Help with New Verlinden Diorama Base

Charlie,

   It would help us if you could post a link to your product in question, or a image of it, so that we would could see the problems you are describing. Having Googled the name for an image, I can now be familiar with it.

 I wouldn't worry about the drum being too small, it doesn't necessarily have to be a 55 gallon fuel drum. Lots of other products, such as grease, industrial chemicals, food stuffs, etc., come in various sizes and shapes of steel drums. I wouldn't worry about the sand bag size too much either, who knows where they could have come from? Maybe they are leftover flour bags from some field kitchen, used as sandbags, or whatever was found laying around? Not worth worrying about.

As for your rubber boat.....Humm. The muddy water depicted in the foreground isn't really meant to represent a shoreline, IMHO. More likely it represents the muddy conditions so common to the Eastern Front, as the boardwalks are there to keep one from having to trudge through the mud. You certainly could use this base as depicting a shoreline of a river or lake, with the tunnel leading into a underground bunker, but do you have enough room on the base to fit the rubber boat without it being too cramped? I don't know....

 Hey, it's your model, do what you think looks good!

Kykeon:

Hi!  Sorry it took so long for me to respond to your answer but my ID expired and I needed to enter the new code from the latest FSM.  I really appreciate you taking the time to respond - it was looking like I had posted a stinker when no one responded.   I  tried putting the link to the base from the Squadron page as you suggested but I couldn't get it to appear in this email.  Sorry you had to go to the trouble of finding it via a web search.

The more I look at the base and not the picture, I  agree with what you are saying about the water.  My plan was to extend the base out a couple inches by using one of those build it yourself picture frame sets, gluing a thick piece of sheet plastic to the frame underneath where the picture normally goes, and then filling in the empty part with celluclay to try and match it up to rest of the mud base.  I was then going to sand off a lot of the debris in the mud and then use a couple layers of the acrylic water from Woodland Scenics around the boat. Guess I'll have to go back to the drawing board - maybe I'll make some puddles and depict the rest as mud as you suggest.

Again, I really appreciate your help/comments - at least now I can get over the way I felt about the scale issues and move on with the build.

Thanks

Charlie

Hey, no problem. I was thinking about what you said, and lengthening the area out around the water would work if you wanted to use the boat. I can think of some photos I've seen where troops have dug-in on the far shore of a river, where the river bank might be the only cover they had. Building a supply bunker or personnel shelter here would make sense, as it would be out of sight and the line of fire from the enemy. The Russians did a lot of this on the west bank of the Volga at Stalingrad, as I'm sure was repeated in numerous other places as well. It would also be a good place to put a wrecked tank, maybe incorporating it with the dug-out, digging out the dirt underneath, adding some boards and using it as a command post, MG nest or sniper site. The Germans did this a lot, as I have many photos of just such a arrangement. Let me know if you need some pics, I've got a ton of them!

Kykeon:

Hi!  Sounds interesting.  I was talking to a good friend of mine and he suggested replacing the wooden bridge over the dug out with the bridging ramps off the  Dragon 151/7 kit.  We  test fit  them and they do fit.  Lots of options  but I'd appreciate some of the pictures you  speak of (pick out the ones you would use if you were doing this project).  Please send them to my direct email  so I can download them  to my  hard drive.   Looks like I'm going to have to rethink the whole project.  Good Stuff!

Thanks

Charlie

I'll see what I can find, though most of the tank wrecks turned into bunker shots I have are of T-34s.

Here is a classic example, note the mix of rubber rimmed and steel road wheels, with the rubber burned off the front wheel;

If you don't mind, I'd just as soon post them here, as I'm having problems with my e-mail. You should be able to left click on the photo and save it.

If I were building this using your Verlinden piece, I would cut away part of the plaster under the tracks and embed the tank nose down in the mud. Maybe jack the turret out of it's race just slightly and add a shot hole or two, just to make it look KOed. Open the hatches and stuff a dead crew member in if you want, but not if you are planning to enter this in a show, judges don't like gore, IMHO. I would cut way more plaster underneath the rear of the tank and put in a MG, observation post, radio, or sniper position. Additional sandbags, logs or dirt could be piled in front of the position. Cut a tunnel from under the tank and have it open onto the boardwalk and maybe cover the opening with some boards as seen here. Shepard Paine (as I recall) built one of these a while back, I think it is in his How to Build Dioramas, vol II.

I should have some more of these, but it might take me a while to find them.

Kykeon wrote:

Maybe jack the turret out of it's race just slightly and add a shot hole or two, just to make it look KOed. Open the hatches and stuff a dead crew member in if you want,

If the tank has cooked off enough to pop the turret, any guy in the tank would be vaporized or creamated. If he were in the classic commander's position, he'd be blown out of the turret,or at least he top half of him would.

but not if you are planning to enter this in a show, judges don't like gore,

There are national level IPMS rules that deal with this, but on a pesonal level, most attempts at gore are way overdone. more along the lines of the blood depicted in 1970's action movies, way too red, even against a dark uniform.That's where I, as a judge, would find fault. If it were realistically portrayed, alizarin crimson against skin or on a white/light surface and very dark maroon anywhere else, I'd give additional consideration for realism.

I should have phrased the turret jacking / dead guy thing as a and/or proposition, that is why I put the "maybe" in the phrase. I didn't intend for them to be concurrent. Just brain storming suggestions here, don't necessarily use all of them in conjunction with each other....

While I'm sure this guy has looked better at any time previously, he certainly isn't vaporized or cremated, as he still has his fingers at least;  

Besides, I wasn't talking about catastrophic detonation here. A well placed (or just lucky) 88 AP round, (or two) is quite sufficient to knock a T-34 turret askew, without necessarily brewing it up. But yes, brewing up would be more than enough heat to KFC extra-crispy anyone inside.

I also don't advocate anyone modeling a scene such as this, it certainly won't score any points with anyone, no matter how good of a modeler you are.

As an even more morbid sidenote.....look at the shot hole in the turret....then see the Red Star.....the aiming point.....

Guys:

Hi!  Kykeon, thanks for the picture, interesting stuff - lots to think about here. The base where the bridge part is is only big enough to fit a jeep or something around that size - maybe a Pz I but I doubt it.  I like your orginal idea using the mud etc.    I'm still working on my Dragon Pz IV Ausf C which is taking  forever due to all the detail but I hope that it will be worth it.  I was hoping to squeeze the dio base in as relief from the Pz IV but that's not looking like it going to happen soon.  I have printed out this posting and will refer to it once I finally do get to the base.

Again, Thanks for all your help!

Charrlie