WHAT IF !!!

June 13th, 2009. One year after the Belgian elections, there is no new government yet. The Flemish and Wallonian points of view for what concerns communautaries problems sounds irrevocably unconciliable. The socio-economical situation of the country is catastrophic; and for other countries Belgium sounds more and more like a “bananian republic”…

All the politicians becomes tired of that situation; Flanders and Wallonia decide to “divorce”, hoping to become better neighbours than compatriots.

01/01/2009: Flanders and Wallonia become independent. “All quiet on the front”… But the young nations are suffering from obsolete military equipment, due to the bad gestion of the last years of the common land. So, it’s time to re-arm! Not to make war, but prudence is better than stupidity…

The French president decides to offer to “his French-speaking brothers” Wallonians, 50 Leclerc tanks + 20 Rafale jets. He hopes in fact that, soon, Wallonia will become a new French department, so all what he offers actually, he hope to recuperate later…In reaction, Germany proposes to Flanders 60 Leopards 2A5 + 20 Eurofighter Typhoons in leasing, at very low cost.

The tanks are quickly delivered: in april 2009, all the tanks are operational in their new countries.

It’s now july 2009. Frontier is quiet. There are some patrols along the frontier.

Today, the crewmen of a Leclerc and of a Leopard stop their tanks one near the other. A game of Wings of War (aerial warfare) is engaged between two soldiers; the other are watching the game (the tankleaders discussing about the quality of the beers there are drinking!)

In fact, there is no news in Belgium, except of course a new frontier and new military material…

…No, no news…

…Even not some intelligent politicians…

OK, time for the pictures now!!!

The Wallonian Leclerc, bearing the Wallonian flag:


The flemish Leopard, bearing the black lion:

The diorama is at 1/72th scale.

Any comment welcome!!!

What a neat Scenario....With the abolition of travel restrictions and borders in Europe do you think something like this could really happen? Regardless...I really like the Dio.
Although I'm more interested in WWII I've always been a fan of the Leopard.

Jeff

Thank you very much, Bodeen!

You know, Belgium is the country of the surrealism... Everything can happen!

This scenario is plausible, and can happen in the future even if Belgium is member of the European Community...

Greetings from my little country
Daniel.

I hope this remains a "what if" situation. Anyway, it is a well thought out diorama and the layout is fine and tells a good story.

Thanks for sharing

Yo Daniel,

Damn man what an inspiration...the idea is good for a movie! I 'll hope it will never come's that far. But you've done a great job on the dio...nice work.

Hey maybe you can send it to Guy Verhofstad hahahaha

Greetz Nico

Wow, this is quite an interesting diorama. I don't really know how tense the situation in Belgium is right now (we haven't really heard much lately here in Germany from you guys) so I can't honestly say if I find this to be a possible scenario but I guess anything is possible! You did a wonderful job on the tanks and on everything else.
I do have one question. I couldn't help but notice the little yellow/red and yellow/black "stones" in the ground. Is it just me or are this the plastic balls you use when playing "Tipp-Kick"? Please let me know.

Thanks all for your kind comments!!!

Nico: I hope Verhosftadt has a good sense of humour...

Michael: the stones are made with "kadapack", and represent the colors of Flanders (yellow/black) and Wallonia (yellow/red). For my dio I was needing to "materialize" the frontier...

Neil: I think it's in Flanders. Not sure at all, because personally I prefer abbey beers ("trappistes") like Rochefort, Chimay; or some beers having more character like Duvel...
The red cans can be identified as Jupiler (or, eventually, simply cola...)

Cheers
Daniel

LOVE IT !!,great to read the background and get into the feel of it.I toyed with the idea of a diorama showing a T-90 in "volgan" camo (a breakaway russian state,the idea of writers from the 2000 Ad comic),but came unstuck when i could`nt find a T-90 in 1/35 scale.
keep up the good work.

Thanks all for your kind comments!

Flanders will be of course integrated with the Netherlands....

Flanders will never integrate with the Netherlands.
why?.......Because they don,t want to and the flanders economy is strong enough to hold it's own.
The wallonian side of Belgium is a whole different story.
Wallonia is the poor side of Belgium and never be able to support it selve.
Flanders pays a lot of tax to support there french speaking fellow countrymen.
Therefore it be more likely that wallonia becomes provence of France.
Let's hope this never happens!

Frank.

Exactly, Flanders will never join the Netherlands as long as the people have anything to say about it. Wallonia however are just leeching from Flanders now, if the two sides would ever split it would be most likely that Wallonia will have no other choice but to integrate in France since they don't have the economical strength to stay a seperate nation. Flanders will probably flourish even more if they don't have to send billions to Wallonia every year.

Nice diorama, love the idea. The way it's looking now it might actually be plausible!

The situation is more complex than only to be "Wallonia cannot survive... Flanders will become stronger..." That's only "propaganda"!

Those "ideas" are coming from Belgian politicians. Belgium have so nice things (beers, chocolate, humour, etc...) BUT have so bad politicians.

My point of view: in case of Belgium have to collapse, Wallonia is able to survive... ONLY IF we have other politicians than the actual ones.
Flanders cannot survive alone... IF she keep her actual politicians!

What will be the real situation? Well, just hope one thing: NO BLOOD!!!

There won't be bloodshed. This isn't Kenia or some other 3th world country where the first thing that comes to people's mind to resolve problems seems to be violence.

I disagree however with what you say. If Belgium collapses Wallonia will most definitly not be able to survive for long. Flanders however has a much higher succes rate to survive the split.

Czechia was thinking same thing about Slovakia when they separated. As it seems, Slovakia is doing fine...