The diorama will involve the USMC Zippo named COED rolling uphill near the airfield. It will be flanked by infantry moving under it's protective shadow.





-Mike


'edit' Ok! Well the pics continue to not work. If you click on the red X it takes you to my gallery where they are located. Sorry for the trouble!

Haha you make it look so simple! How exactly did you get it to load? I have been having trouble all day!?

-Mike

Open the photo in another window, right click on it and click on the properties line -Copy the url address line. Click on the img tags in your post {img} and {/img} (I've substituted { for [ )and paste the URL between them.

Thanks so much. I used to do it a different way but it suddenly doesn't work?! Anyway, thank you again!

-Mike

Great transition from the clean to the burnt,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, Those things must have scared the crap out of ya trundling up towards ya spewing fire out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Shear terror!!!! Never mind the PTSD of the guys following!!!!!!

Nige

Thanks for the feedback. Most of the transition zone will be covered by the tank though. I started painting the beast yesterday in fact. got most of the turret done, not much else...

These Zippos scare the living hell out of me. Reading about them and what they did is just frightening. One account from a Marine rifleman on Oakinowa said that the heat radiating from the gun blasted everyone around the vehicle when it opened up on targets. I can't imagine being on the recieving end.

-Mike

Having torched my old neighbours garden (with his permission and help I hasten to add) to help clear the wilderness he had let built up over several years, I got a wee sence of the effect of such a wild fire. The difference was that we were like little kids playing with diesel and matches and were supposedly in control as to how big the fire got.

WELL SUPPOSEDLY! It got rid of the weeds damned quick.

Different thing going into battle knowing that this stuff is going to mame and kill folk! The guys in the tanks would not stand much chance if they got hit with all that fuel. The Shermans already had a bad reputation for brewing up!

Man's inhumanity to Man !!!!!!!!!

Nige

i remember doing an all arms demo years ago and one of the weapons we were demonstrating was a soviet man portable flame thrower unit , when the D's fired that thing up , the faces of the squaddies was one of horror, all of them said to us later they would rather face any other enemy weapon than that thing. and we all agreed with them . i think its just a deep seated animal instinct , very scarey tho.

I did an Iwo Jima dio and it may sound crazy but I used dirt from my backyard. Like i said crazy but I wrapped the dirt in paper towels and microwaved it for like an hour, sifted it and put it back in....the dirt came out completely dry and was very dark...much like the volcanic sand/rock found on Iwo. His came out alot better then mine did...very nice work....
Tony

Thanks for the feedback guys. Yeah this thing has been kind of a pain. I started with insulation board from home depot. Then put a mix of plaster, dry wall filler, sand, and some small rocks together and layed that down. left if for about three days to settle. During that time i dremled out the frame from some spare wood I had in my garage. went out back and got some good virginia red clay (its good now... try digging itin the late fall or winter!) and left it to dry. then i mixed it with some dirt from the garden and got the blend i wanted. bought some balast pebbles from my LHS and mixed all of that together with some white glue/water mix. put it all down and left it to dry. added the 'trees' and 'grass' (some woodland scenics hair stuff and mystery bush i found in NC over christmas break). painted it and that was the product. It was quite a chore. had some screw ups here and there. i didnt get the glue/water mix correct on the first go around and it all fell apart. but i got a muligan redo!

Tony: were you in logistics? im thinking 0311 right now for when i graduate next year. we shall see how that goes. i am thinking quite a bit about 1371 combat engineering, possible breaching specialty.

-Mike

Actually yes, I was an 03 for a very short time (i mean a very short time). Why 03..? There are many other mos' to choose from and many other are for more marketable on the outside world.