P-51 Tankbusters

As Miller is dying, he pulls his service Colt .45 and shoots the tank in frustration. Then the tank explodes. P-51 fighters fly over. Apparently they blew up the tank. This is another physics impossibility on several astral planes.

1.) These are P-51D model mustangs. On June 13 P-51s didn't have rockets for ground attack, so this guy had to drop a 500-lb. bomb from a wing rack. To put just one bomb on target, and not blow up Miller, Ryan, and the bridge, this was either the greatest pilot or the luckiest one. Ryan says "P-51s! Sir! Tankbusters!" But another American fighter, the Thunderbolt P-47, was much better at ground attack, and had rockets by June 13. P-51s did attack tanks, but it was an air-superiority fighter, and the slightest hit to its engine would drop it out of the sky.

2.) Okay, if you've read this far you know I'm obsessive, so I'll go even deeper. The P-51s were wearing 78th Fighter Group markings (I think, it's hard to tell without a still shot) Which on 13 June was still using P-47s, not P-51s.

3.) The Tiger's frontal armor seems to take the hit, but the tank also doesn't disintergrate. A 500-lb. bomb would have left a crater, even on a giant like the Tiger I. In fact, with the weight of the tank (over 60 tons) the bomb explosion, and the other hits the bridge took, it's pretty amazing it stood.

Hanks says "Earn this" and dies. No less than General George C. Marshall, Army Chief of Staff and Ike's superior, writes Mrs. Ryan about her dead sons, commenting as live sons of other mothers get to the attack. Ryan then morphs into the old man from the first scene.

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