1/72 battle of the bulge dioramas

sspanzer, firstly welcome to the forums!

next, while i have seen several 1/72 scale d-day dios, i havent seen any yet of the battle of the bulge. my first concern would be where you would get decent figures for the dio, as most of them in that scale are soft plastic and don't take paint of glue well. vehicles on the other hand can be found fairly easily in that scale and can be configured to match the versions used in the battle.

for ideas, you could do something in a town, in a field, a hilly area, and/or forested area. finding and making good trees in that scale though is difficult, so i'd stick with a town or field diorama. verlinden and custom dioramics among other companies make good 1/72 scale buildings. you can find them on one of the many interent model vendors. you could also make your own. there was an article in FSM awhile back on making buildings using wood, spackle, and other materials. you could do U.S. infantry in line, or on the march, and something similar for the germans and their armor. you could even try working on patton's drive to bastogne.

specifically with snow, a lot of guys use baking soda. what you're looking for is a white powder that doesn't harden smooth when glued or applied to something, and is fine enough to look like snow in that scale.

as for pics of reference, i havent donw much about the bulge, so the best advice i can give you is to do a google search on the bulge and for other info you need.

hope it helps. post up some progress as you go, and feel free to ask any more questions.

Actually Italeri makes both an Infantry kit which I believe is the esci kit (but I could be wrong) and a beautiful American airborne kit and they are both made out of plastic and not vinyl and are easily painted. These kits run circles around Revells vinyl figures as far as detail and paintability. Another choice is Dragons LCM kit which includes 12 very figures which are made out a very soft material which is gluable and paintable. These are all multipose with seperate legs torsos arms etc., the weapons are on seperate hard plastic sprues which seem fairly nice. Something that Ive noticed is that these tend to harden after gluing and they hold paint much better that vinyl. Mirage has a wonderful M3 LEE 5 figure kit which I am using on a Italeri sherman kit as I have seen pictures of tankers in some of this gear. The detail on these figs is astounding and the price is reasonable and they are available from Sqradron.

Here is an early picture and I will try to post some more later.IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/1003/cplchilly/IMG_09131.jpg[/IMG] The GMC's are from Heller Airfix and are quite good a small note buy the Airfix kit as it is about half the price because it doesnt come with the paint and brush but is exactly the same kit. PST also makes great GMC's and Studebakers and as a matter of fact one of the trucks has the PST steer tires which the more accurate 6 hole rims. The Jeep and Kettenkrad are from Academy kit which also has a Kubelwagon in it. The sherman is the Italeri kit which very nice but the problem is that this vehicle didnt exist in this form. So I added the applique armor over the Ammo bins as theyre are stories of late M4a1 hulls having the 76 MM turrets removed and a 75MM turret put on in time for the invasion. By the way here is a site you will want to visit as it is the best 1/72 site on the planet. Itshttp://www.ontheway.org.uk/default.htm and is my favorite site now. The M8 kit is the Italeri kit and is a nice kit also.

Thanks all for your idears,gringe88 i have brought revell us and german infantry both in late winter uniforms.I am thinking of doing a two Jagdpanthers crossing a snowy feild with infantry support mabey an american sherman knocked out and american infantry running away while some give covering fire,i know of a web site where i can get some srubs and tress.Snow i need something that is going to saty there and not going to fall of i was thinking mabey plasta? i also want to put some on the tanks. Now dirt what to i use to make dirt/mud?also dead solders is there a kit for this i would like a few germans and americans dead or can i make them some how?, i dont know tell me what you think....
thanks cplchilly for the site it is great.

plaster could work, but it may just harden when glued down and is diffeicult to work in the thin layers you would need. if you do use it though, i'd suggest putting it on after you have all the figures and vehicles in place, as it may make adding them difficult later on.

for dirt, you could just use natures own. just make sure to sift it to as fine a grain as possible, and make sure its really dried out before you use it. sand could also do.

as for dead troops, I'm not sure who would something like that in such a small scale. I'd ask cplchilly again about that. my beset advice would be to take soldiers with certain poses (if they're molded solid, with out separate limbs) that could look dead if you posed them on the ground. if they have weapons in they're hands, try and cut them off, and try not to make it look like they were just standing figures that were pushed over, thats a common mistake. if you can, work them so that they lie on the ground like a real person would. thats the best help i can offer.

again, check with chilly about the figs question, he seems to be more up on the subject. glad i could be of service. just post if you need anything else.

Preiser makes all kinds of great 1/72 scale figures. Buy the unpainted ones and paint them yourself: save you a ton of money. Preiser makes some figures molded as solid persons and they make some as kits that you glue together yourself. Kits are a painstaking way to make 1/72 scale figures, but it's really easy to make good corpses. Corpses are particularly easy to make because you don't have to paint a lot of details (since most are face-down).

I dont recall seeing anything in 1/72 just 1/35 when it comes to corpses although there usually enough figures in a variety of poses that only need minor changes prone machine gunners are very close and just modifieing a leg and an arm will get you want. As for snow try Modge Podge mixed with baking soda I cant remember the site where I got that one but It looks really great. You find M D in craft stores like Micheals and it is fairly inexpensive.

Hi all,
I just tryed plasta and baking soda,i got the plasta spread it out on a peace of wood so it was thin and smouth and then i sprekled baking soda on to it,it looks realy great better then what i thought it would.cheers for your idears on the dead men i should be able to think of something.

make sure you make craters and pt holes in the ground work.. the Bulge was pounded by German artillery, especially if you are doing Bastogne... for sno, Verlinden makes stuff out of Microballoons which whisps just like the real stuff and stays on with using only hairspray for the adhesive!