to his age. Reenacting is very safe and the injury rate is slight. I have talked to some reenactors and found them to be people with a love of history and a strong desire to know all they can. MikeT Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
offtaskagain Posted July 11, 2001 Share Posted July 11, 2001 I saw one at Fort Snelling in Minneappolis that had a Sherman, a Stug, a 251/1 and a Kubel. That one was pretty cool because they had a ton of artilllery simulators. The Stug also shot blanks, which was even louder. It KO'd the Sherman of course. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ts9 Posted July 11, 2001 Share Posted July 11, 2001 As a re-enactor I can tell you that the best battles are the ones the public never sees. Unlike Civil War battles which can take place in large open areas easily viewed by the public, WWII combat does not translate well to a public display. Our group uses public events more as a recruiting tool than anything else. Public battles are intended to supply the viewers with a "flashbang" experience more than anything else. In the years I've been re-enacting I've never seen live ammo at an event (not to say it couldn't happen)and safety is absolutely #1 in our minds. The last thing this hobby would need is an accident involving live ammo. The true "tacticals" are closed to the public (kind of ruins the experience to be running a patrol through the woods and have spectators point out a MG42 nest for you.) It's a fun hobby though it can be rather expensive to do correctly. I do 3 "impressions", GI as a member of the 2nd Rangers, British Airbourne, and Russian Infantry. I've got thousands of dollars invested, most of that in the GI impression, and a large chunk of that in my BAR Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reichpapers Posted July 11, 2001 Share Posted July 11, 2001 I also reenact German Infantry. It is very fun and very expensive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hanns Posted July 12, 2001 Share Posted July 12, 2001 One of the guys I used to work with got into the WWII re-enactments. Looks like a lot of fun. Me, I prefer to get drunk and beat people with sticks (SCA). I've seen the local group put on demonstrations at Ft. Snelling, MN the last couple of years. I know they had to postpone one a few years back because the local National Guard troops help them out moving their big vehicles and the NG guys were deploying to Bosnia (hehe, the European Theatre just never ends). The guy I worked with, Andrew was in a local SS unit that owns the SPW 250/1 and a ton of full auto weapons. He was looking at getting a curio and relic license so he could buy a number matched StG45 :eek: Talk about pricey for an original though! Looks like a lot of fun in a politically incorrect way (esp. for the Germans) but way more pricey than what I do. I remember he had some cool videos of his unit ambushing some 82nd Airborne troops, they opened up with a MG42, 2 MG34s, 4 MP40s and a StG45 That was a cool video. Hanns Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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