Well here is my latest and greatest project on the drawing board. I have had Dragon’s initial panzer IIIJ sitting around for a while now and been scratching my head as to what to do with it. I original plan to have it set in a winter scene supporting some advancing panzergrendiers, but along the way I had parts break off and go missing. So now I had a partially finish model sitting around collecting dust until I was thumbing through some diorama pictures on my hard drive when a light bulb clicked on. I envision somewhere on the Russian front 42-43 time frame a German defensive position being over run by advancing Russian force. Here the Panzer III fell into a bomb crater, ditch, or trench works becoming disabled in the process and the crew abandons the vehicle until later recovery. Along the ways the tank became entomb by rubble and debris from a bombed out building next to it. Meanwhile German infantry decided to take up a defensive position next to the abandon tank to use as protection and cover from artillery bombardment. Amidst all the chaos of war, advancing Russians being to beat back the German defenses and over run the abandon panzer as hand to hand fighting takes place. This is were my project takes place, now that I have my story line set, I can begin construction of the diorama.

So far, I have my basic idea and began some initial layout for what I plan to do. I need to repaint my panzer III as I originally plan to do a winter camo, but was not happy with the results of it. I do not plan to use the T-34 in the picture but instead I have Miniart’s Valentine on order to use for the Russian tank. I just used the T-34 to get some idea of what I am looking for in the diorama and to work the layout. In addition, I will be using two Masterbox figure sets within the diorama. I plan to use one of the running German signal troops trying to get out of the way of the Russian tank crashing through the bombed out building. Down in the defensive position I will be using the hand-to-hand combat figures showing the desperate struggle for the position. I am very open to ideas and suggestions on my layout for the diorama. I wanted to do a diorama something a little bit different from the average tank in the ditch or the final days the third Reich, but more of the tug of war struggle during the early parts of the eastern front.

i really like how the composition is done and how the buried tank looks out of commission. this scene appears very dynamic and creates an air of a great battle occurring. i can see having the one mobile tank breaking through a fence or barrier adding to the sense of movement and the rush of the figures you plan to combine helping make a truly nice diorama. i look forward to seeing future updates of how you make the base. thanks for sharing. cheers, mh.

Very dramatic scene Christopher. Very interesting. Will be following .. looking forward to see how the figures pan out in this scene.

Good start, good story. Nice dramatic layout. I'll watch this for sure.

Thanks everyone for the great comments. Everything so far is just works in progress as I'm still working out my plans and waiting on the figures and tank to come in the mail. But for now I can at least finish up the panzer and gather up some stuff to make rubble and debris for the project.

Hi Chris

How about having the Panzer fallen through into the basement of the bombed out building and having the Russian tank clibing the rubble of the building and crashing through the, still standing internal walls (hanging pictures, furnishings and all) to unknowingly land on top?

Figures clambering over the ruins and hand to hand also.

Nige

Thanks Nige, your idea is very close to what I'm invisioning. There area where the T-34 is climbing (actually a Valentine) is going to be a bombed out factor while it crash through what is left of a wall, unknownling to the crew that there's a panzer that their about to colide with. I even have an idea rolling around in my head of a two part diorama.....a before and after scene. That later being were russian crew come back to recover both the panzer and valentine after the area is secured.

Chris

If you have a small sections of the pavement, roadway, edge of the basement, ground and first floor levels just visible within the mix of your dio it would give context to the Panzer having driven off the road and rubble into what they don't know is a building with basement.

The rubble the Russian tank could climb could lead to a partial upper floors around a common chimney breast (in the middle of the house) which is typically the strongest part of any older building.

A single fire place on each floor.

Nige

Wow this sure do look dramatic. Will follow !

Cheers Simon

Chris,
Great layout, going to be following this post as well. Looking foward to your updates.
Tom

Thanks everyone for the support and great comments.

This diorama has to be one of my most ambitious build to date and my first time at doing an urban setting. Therefore, this is going to be a new learning curve for me, as I will be trying some new things along the way. Well so far I have, manage to repaint the initial paint on the panzer turret, as I do not plan to do a winter scene. Here I have done some basic color modulation to the simple panzer grey. In addition, I began to assemble some crew trying to escape out of the turret to help add some action to a disabled tank. I know in reality the two side hatches would be used, but I plan to have some rubble blocking the doors adding to the sense of urgency to get out of the tank quickly. The crew is nothing more than dragon’s panzer crew survivors. The assisting crew is built straight from the box, but the other is a combination of two figures. I still need to fill in the seems and plan to adjust the arm on the assisting figure a bit. The only question I have about the figures is the uniforms, the artwork shows all black, but this is correct for 42-43 period. I do not know much about German uniforms, so this area is somewhat iffy to me.

Hi Christopher,
Looking like a very complex and well thought out build. looking forward to seeing this 1 completed. Below is a like that describes uniform colors. hope it helps

http://users.skynet.be/vonweyersberg/Heer_panzer.htm

Well just a simple update for today, I have the basic layout started. I am changing things around just a bit thanks to an idea from a fellow modeler Nige from Scotland. Here is the new plan those yet, panzer on the move not aware that road way is not strong enough to support the weight of the tank from previous bombardments and falls into a basement or storage area of a building. Now the crew has to beat feet and get out of the area fast or be over run by advancing soviet forces. Here I have sculpted out of star foam the basic layout of the basement and destroyed pavement. I still need shape the ceiling of the basement and build up the walls. I plan to have up piece of foam not attached now to ease in the construction of the basement, and then glue everything in place once complete.

I think I like where this is going

this looks like it'll be a really nice diorama

Hi Chris

I thought I would look out a couple of good reference pics for a typical basement construction of the time that might be usefull to you what ever type of building you decide on.

The first pic has the basement on the left with typical roadwayabove



The second pic gives a bit of detail for vaulting construction that might extend under the road way slightly especially if you are extending the dio to include a little bit of the road



You can see typical basement windows on the first pic and on a building of this size you could well believe that large mounds of rubble might obscure basement windows from the road view point.

Maybe this would be usefull for scale of flooring and walling to.

Hope this gives you loads of food for thought.

Will be looking in

Nige

Thanks Nige for all your help so far.
It's nice to have another set of eyes durning the construction and the those diograms will come in handy. I have alot of arcitectural books on hand since I do drafting for a living, but I lack pictures or info on construction for eastern block countries. I have started to construct one of the wall so far and I have to say it's a very time consuming process. The wall is going to be half brick and half tile with alot of damage. I plan to turn the basement area into a boiler room as I have alot of sppace to fill up. The nice thing is, everything I had order for this project will arrive at my door on thursday so I can start planning the upper level once I get my hands on the valentine.

following this one closely. i like how you positioned the figures on the sunken tank, makes for a super scene when you make the figures so well tied in. hope to see more updates. cheers, mh.

Well I have started the construction on one of the walls for the basement / boiler room. For this, I started out with a sheet of plastic cut to shape of the basic wall to easy in construction. Next, I used some cork bricks I had on hand for a few years now and built up the lower half of the wall. I grouted the bricks with some drydex spackling and some of the damaged areas of the wall. After that, I moved to doing the tiling on the upper portion of the wall. Again, for this I used sheet plastic cut to shape and used strip plastic cut into tiles. I hand laid each tile just as if a real wall would of and varied each tiles thickness to give the effect of an uneven wall. The plumbing and electrical conduits were made from scrap plastic, cooper wire and spare parts from the bins. So far, I am pleased with the results so far and plan to start the rest of the wall and stair well leading to the upper level. Again, I am open to suggestions and comments on how things are looking so far. I still have much more plumbing and equipment to add to this portion of the build.

Hi Chris

Are you going on the basis that the tank has fallen into a bomb crater with mixed building debris or having driven over a pile of building debris lying on the basement floor joists, only to fall through into the basement?

This would determine what extent of debris to place under the tank and the shape of flooring that is left. I could imagine the area of basement wall collapsing with the tank as it falls in but the rest would either exist as a pile of mixed bombed debris in the basement already or, be layered with clear basement sections, floor joist section with mixed rubble and then tank ontop, with angled and snapped floor joist around it.

Love the wall and tank angles.

Nige

Thanks Nige,
I'm still working out the details as I'm going and tossing around different idea along the way. I do plan to have alot of rubble, stones, bricks, beams, and the normal debris under and around the tank. I also want to have pipes, beams, and cables falling from the ceiling on top of the tank, one reason why the side doors won't open on the turret. I also plan to have a pipe or two ripped open from the colasping ceiling with water pooring out to add a sense of movement to the dio. Right now I'm just building thing up first and going back in later with the rubble and tweek things more.
Chris

Here are the latest installments on the updates for the diorama I am constructing. The other day I receive two packages in the mail I have been waiting for, one had the figures I needed, and the other had my valentine tank. Now I can really begin the construction and finalize the layout I am looking for.

The Masterbox figures I am surprisingly pleased with. Their not quite on the level as dragon or miniart figures, but the detail in the clothing and facial expression are very nice. The gear on the other hand could use some room for improvement and for this I will use some left over from dragon’s Gen 2 sets. I did however replace the knife and e-tool on two of the figures as they were just a bit over scaled. I just wish that dragon or miniart would do more figures like those that master box has created as I am little bored with seeing guys standing around with their hands in their pants or point off in the distance at something.



Miniart’s Valentine is a real gem of a kit and falls together very quickly. I built up a lot of the kit last night while watching TV with my wife. The only thing is my upper hull is wrapped just a little but nothing too serious. My only real complaint with the kit is the directions suck. The page layout makes no sense, one page with have steps 1-10, the next will have 30-35, and then the next will have 50- through what ever. It is a real pain to flip through the pages just to check out latter steps to see if a part will fit right. Oh well, the kit is still much better than what was offered back in the late 90’s.



Here is the boiler I made for the lower level of the basement area. Unbelievably, it began life as a medicine bottle for my kids. I just cut the neck, cap off, and filled the ends with plastic sheet. From there I used plastic tubing; strips, spare parts, and photo etch to make what you see now. I also added soldier wire, spackle, bricks, and sand to it to make rubble and debris from the collapsing ceiling.




So far, here is my basic layout of what I am looking at so far. Figures were built up to give me an idea of placement along with the valentine. I am plan to have the upper half of the base elevated with rubble and debris along with a partial building and the figure fighting it out in this area. Delaying the advancing Russians to give the escaping crew time to get to safety.

That boiler looks good. Are you planning on putting more walls in the basement? Like the layout so far. Keep up the great work. Look foward to your updates.
Tom

Well here is another installment on my progress so far. I completed the painting of the boiler for the basement area. For this I used an Adam Wilder techniques I saw he used on a Czech Hetzer I thought would work just right heavy machinery. For this a base painted the boiler in rust color paint, then fallowed by random applications of rust color paint with a sponge for that chipped effect. Next up I sealed everything thing in with a semi-gloss goat to protect the paint and then I hit it with hair spray. After allowing the spray to dry for about 10 minutes, I airbrushed on a grayish-green color to represent a factory finish. The fun began with an old toothbrush, toothpick, and some water to remove some of the paint for the flaked worn out paint look. From there I added a rusty oil wash to tie things in more. To finalize the weathering I added some spackle, sand, brick, and balsa wood to make the debris on top of the boiler.




Here is the general Idea of the layout I am looking at so far. I still need to make a partial wall to add to the base. I wanted to elevated the rubble area of the base and show the soldiers climbing over it to fight one another. Still one aspect I am not happy with the diorama so far is my figure painting skills. I am no pro at it, but still years ahead of where I used to be, just one area I wish I could improve on.

Hi Chris,

man that boiler looks awsome! im really excited to see your project continue. your figure is lookin great as well. keep up the great work man!

Gary