"I came, I saw, I shot" is inspired by the famous quote of Julius Caesar.
The birthdays of the members of Team Anglerfish are all dates for WWII battles:
Miho = Operation Lightfoot (Second Battle of El Alamein, 23 October 1942)
Saori = Operation Barbarossa (German invasion of the Soviet Union, 22 June 1941)
Hana = Operation Wacht am Rhein (Battle of the Bulge, 16 December 1944)
Yukari = Operation Overlord (D-Day, Allied invasion of occupied France, 6 June 1944)
Mako = Operation Fall Weiss (Case White, German invasion of Poland, 1 September 1939)
In episode 2, when visiting the tank supply store, Yukari plays a Battlezone (1980) arcade cabinet. Fitting, as it, a tank game, is the ultimate ancestor of every First-Person Shooter ever made.
I episide three, one of the items making the Panzer IV more comfortable is a big stuffed Gekota.
One of the posters in Yukari's room in episode 5 shows a male Wehrmacht tank commander (Captain Ernst von Bauer) in realistic art style. This particular image is from the manga Black Knight Story by Motofumi Kobayashi of Apocalypse Meow fame. Earlier, there's also a poster for his manga Happy Tiger.
From the same room, another poster can be seen, referring to the C82 doujin titled Panther Details by doujin circle EXCEL, which itself is a sequel of a parody of Black Knight Story, titled Shima-Kishi Monogatari.
Yukari's hasty alias "Sergeant Oddball" is a reference to the war movie Kelly's Heroes, which features the namesake character played by Donald Sutherland.
Subtly Lampshaded in-universe as, while Alisa and Naomi yell for someone to apprehend Yukari, Kay immediately bursts out in laughter upon hearing it.
Later, there is an extended Shout-Out to that movie as Yukari climbs a bell tower to get a good sight of Pravda's positions. She doesn't sound the bell, though.
An entire scene from the movie is presented in episode 10 being watched by the Rabbit team. (Specifically, the part where Oddball's tank ambushes a Tiger tank (forgetting they still had a paint round loaded) and are saved from the retaliatory shot due to the narrow alley preventing the turret from turning enough.) It's also Foreshadowing.
In episode 12, Rabbit Team carries out a similar ambush on the enemy Elefant tank destroyer, though being a tank destroyer it has no turret, instead the hull hits the buildings on either side.
Kay may be named after Douglas Kay, a British WWII veteran and Sherman Firefly ace, who took part in the D-Day landings and wrote a history of armored warfare.
The St. Gloriana girls are seen with a pink Land Rover Series IIA, in the "Pink Panther" scheme used by the SAS in Oman.
Momo's "Shoot, shoot, shoot till you drop" line in episode 5 appears to be a small nod to a somewhat obscure OVA called Labyrinth of Flames and a particularly memorable scene involving a tank.
A cover from Takeshi Nogami and Tamura Naoya's Moeyo Sensha Gakkou is seen on the wall of the tank café in episode 5. One of the freshman girls is seen reading a volume of this series back in episode 2. Anzu is also seen holding a copy while Hetzer Trolling Kuromorimine.
Episode 7 has brief shout outs to Generals Bernard Montgomery and Heinz Guderian. Yukari prefers the latter.
The team name (Wild Duck/Mallard) for the B1 bis. All the prewar French tanks are nicknamed 'ducks' in World of Tanks for their shape.
When Pravda asks Ōarai to surrender in episode 8, Momo yells "NUTS!", which was General McAuliffe's response when the Germans asked him to surrender during the siege of Bastogne.
Long before that, as Sodoko was (hopelessly) berating the rest of the team for "not following school regulations", Erwin confronts her, surprisingly, with a Bon Jovi line:
Erwin: It's my life. It's now or never...
The History Club makes numerous references to various historical battles, like Stalingrad. Let's not forget their outfits either, with Erwin wearing a surprisingly faithful duplicate of Erwin Rommel's Schirmmutze hat.
The City Ships are modeled (mostly) after WWII aircraft carriers. OVA 3 shows several more, detailed in the Shown Their Work entry.
Nekota mentions she and the other girls on her team met in an Online Tank Game. Some early subs went ahead and stated the obvious.
The hex grid used for the audience's map display strongly resembles the interface for Steel Panthers.
The Type 3 Chi-Nu found at the parking lot looks exactly like the real one located at the JGSDF Ordnance School in Tsuchiura, Japan, with the metal roof and all.
Miho: Yes! Commence Operation Baiter.note "Hetzer" has been variously translated as "baiter", "harasser" or "troublemaker"
Anzu: Ready?
Yuzu: Yes!
Momo: Yes!
Anzu: Gonna Bait!
The bridge they cross once in episode 11 is labeled as "Remagen Bridge", a reference to both the eponymous movie and the actual battle. Just like its namesake, it collapses after they pass.
The actual destruction of the bridge is a Homage Shot to one from Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind.
Said movie was also one of the cases shown while the First Year team is having a movie night (Battle of the Bulge is another).
In "Das Finale" the team crosses The Bridge on the River Kwai. Though, since they are facing a French team, it might be better called "The Bridge Over the River Kwai".
The urban area in episode 11 and 12 has apartment units similar to those of Kadykchan, a Russian ghost town in the Susumansky District of Magadan Oblast. note Built by GULAG prisoners during the late stages of World War II, the city was home to coal miners, but by 2010, the lack of demand for coal led to the complete depopulation of the town. This is the official story, of course: some parties believe that the Siberian winter took its toll on the aging town, and survivors were evacuated by the Russian military.
Maho's personal Tiger in the final match has the same number (212) atributed to Michael Wittmann's Tiger during the Battle of Villers-Bocage.
Miho's personal Tiger during the previous final tournament match is numbered 217, same as Otto Carius' Tiger.
Ankou Team's "Panzer 5" role call routine in OVA 6 is a wholesale rip of Dairanger's.
In OVA 1, one of the Rabbit Team girls wears a squid shaped hat. This is likely a shout out to director Tsutomu Mizushima's earlier series Squid Girl.
During Rabbit Team's card game in episode 4, the Queen cards bear a striking resemblance to the British Panjandrum.
In the Anzio OVA, Anchovy mentions a "Shimada-style" school of Sensha-do, a likely nod to GuP character designer Humikane Shimada, who's also best known for his designs in Strike Witches.
In the movie, we see the Shimada school in action, and they're no pushovers.
That face-off between Hippo team's StuG III and Carpaccio's Semovente? Based upon a true tale
In what doubles as a Funny Moment, Ribbon Warrior shows us that Saunders used to have an M22 "Locust", but when Arisa wants to use it she learns they had lend-leased it to someone else. The American-designed Locust only saw service in British usage.
Said Locusts then appear being air-dropped from Hamilcar gliders, as they were in Operation Varsity (only time they saw combat), under the name of "Flying Tankers: Volunteer Tankathlon Group" and sporting tiger-face paint jobs - a blatant reference to the shark-face paint jobs of the "Flying Tigers" Volunteer Aviators Group.
And said tiger-face paint job is very similar to a moefied version of the tiger face paint jobs that some US tanks got in the Korea war for morale purposes.
In the movie Girls und Panzer der Film:
Saki is often distracted by a butterfly. ChouCho, the stage name of the artist who performed the theme song for both the series and film, means "butterfly".
The Rabbit Team performs "Operation Mifune", which involves shooting down a ferris wheel to make it roll and disrupt their opponent's encirclement. The name refers to the character Toshiro Mifune from the Steven Spielberg movie 1941 (1979), who also used a similar stunt with a ferris wheel in the movie. Said film in fact was the one Rabbit Team is shown watching during their pre-match preparations.
The poem that Darjeeling uses to call the other schools to help Ooarai in their match against the University Team is the same that the BBC broadcasted in June 1944 to announce to the European resistance that the invasion would begin within the next 48 hours. note At least according to a misconception popularized by The Longest Day. Still, it is awesome.
The T28 Super-Heavy blows off its side armor and outer tracks in order to fit through a narrow alley. This is similar to something Batman does with the Batmobile in Batman Returns.
The Hippo Team girls are seen playing a video game the night before the big match that could be a reference to the Nintendo Wars series.
In prequel spin-off manga Saga of Pravda, St. Gloriana's previous commander, Earl Grey, is cosplaying as a Kingsman agent as her Establishing Character Moment.
The anime itself received an extensive shout out in episode 6 of Anime-Gataris, when that anime's character visit Ooarai.
The Ribbon Warrior spin-off manga has a habit of inserting characters from other popular manga, anime, etc. as spectators of the various tank matches. These include:
Rin, Nadeshiko and Aoi from Laid-Back Camp (Chapter 37, page 5; Chapter 38, page 23)
Seras Victoria from Hellsing (Chapter 43, page 30)
is possibly another Kelly's Heroes
