Hello all, it has been a while since I've posted here...some may remember my beginnings of a 1/72 scale Stalingrad Diorama. Well I'm not sure if I'm gonna use my scratched factory, but I am definitely using some HO (1/87) buildings I recently found online for a steal.

Con-cor:
- 3-story "Star Glass Co. Factory"
- 5-story factory chimney
- 2-story Moxam Soapworks Factory
- Overhead crane
- 2 large Oil tanks on a platform

I'm also using Linka molds to create 8 burnt (wooden) factory worker's houses...with just the foundations and chimnneys left standing (partially).
And I might be buying, or scratching a coal yard and buildings.

The diorama overall is going to be 30" x 40", very ambitious for 1/72 scale but I'm willing to give it a go. I want to have some trenches and sandbag walls, obstacles, barbed wire, etc thrown around too. And of course, some serious rubble. Also, I'm going to have a stretch of train track and some destroyed train cars. (It is going to be after rain, so I will have lots of puddles, etc around.)


I'm using only one of each pose of the following sets, some poses that aren't correct for the year and season, etc won't be used. I plan on using around 70-100 Soviets and around 50-70 Germans...anyone want to help me paint them? lol

Soviets:
Revell - Soviet Infantry
Pegasus - Russian Navy infantry
Pegasus - Russian Support
Pegasus - Russian Summer Infantry
Pegasus - Russian Summer Mortar Set
Armourfast - 99005 WWII Soviet T34/76 (2 per pack, I'm only using 1)
Preiser:
72523 Soviet Infantrymen on a Tank (aggressive)
72525 Soviet Infantrymen on a Tank (relaxed)
PST Models:
Zis-5 BZ Fuel Truck
Zis-5 cargo truck
Zis-6 Fire Truck
M-30 122mm gun
KS-8S Flame thrower tank (modeling fire should be fun )
And a destroyed Revell T-34/76

Germans:
Caesar - German Infantry (late war, I'm only using the figures in appropriate dress for Nov. 1942)
Pegasus - German Waffen SS (The SS figures I'm painting up as Wehrmacht, will that be okay?)
Pegasus - Waffen SS - Set 2
Pegasus - German Mortar Teams
Revell -some of their Afrika Korps (appropriate dressed only) and some of their German Winter Infantry
SdKfz 11
Armourfast:
German Machine Gun Team
PaK40 w/ team
Sturmgeschutz III (2 per box, only using 1)
Pz III Ausf J (2 per box, only using 1)
Academy - Kettengrad


Are all of those vehicles, etc appropriate for November 1942 in Stalingrad? I appreciate any feedback, and will post progress pictures as soon as I get those buildings in.

- John

Very ambitious plans John. Sorry, cant help in regards to 1/72 kits but would really like to see layout images of this dio in progress. Those factory buildings, oil tank platform and overhead crane sound very interesting.

Sounds good John, you could also add some train track and a few rail cars!

lol That's part of my plan, it's in my first post.

Also, were the streets in Stalingrad paved? Most pictures I've found don't really show much of the street exposed due to the mass amounts of rubble...so I haven't been able to find the answer to that question through research.

EDIT: I found a picture of the Univermag Department Store in Stalingrad's Central City Square with paved streets. So that seems to answer my question.

Sounds great and time-consuming.

Good luck with it. Keep us posted as you go along.

PS: You might know this one: www.plasticsoldierreview.com

Haha, of course. Plastic Soldier Review is my best friend. ...

Hi John, You have found your answer already. Just for your info, Stalingrad was a beautiful city before the war; Stalin named it after himself and had it as a show case city, with all the newest houses, factory's, trams and the like.

That's what I needed, it's been extremely hard to find pictures of pre-war Stalingrad. Then I found a few that I had already saved to my computer and they answered that for me lol. From what I've gathered so far, not much of the streets were even exposed after all of the destruction. How much should I leave exposed? How much rubble should I add? I'm not adding any snow...Would that be appropriate for the pre-Uranis phase of the battle...? Lets say, approximately November 10th.

Hi John, as for snow I would say move your time back to October, by the beginning of November the Russian winter freeze was setting in, and snow was beginning to fall. as for rubble, Lots of it, by the beginning of November the Germans had pushed Chuikov's men back into a few hundred square yards of factory buildings, before the Russians counterattacked. Quote taken from one of my books; Armor nosing through a nightmare cityscape pitted with shell craters and piled high with the rubble of shattered buildings. any other questions or pictures just ask.
ED

John, It's been awhile since I've posted here, but having seen your post and the ambitious project you are undertaking I thought I'd give you a bit of assistance. There are many good books that deal with the Stalingrad battle which could be of great help to you. to name a few off the top of my head:
Enemy At the Gates, Stalingrad The Fateful Siege, Hitler Moves East, The Onslaught - Hitler's drive to Stalingrad in Photographs. There are others in my personal library but these are the ones that stand out to me. Watch the movies "Enemy At the Gates" and "Stalingrad". The former more for the visual impact and recreation of Stalingrad than its historical accuracy and the latter both for its visual impact and historical accuracy.
Personally I would concentrate more on the October period of the battle especially the German assaults in the factory district. I think somewhere in either this forum or the photos section there are some pics of a Stalingrad vignette I did awhile ago. Let me know if there is anything else I can help you with as this battle has always fascinated me and I've been reading about and studying it for ages.

John

Thanks for the info John, definitely some sources I'll need to look into. Your diorama is amazing, and another which has offered me inspiration. It has been in my 'bookmarks' for a while lol. I wanted to have entrenched Wehrmacht troops defending part of the factory complex and have the Soviets on the offensive...that's why I figured mid November (Pre-Uranus) would be appropriate.

I'm using a 1" thick blue insulation foam board from Lowe's as my base, cut in half length wise it is 47" x 24"...I've decided that is large enough. I've decided to use the parts from the overhead crane as destroyed pieces of my main scratch built (12.5" x 10.5" x 4.5") factory instead as a separate structure on the base. It just takes up too much space that I'd rather use for destroyed factory workers' houses.

I've already measured, mapped out and drawn the spots for each structure, roadway, trench, railroad stretch, etc. I'll get pics up of the progress I've made ASAP.

- John