Depiction of armoured cars in WW1 movie (and a quick talk on Romanian WW1 themed movies)

[Morar Andrei]

I have recently watched an old Romanian war movie called ”Triunghiul Morții”, made in the 90s. It presents the three major battles that took place in Moldavia in the summer of 1917 (Mărăști, Mărășești and Oituz), and I could not help but noticed some of the background details. Besides the large number of extras used for battle scenes, combined with practical effects (one of the advantages in Romania at the time being that military service was mandatory, so extras who had army training were easy to find), I wanted to talk about three armoured car models that can be noticed in a battle scene. The three vehicles are owned by the German Army, and are used as support in assaulting a Romanian fortified position (in the movie link I will post below, the entire battle sequence starts at 1:54:00). One of them looks quite close to an Ehrhardt armoured car, while the other two might be inspired by the Italian car made by Lancia and the French Renault or Citroen armoured cars.But what do you think? How well are they realised, and what do you think about the battle depiction in this movies, and in other Romanian wa movies, given the limitations of the time and are when these movies were made?

 

Link to the movie (it can be seen integrally on Youtube, unfortunately this version does not have English subtitles): https://youtu.be/xDznjzXbg4A

 

 

 

The three armoured cars

Edited 25 January , 2020 by Morar Andrei

[Moonraker]

Watch the film here.

 

Sadly I can't find a version dubbed into English or with English sub-titles.

 

Moonraker

[Morar Andrei]

At least, what do you think about the armpured cars? I think that was my main point with this thread.

[Morar Andrei]

On 18/01/2020 at 19:40, Moonraker said:

Watch the film here.

 

Sadly I can't find a version dubbed into English or with English sub-titles.

 

Moonraker

 

 

I will try making a montage of the battle scenes from this movie, and perhaps add English subtitles too, in order for you to enjoy it more. Until that, I have this shot from the battle with the armoured cars. 

[Gardenerbill]

Here's a link to images of Rolls Royce armoured cars 

Rolls Royce

 

So fairly similar.

 

But actually more like the:

 

Austin

 

Edited 22 January , 2020 by Gardenerbill

[Morar Andrei]

For me, the three cars looked more like these:

 

Lancia Ansaldo IZ https://tanks-encyclopedia.com/ww1/italy/Lancia-Ansaldo_IZM.php

 

Peugeot AM 1914 https://tanks-encyclopedia.com/ww1/fr/Peugeot_Armoured_car.php (looks like a mix between the AC and AM versions, as I don't think think the AM had a turret for the machine-gun, but the movie model has a machine-gun, not a cannon) 

 

Ehrhardt E-V/4 https://tanks-encyclopedia.com/ww1/germany/Ehrhardt_EV4.php (funny enough, it was actually used on the Romanian front in 1917, so it's not wrong that it was depicted in the movie) 

 

 Again, we need to take into account that the ones owning those cars are the Germans, who were preparing to attack the fortified positions of captain Grigore Ignat's machine-gun company on Hill 100. 

[Morar Andrei]

Check the movie more closely, the Citroen might be the AC version, since it fired only once something that looked like a cannon round, and because it has a turret with a short, kinda thick weapon. 

 

[Morar Andrei]

On 22/01/2020 at 14:58, Morar Andrei said:

 

 

I will try making a montage of the battle scenes from this movie, and perhaps add English subtitles too, in order for you to enjoy it more. Until that, I have this shot from the battle with the armoured cars. 

 

 

Sorry I have not done it yet. I wanted to make the video ever since I started the thread, but I got a few problems on the way, from school to medical issues. 

[Guest]

Some of the armoured cars being supposed to be Lancias (they have most of the right characteristics but in the wrong proportions) might make sense because a number were captured from the Italians during the retreat from Caporetto and subsequently used by the Germans. The timing would be out though because Caporetto wasn't till the end of 1917. However as the armoured cars seem to be a rather free interpretation of a period armoured car the director may also have been a bit free with the time line. Also the ones captured were the early type with a double turret. The picture is from the website shown in the lower left corner.

Romania does provide me with another interesting avenue of research into what I think ought properly be called Ansaldo Lancia 1Z armoured cars.

Edited 15 January , 2021 by Guest
Extra detail and picture added.