History Fridge / Girlsundpanzer

* Anteater's team is made up of [[GamerGirl gamer girls]] [[IKnowMortalKombat who thought they could qualify as tank drivers after minimal experience because they were all World of Tanks fanatics.]] Unsurprisingly, their tank is incapacitated during the first minutes of the final battle, before they so much as get to fire a shot. The tank they use? The Type-3 Chi-Nu, ''a Japanese tank which, just like them, never saw actual combat!''

* Why does Anzu never get anyone to locate and retrieve the tanks on the Ooarai BEFORE reinstating Sensha-do? Considering Ooarai could be shut down she should actually make sure the school has the resources for Sensha-do before putting her plan into action. Well as [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEx96pIJm3I Ascendant Fiction]] points out, this may be part of her plan to succeed at Sensha-do. She knows there are tanks on the carrier but also knows that the different cliques that signed up will be more motivated to perform better and take care of their tanks if they go out and find them themselves, creating a larger sense of comradery and morale between the members of the new Ooarai team that wouldn't have been there if they were just handed a tank fresh out of the hangar.

* The school ships' crews consist of children. [[FridTTgeHorror Many of the duties of a crew are hazardous, and a ship isn't all that different from a factory.]] And what are these kids going to do if the ship is indeed decommissioned? They don't seem to have anywhere else to go...

* The school ships' crews consist of children. [[FridgeHorror Many of the duties of a crew are hazardous, and a ship isn't all that different from a factory.]]

* Sensha-do/Tankery/Panzerkraft being dominated by women makes sense when you remember that girls tend to generally be shorter in height than boys. Tanks, especially those of the eras allowed in the sport tend to be very cramped. So girls are just more physically suited to working in tanks.

** That doesn't exclude the possibility of male trainers and and coaches, women's gymnastics being a fair example.
** Saori's "strategy", such as it is, seems to consist of becoming the sort of celebrity athlete whom guys fawn over - think of female tennis players, for instance. The flaw in her plan is that most sportswomen show up prominently in match footage, instead of being cooped up inside a METAL BAWKS until it's all over.
*** Also, the usual player that fans will fawn over in a team sport is the team's ace/star player. In Ooarai's case, that would be Miho. Also her position as radio operator would certainly lessen her chances of being recognized, unlike Miho, who is the commander and the face of Ooarai's tankery squad.

** {{Jossed}}. The battle map [[AllThereInTheManual shown in the manga]] (its actually [[FreezeFrameBonus briefly shown on-screen]] in Episode 2) shows that the reason they went on the bridge was only to cross the river to get at the Council team. So it's not that Miho handles tank bounces better than a Warthog-launching ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'' player, it's just that she is [[PlotArmor insanely lucky]]. Also, [[WordOfGod Mizushima said in a twitter]] that the round just happened to miss hitting anything vital [[PlotArmor for a few millimeters]][[note]]quoted, "Simulator caliculates mock penetration status as it goes in its half way to engine room's blank corner space, so, that round(warhead's own signature chip's signal) was AP, not HE or SAP, then system did not judge damage as much as demobilize status, did not raise White Flag at that time. If that round goes in deeper or collide in slight different angle (as sim judge so verchally), they've knocked out."[[/note]]
*** The above was commented upon in the Animesuki forums as "So [[FanNickname Kampfgruppe Miho]] had the tank-equivalent of a bullet going through the helmet but missing the head? Neat-o."

* In the manga,after the team acquire the Char B1 bis, but before the [[FanNickname Sodoko Collective]] volunteer to crew it, it's crewed by Aya Oono from Rabbit team, Erwin, and Yukarin. Why those three?
** Aya is the gunner for the M3 Lee's 37mm gun - one of the lightest guns in the team, and thus easiest to man singlehandedly, and from the tank with the most crew to pick up the slack.
** Why Erwin and Yukari? Because as obsessive tank and WWII {{Otaku}}, they would [[ChekhovsSkill know the most]] about [[IKnowMaddenKombat a tank they haven't specifically trained in!]]

* All the commanders that Miho faces until the finals not only contradict the Nishizumi School of sensha-do but also teach her a valuable lesson to help Miho solidify her own version of sensha-do.
** [[OfficerAndAGentleman Darjeeling of St. Gloriana]] presents a chivalric and cultured approach to sensha-do. Respect for a WorthyOpponent is probably irrelevant or even heretical in the Nishizumi School.
** [[BoisterousBruiser Kay of Saunders]] regards sensha-do as a sport rather than a war. Thus fair play and sportsmanship are just as important if not more important than victory.
** [[SoreLoser Manga!Anchovy of Anzio]] right out states that victory is not an end unto itself, it is what a commander should deliver to her team as a reward for their efforts. [[GracefulLoser Anime!Anchovy]] and her school instead display the value of camaraderie. Despite their loss, they are in high spirits and invite the Ōarai girls to a party right after the match, showing that sensha-do to them is fun rather than work and that they are friends before they are a team.
** [[TheNapoleon Katyusha of Pravda]] uses feints and tactics despite her overwhelming materiel superiority. She teaches Miho the dangers of complacency (albeit indirectly) and that the GermanicEfficiency of the Nishizumi School is not always the best approach even when you have the advantage.

** Also consider Kei's reaction to Yukari's 'Oddball' reference. Probably pegged Yukari as a fellow tank otaku and would more likely give her a pass.
** Also, spying before matches seems to be seen as more sporting that radio intercepts. Likely because both teams can theoretically do it, whilst radio interception requires actually tooling up for it, which needs money.
** The BD booklets yield some light on the issue: Yukari did something they are EXPLICITLY ALLOWED to do (recon before games), while Alisa used a glaring loophole ([[ExactWords rules forbid using "radio intercept]] ''[[ExactWords airplanes]]''[[ExactWords ", she used a radio intercept ]]''[[ExactWords balloon]]'') to do anyway something that they are EXPLICITLY FORBIDDEN to do.

** Actually, NATO tank commanders do prefer fighting with their heads out of the cupola. There's still no replacement for the old Mk. I eyeball, and even modern cupolas still have a limited field of vision.

* Miho's team name and emblem is an anglerfish. Fits well with Ooarai's AnimalThemeNaming doesn't it? An anglerfish hunts its prey by hiding and waving around a bait until some poor fish gets fooled and ultimately eaten. If you take note of most of Miho's strategies, most of them include misdirections, feints, and most importantly, ''a bait'' in order to succeed.
** And one way to translate "Hetzer" is "baiter"...

** Then in ''Motto Love Love Sakusen Desu'', [[spoiler:Alisa tries to infiltrate Ōarai, but thanks to her terrible disguise, she gets caught fairly early on and taken as a "prisoner of war", resulting in Kay and Naomi coming over and, after spending some time with Ōarai, bringing Alisa home]].

** [[spoiler: The movie then reveals that MEXT ''still closes'' Ōarai despite their promise of not doing so if they won the tournament, simply because they think Ōarai won because of luck. If they can do this to the tournament winning school, they can do this to any school under their jurisdiction.]]

* When Miho is riding with her head outside the tank in the second episode "''Sensha, Norimasu!''", Saori pleads with her to put her head back inside the tank, in case she gets hit. Miho replies that people barely ever get hit...which implies that sometimes, ''they do''. 75mm shell + Child's Head = [[Memes/MontyPython Ex-Child]].
** Not to mention the fact that tanks are sometimes sent rolling. What happens if somebody's poking their head out at the time?

* The emphasis of the Ooarai team on somewhat unconventional tank warfare, especially their preference to bringing the fight into tight spaces isn't just there to make the show interesting, it may actually be a reflection of the real world Japan Ground Self Defense Force's tank doctrine. Japan as a whole is a country that is ill suited to tanks, with lots of forested, mountainous terrain, with large urban pockets in between. Even their current main battle tank, the Type 10 ''Hinomaru'' is designed around these - being a highly modular tank that can be made light enough to be transported to places in ways that heavier tanks cant. Ami Chono being air dropped in one in the show is just an extreme example of this.

* The emphasis of the Ooarai team on somewhat unconventional tank warfare, especially their preference to bringing the fight into tight spaces isn't just there to make the show interesting, it may actually be a reflection of the real world Japan Ground Self Defense Force's tank doctrine. Japan as a whole is a country that is ill suited to tanks, with lots of forested, mountainous terrain, with large urban pockets in between. Even their current main battle tank, the Type 10 ''Hinomaru'' is designed around these - being a highly modular tank that can be made light enough to be transported to places in ways that heavier tanks cant. Ami Chono being air dropped in one in the show is just an example of this.