Small Dio. The tank is from marquette and the russian snipers are dragon. The tree is homemade and the foliage is made from fake flower decorations.






Comments welcome

Very nice Dio, always appreciate a delicate touch in portraying a very harsh reality. Harder to achieve than one may believe. Also beautiful paint/weathering on the lil' Panzer. Dave

I liked the light tank, the Soviet soldiers, and the towering pine --- an unusual and refreshing vertical element in the (almost always) horizontal world of military dioramas.

Perhaps it's because I've been a writer all my life, but I tend to see every diorama as a story in miniature (or at least as one eventful page from that tale). Your diorama has me puzzled over two crucial questions.

First, what is the light German tank doing there? Perhaps there's a tiny hole from an antitank shell that I failed to see, but I have no clue why the tank is where it is.

If it ran out of fuel, or the engine malfunctioned, I'd expect to see a fuel can or two discarded in frustration, or ports to service the engine still ajar, with scattered tools nearby.

If the tank threw a track and Soviet infantry were approaching, I'd expect to see the broken tread unreeled, and hastily opened hatches left ajar where the crew bailed and took to their heels. If there was damage from enemy weapons, I'd expect to be able to detect some sign of it.

But, as it stands, it looks like it was parked there, still buttoned up for battle. Which bring me to my second question: what have the Soviet snipers seen that they are wandering with disinterest past a buttoned-up and apparently undamaged enemy tank? They're not likely to make it to Berlin with that level of attentiveness!

If the Soviets know the tank is empty --- maybe they saw the crew bail out (though it took time to close all the hatches for some reason) --- you'd think the two soldiers would search it for a bottle of schnapps, a military map, something to eat or a spare pair of boots. If they didn't see the crew bail out, or have some other reason to know it is abandoned, you'd think they'd drop a grenade inside to guarantee that it was no longer a threat.

There's nothing "wrong" with your diorama; these are just questions it bring to my (often warped) mind.

Did you have a story in mind when you built it? If so, please enlighten me. I may very well have missed a perfectly reasonable explanation that is evident to you ... and everyone else!

At any rate, nice work, Gary. I look forward to more!

Brilliant work an impressive scene,
I like the use of the tree for scale and the Russian sniper sneaking past.
I think one reaseon for 'buttoning up' could be bobey traps. I wouldnt open hatches without engineers for that reason. equipment was seldom abandoned without some kind of sabotage or traps which I think adds mystery to the dio....

Hi Gary,

Excellent looking scene and a fine looking kit.

I'd go with Fred here, what's happened? If abondoned I'd expect to see the hatches open, bit of kit around or some indication of what casued the event.

Shouldn't be to difficult to add that connection, other than that a cracking little scene.

Cheers

Al

If they didn't have to abandon the tank in a hurry, one of the things that might be done is to booby-trap the tank by fixing grenades under the hatches so that opening the hatch pulled the arming wire. But you're right that if it was abandoned in a hurry the crew wouldn't have bothered closing any of the hatches, and whatever they'd had as external storage would have been scattered around -- at least tossing in a grenade to ensure it was ruined.

THANKS FOR THE COMMENTS, AS FAR AS THE TANK GOES IT WAS JUST TO BE ABONDONED, BUT I WILL OPEN THE HATCHES TO MAKE IT A BIT MORE CONVINCING AND THE SNIPERS WERE THERE JUST CHECKING OUT THE SURROUNDING AREA FOF THE MISSING TANK CREW.

I JUST ADDED THE SNIPERS JUST TO ADD LITTLE MORE TO THE DIORAMA

CHEERS

Good call on your part, Gary. The snipers add a lot of human interest.

Anytime I see a diorama with figures in it, I ask myself "What are they doing here? Is there something they're looking for? What are they seeing that caught their attention? Are they aware of all the threats?" It adds a great deal to the power of the presentation.

A very good reason for keeping the hatches closed is because there is no internal detail. A better choice would be Dragon or Tristar but they also cost more.

I kept looking at this and forgetting to comment lol. I just wanted to compliment your excellent use of space in this dio, very well managed and balanced with excellent angles.