Search - Hummel - Mobile Heavy Artillery on DVD

Mis-titled but well done

A Reader | CA, United States | 10/09/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"'Hummel - Mobile Heavy Artillery' is a very mis-titled documentary. It is not a video about the Hummel but about ALL WW2 German towed and self-propelled artillery and AT guns. The Hummel is covered but only briefly. The film gives a very nice overview of all of the major guns from the beginning of the war until the end. It includes operational coverage of the guns on all fronts. The narration is clear and the background sounds are OK although I am pretty sure the sounds are dubbed and not authentic. The video itself is very good. It includes some very rare footage including the only video I have ever seen of a Bison. If you have an interest in WW2 German guns this is a must get video but if you are looking for an in-depth piece on the Hummel this is not it."

Good, but needs to be 3 programs, not one

V. R. Padgett | Whittier, California, United States | 05/31/2007

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Heavy on technical details. The 57 minutes is too full of information. It would have been better as three separate programs of one hour each:

1) Self-propelled artillery;

2) FLAKpanzers (anti-aircraft guns), and

3) Panzerwerfers (Rocket Artillery).

The few minutes given the last two topics were by no means enough to do them justice. For example, we learn that one round for the Werfer contained "11 gallons of jellied petroleum." Sounds like napalm to me. I would have liked to have heard a bit more on the use of that.

The program is not about towed artillery-- that is another program in the same series.

"Hummel" title is arbitrary-- could as well have been "Marder" or "Nashhorn" or "Wespe" or just "SP Guns." (The subtitle of the CD does reveal that the topic is Mobile Heavy Artillery.) Brummbär are also featured but they belong in the StuG CD.

The program moves quickly. I watched it twice and I'm sure I missed a lot. Plan on viewing it 3 or 4 times.

Criticism: Narrator jumps between Eastern Front, and Italy, and France. Elements of human interest are left hanging while we hear the production numbers or other technical details-- for example, during a scene in which an SS officer, with oak leaves to his Knight's Cross, and an oddly-shaking right hand, awards medals to a few haggard and bearded SS troops (with an SP gun in the background)-- why not make mention of who and where these men were?

Finally, the narrator references the color schemes of various SP guns, which is annoying given that nearly all the footage is black and white."

German self-propelled artillery from World War II

J. Monty | Colorado, USA | 09/12/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"While it is true that this DVD does cover more than just the Hummel I give it 5 stars since it's very informative and is chocked-full of great footage of self-propelled artillery in-action with the Germans during WWII. I own 5 DVD's so far from this collection and I've really enjoyed watching them all. The narration on this DVD is relevant to the content and very accurate, unlike some of the other DVD's out there on similar subjects. The video footage is simply amazing (it is not the same video you see everywhere else). If you are interested in German military vehicles/equipment from WWII then I highly recommend this DVD for your collection (it's especially helpful to those who are interested in WWII scale model building). A great DVD and a great value (who can argue with the price?). In response to the other Amazon review comment about too much time being spent on irrelevant subjects on this DVD, I just can't disagree more. While the primary title "Hummel" may be misleading the DVD focuses entirely on Self Propelled Artillery and stays on target with that subject from the beginning to the end. You will not find a DVD series that is this specialized on specific German WWII military vehicles/equipment anywhere else."

Top Tier for this series

R. Meyer | USA | 11/20/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I'll say it once more for our readers, this is not a specific DVD on the Hummel self propelled Panzer artillery unit. The Hummel itself has a very minor amount of time devoted to it in this DVD, along with minimal film footage.

That said, don't let that put you off of this DVD. This is a great value item if you are interested in learning about all the different armored vehicle classes that originated with each successive outdated Panzer Tank chassis. For instance, you will learn about the very rare SiG 1b self propelled artillery that was built upon the Panzer I chassis, and the subsequent Tank Destroyer class PzJgd 1b.

From there this documentary basically works it's way up the ladder, showing you many successive Tank Destroyers (sometimes referred to as Tank Hunter) on the Panzer II, Panzer III, Panzer IV, and Panther chassis', along with how these chassis were modified to hold new and innovative self proppeled artillery vehicles which included the Hummel,and Wespe. The only thing confusing is that this documentary is not taken in chronological order, for instance you won't even see the rare footage of the SiG 1b until halfway through the DVD.

This documentary also deals with mobile anti-aircraft weapons built upon the same Panzer chassis as the artillery. Excellent footage of everything involved in here. You cannot get a better deal for this kind of authentic film footage of the German war machine in action. This particular DVD has plenty of combat footage, it's not just simply news reel propaganda. Very informative, very well done, and very cheap. It could stand to be more focused, but the excellent footage simply overshadows the order of the narration."