Hey all, I'm slowly working on a Battle of the Bulge dio. I want to depict the 4th AD 53rd Arm Inf and 37th Tank as they fought their way toward Bastogne. Does anyone have any pictures of the street fighting they encountered? I've got the sherman and figs built and was going to start scratching some buildings but I've realized I have very little in the way of references.

Any help is appreciated! Thanks!

These are the sets I'm using:




Along with Formation's loader's split hatch and pioneer tools, Eduard update set, and Griffin 50cal update set.

I like your choices for base kits, the tank riders are one of my favorite releases from Dragon. I haven't seen the Griffon .50 cal upgrade, any idea how it compars to Tasca's .50 cal?

I suggest you raid the local library for photo books on the Ardennes Offensive, if you don't want to buy them. The Bulge was always well covered, as it was the final major German offensive operation in the west. Not sure about street fighting, though, as the Ardennes was a dense forest scattered with small towns, rather than cities. The largest town in the immediate area was Bastogne, a major road junction, which is why the Germans desperately needed to capture it, but it remained in American hands. Small hamlets and farms were fortified, of course. You might look for travel books on Belgium to see what the rural architecture of the region looked like.

I'm thinking of using this set from Verlinden


And probably scratching a second "farmhouse" to go with it.

I have the exact set from verlinden for my planned Operation Cobra dio to..... Looks a good set, picked mine up cheap on ebay....

Does it come with any windows, doors or accessories? Or it just a few plaster walls?

Most villages and farming communities in the Ardennes ( ie. Krinkeld-Rotherach) had buildings of stone with narrow streets (streets so narrow a Panther couldn't traverse it's turret!). Larger towns had brick buildings as well. Check out Claude Joachim's 'Clervaux' build. He is meticulous, and his buildings are exact miniature replicas of of the actual buildings in the town. Clervaux (or Clerf) is in the vicinity of Bastogne - almost due east.

If you have any experience with Vacu-form stuff MiniArt has some very nice and very usable buildings, some in ruins and some whole. Building walls have interior detail unlike most plaster or resin castings. Assembly just requires more time and patience .

Chris, it is just plaster walls,you'll need to scratch everything else..

Quick search came up with these photos:

Couple are references to uniforms


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Battle_Bulge_1944_HD-SN-99-02998.JPEG

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_YxzIWDR56kY/SLLia6dZ_aI/AAAAAAAAAC0/7JjC0CxEltw/s400/Battle+of+the+Bulge2.jpg

http://home.earthlink.net/~iversonom/belgium.html

http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/defeat/battle-bulge.htm

http://www.histomil.com/viewtopic.php?f=99&t=616&p=3333

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3325/3508713022_71ff35cdbc_o.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3387/3508712832_882ba00bea_o.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3377/3508712934_f26e22a2fe_o.jpg

http://blogs.knoxnews.com/knx/fredbrown/tank_wwII_military.jpg

http://www.art.com/products/p13885885-sa-i2771484/german-soldier-urging-comrades-forward-during-the-battle-of-the-bulge.htm

http://www.eucmh.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/After-The-Battle-Of-The-Bulge-Belgium.jpg

http://www.granitegrok.com/pix/HurtgenForest_1.jpg

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8EvEvmJjQy4/SeOXeoFucAI/AAAAAAAAAnE/pBhupygKvgw/s1600-h/IMG_0723.JPG

http://pixhost.info/avaxhome/c4/c6/001ac6c4.jpeg

Hi Chris,

to check with Claude's diorama is basically sound advice, but US armored forces on their way to Bastogne had little street fighting en route.
Isolated houses were to be found along the road, and Verlinden's building.would be a possibility. It's not wrong, but you could go "more typical".
There are good photos in the links (like the histomil.com f.ex.)
(the wikipedia one (and others) is in Germany, so it should not be considered here).

I would say this one looks ideal for your purposes, especially so as you have a WWII comparison.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8EvEvmJjQy4/SeOXeoFucAI/AAAAAAAAAnE/pBhupygKvgw/s1600-h/IMG_0723.JPG

I was born 10 Km east of Bastogne, so I know the region quite well, and so does Claude obviously!

It was (and still is) a rather poor region. Most houses would be fairly small with small (often planked) shacks and cots attached. A well might do nicely too.

Buildings would be brick for some and natural stone (shale) for many. Windows would be small and few. A good chimney is vital, as winters are cold! (missing on the Verlinden set!) and the plateaus are wind-swept.

And colours should be rather greyish, no bright colours outside towns!!

Hope that helps

Cheers

Romain

Probably just the plaster walls.
Miniart have a few accessory sets, which contain the injected plastic details from their house buildings. I´d suggest picking up one or two of these, and scratching your building to suit your base size. Set 35502 is most useful IMO, but set 35005 is worth having as well. You´ll have all the details you need to dress up a simple building. Check MiniArts Hompage for images of the sets. Click on "catalogue" and then "Buildings and accessories" to find them.
Set 35550 "wooden barrels and viallge utensils" could be used to add some interest. You´ll probably pick up these three sets mentioned for the price of the Verlinden plaster walls, and you´ll have loads of stuff left over for further dioramas.

It's been a busy last few months with finishing graduate school, hiking the grand canyon, jury duty...so this is far as I've come on this project. It's looking like this dio will be pretty simple, I'll scratch a building in the corner where the Lego block is sitting. I like the idea of using the miniart accessories with a foam/cork building.



comments and such are welcomed! The GI standing behind the kneeling one has his hand slightly raised so it will look like he is loading his M1 when all is said and down. The officer with the tommy gun (standing behind loading GI) I had originally thought to have communicating with the two tank riders...maybe telling them they're entering combat and should seek some cover? I've read that in a few of the small village battles they sent the infantry in riding on shermans. I wanted to give the impression this team was clearing a small hamlet.

Now I'm off to Alaska, hopefully I'll find some time at the end of the month to start the stone house...

I grew up in Alaska. Have fun. You are going there at the height of mosquito season. Bring lots of repellant. You are also just over a month too early to do some salmon fishing. They don't start running until just after the 4th of July.

If the officer is telling the two on the tank to take cover, you should make it look like they are about to jump off the tank like this photo:
http://www.olive-drab.com/gallery/description_0080.php

Also make sure you use some kind of face like this guy did in his model, it tells a story:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cal_look/5558041634/


Mike

Just thought I'd share what the dio look like completed. I apologize in advance for the picture quality. The snow on the ground is microballoons and the snow on the roof is from hudson and allen. I recommend microballoons as the H&A appears a bit granulated and doesn't achieve the smoothness you would expect at scale.

Any questions or comments, fire away! I wouldn't say this is my best work, but it was fun. Initially, I was hoping to have a bit less snow on the ground, a bit more patchy but as my first time dealing with snow this is the result, still it looks like freshly fallen snow.







Oh yea, the base warped so the tank doesn't sit quite right. I think my sculptamold was too old (!?) and it set up in about 5min so besides warping the base, I wasn't able to get all the tank tracks pressed in that I had hoped to. I wanted the road surface to look a bit more traveled, like I said above to be more spotty with snow, with areas where it had been ground in, but oh well. Hope you enjoyed it!

overall a great scene Chris, good use of figures to tell the story and nice little building with its rubble. i can see how you would have liked to have more bare ground showing through as the snow covers a lot of the base.

i have been reading a few posts recently about warped bases. using most any "wet" media on wood will curve/bow/warp wood bases. by wet, i mean using plaster or gluing down rubble or groundwork with diluted white glue.

i believe sealing the wood base on all sides, even the bottom, can help tapper the amount of warp but it can also make it a slick surface for gluing on. i have made solid wood bases that had sealer and still got a bit of bow though it did bow back after a few days.

i now make a plywood base with wood frames akin to a picture frame rather than solid bases like a plaque. chris, you can try applying a layer of diluted glue to the underside of your base to see if this will bow back the panel. you can add more snow to fill in the gap under the tank. you can add rubber/latex dots under the base in the four corners so the base sits well on the shelf. there are other options to torque back a warped panel depending on the tools at hand.

cheers, bd.

Hey this is cool! I like your scene

Hey guys, thanks, glad you liked it!

Bruce - It was disappointing to see he base warp, I'll definitely do something different next time. To fix it I tried soaking it briefly in water and then screwing it to another piece of wood. It actually appeared to work, until I removed the screws and the base returned to it's curved configuration. Oh well, thanks for the suggestions!

Keep a look out for my next dio, operation cobra. Hopefully I'll get a chance to start it later this month.