A few close-ups of the figures. Sorry not the best figure modeler and I tend to paint with what I call the 'three-foot/metre' rule aka they're meant to be seen from that distance instead of close-up so I tend to go for a heavy contrast.

As far as I know no Tiger II was ever penetrated from the hull front, but I did find this photo of one with that appears to be shot though the turret front, so I went with that in photo above for the knocked-out E-100.

Below I dragged out a M26 and Tiger II I'd built years ago just to compare sizes. Not many tanks can make a Tiger II look small...

We tend to be our own worst critics. Personally, I would be thrilled to be able to put together such an intricate scene, and I think you deserve a "Very Well Done"! Glad you decided to post the photos.

Happy New Year!

Mike

Thanks Mike!

I'd consider myself 'competent' but with guys like Bish, Stikpusher, Pawel, Gino, Rob, etc I feel a little embaressed about my stuff.

Still I really did like how the T34 came out, it's the E-100 and diorama that I wish had worked out better.

Happy New Year to you too sir!!!

Wow Gamera,

 This is awesome. I totally love the octopus camo on the E-100 and the finish on the American tank. Great work.

Hey, Cliff, the dio turned out exceptionally well. I really like the weathering on both tanks, and the octopus camo turned out great. The shading on the T-34 is well done too. I'm not sure why you would hesitate to post these pictures! Great job!

Hey thanks guys, ya'll are way too kind.

I'm sitting here staring at the kits and see all their flaws, they probably do look better in the photos.

Are you having a laugh, thats brilliant. I am not normally a fan of multi kit dio's, i do have a couple planned but generally avopid them as they can be to big and unrealistic, but this shows how to do it right. The builds are excellent and the figures are really well done.

And i have to add that i prefer your version of the Octopus scheme to the real thing. I like the random shapes as opposed to the nice neat circles.

Brilliant dio.

Just one thing from your right up, it might be that i have misread it, but it looks like you said 2 E-100's were built. It was 2 of the maus that were built, though one only had a weight to simulate the turret. A single E-100 hull was under construction when it was captured by the allies.

Wow, thanks Bish! That means a lot esp coming from you. You've just started my year on a high note! 

I know what you mean about multi-kit dioramas, it probably wasn't a good idea to try to sqeeze two monsters like this in one dio. It did get a third place in our local IPMS show but I was wondering if the judges were looking at it with 'the guy who built it thought it'd win simply because it's bigger than anything else.' 

Next tank vs tank is probably going to be a M3 Staurt vs. a Type 97 Chi Ha - or a BT-7 vs. a Panzer II. Something friggin' SMALL.  

The octopus camo did start out as fairly neat circles. Which grew more lopsided and distorted over time as my eyesight degraded... My story is one guy was given a brush and told to paint them all over one shift so by the end he was like ' I'm just going to slap something on here to get to go to supper and not be stuck here all night.'

And thanks for the correction, I linked the article but I should have went back and reread it. Yes I did get confused with the Maus. 

I think it got third place because it bloody well deserved it. I think the camo is much more natural than nice neat circles, i can just see the Octopus scheme developing into.

I do have plans for a Sturmtiger next to a half track truck with sheels being loaded, that will be a good size, but not as big as yours.

Gamera, Exceptional work! Congratulations on a great idea and meticulous execution. It's helpful to see the two tanks in comparison like that, too. They used to have a T29 tank at the Patton Museum at Fort Knox. It was a brute of a tank, for sure. Now, I think it, and all the other great stuff from the Patton Museum, is collecting dust in storage at Fort Benning. Quite a shame. Thanks for sharing the pictures of your build and also the pic of the Tiger 2. That penetration is all the more remarkable because it looks like it must have just missed the end of the side armor behind the front plate of the turret. Talk about a lucky shot! Barrett

Bish: I don't normally make New Year's Resolutions but I think I need to make one about to stop trying to avoid criticism by running down my own work... 

Looking forward to the Sturmtiger. And love the idea of loading the ammo, I like stuff like that to show off the massive size of the ammo. Our club does a small show at the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford Virginia and most of the people that visit don't know much about WW2 equipment so it's great to try to call attention to details like that. 

Going to try to get some stuff built for 2019. I have a Type 95 Ha Go vs. some very angry Chinese infantry that I've been trying to get right for some time. 

Barrett: Thanks! I've got some photos of that T29 around somewhere. First time I visited the Patton Museum I'd never even heard of the tank and have waited years for someone to release an injection molded kit. Thank God for World of Tanks, I stopped playing it years ago but they've really got some wierd stuff like the T29 out now due in part to it's bringing them to the public attention. 

Guess I should do some more research on that Tiger II photo, I'm guessing that was some large Soviet gun like a 122mm? I don't think a US 90mm or UK 17 pounder could do that. I'm not sure even the 120mm gun would penetrate the front of the E-100's turret but as the war dragged on the quality of the German steel kept declining so that's my story and I'm sticking to it. 

Gamera,

It's scary how similar our tastes are - I have both kits in the stash!  I bought the DML E100 ages ago, but liked the "Mike Rinaldi" turret better in the Trumpy kit.  I noticed they retroactively credited him after, ahem, "borrowing" his original faux design on his own build.

Gamera

Bish: I don't normally make New Year's Resolutions but I think I need to make one about to stop trying to avoid criticism by running down my own work... 

Cliff, you will most likely be your own worst critic. I have not seen one of your models  that was not well built. 

Yes the base is way too small. But it works because the two afvs are touching. If there was any gap it would look cramped.

G: You should built them, they're great kits! I found the Trumpy E-100 in a Squadron spring cleaning sale about two years ago and picked it up on a whim. I like the rounded off turret better too than the actual Maus turret the Germans were going to mount. Crazy about them 'borrowing' the idea there. 

Bruce: Thanks! But you haven't seen the ones that went straight to the spare parts box... (thankfully not many.)

GM: Well, there's a story behind that. I got tired of pulling out the stain and varnish everytime I did a base so I did a half-dozen at once. This one was ready to go so I just grabbed it instead of buying a new one, staining, and varnishing it. 

One reason I sat on this over a year is debating just doing a larger base and moving everything to it. But I have a weird habit of once it's done it's done. I'd just prefer to move on to another kit instead of endlessly tinkering with something already built. 

I'm sure others know better, but my guess is that T2 threw it's track or hit a mine and was abandoned. Those holes were "anyone home?" shots taken at close range.

GMorrison

I'm sure others know better, but my guess is that T2 threw it's track or hit a mine and was abandoned. Those holes were "anyone home?" shots taken at close range.

 

Judging by the missing track guards and the track laid out to the front, it looks as though they were in the process of repair the damage.  I would guess they were surprised on the job.

Nice work.  I really like all the action the figures bring to the scene.  

John: Thanks! I love to add figures, they give a good sense of the size of the vehicle. 

Guys, it could very well be an abandoned vehicle. It was just the thing that gave me the germ of the idea here. I think I searched for 'knocked-out king tiger' on Duckduckgo when it came up but it only found a wargaming site without any information on the photo searching today. A reverse image search came up with it as a cover photo to a book by Panzer Wrecks: 'Forgotten Archives 2: The Lost Signal Corps Photos'. If someone owns this it probably contains more details. 

https://www.amazon.com/Forgotten-Archives-Signal-Corps-Photos/dp/1908032154

I've found another photo that inspiring another diorama. Shouldn't be too hard to build a toll booth:

Gamera,

LMAO over the tollbooth diorama idea!

Cliff, I think you've pulled off a difficult situation rather nicely, and the tanks look great too. Diorama composition is difficult, and getting something with two large vehicles to work especially so. The small base gives the impression of the huge size of the vehicles, so I think it works.

And I like the toll booth idea.

Thanks guys! 

Yeah, the size of the base does make the two mammoth AFVs look bigger. I think I'm going to swipe that idea and claim I did that on purpose from now on... 

I knew I had to use the toll booth photo for something when I first saw it. It's amazing (at least to me) all the crazy stuff you can find on the internet. And that's with the safe search turned-on, with it off... well brain bleach may be a good investment...