I am working on a diorama for a German 88mm Flak 36/37 in the desert. I am planning on making a sandbag ring around the gun and can not decide on either the hight or the depth of the sandbag ring. Should it be 5 sandbags tall? Should it be 1 row deep, 3 rows deep? I have been looking for photos to get an idea but none of the photos give me a good answer. So, any advice or photos of German 88's in the desert would be helpful.

Dave

Ola David

First of all welcome to the site seeing this is your first post here. Hope you will have a nice time here and looking forward to your work.

Well from what I remember when years back I build a similar setting was that in the flat desert a huge gun like the 88 kinda stands out inviting the enemy to start lobbing grenades into it's direction. The preffered method was digging the gun in more or less as deep that the barrel just clears the ground in lowest elevation. or if they couldn't dig that deep fill up the remaining space with sandbags to again as high that the barrel just clears it.
it also wasn't a full circle but rather a half one facing the enemy since you have to cart the gun in on the bogies and if at all possible also being able to drive it out with relative ease should you have to retreat.

As for the thickness of the sandbag rules. There probably are rules for this but I don't know them. They are there only for protection of small arms fire and shrapnel since they will not protect from an explosion. I think a single row of sandbags overlapping each other will do the trick. But if the soldiers might not be very sure they might go to 2 bags thick. I think it all depends what you think looks good as well.

Hope this answer helps you in any way.

With friendly greetz

Robert Blokker

Dave,

Here's a link to picture of an 88 emplacement in the desert. It doesn't appear to be using sandbags, just dug in.

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f156/joel01569/emplacement.jpg

In many pics there are no visible sandbags :







And when there are some, they are rather close to the gun :






HTH

H.P.

Given that a few of those pics show the guns so deep, they must have been seen to be expendable and the troops ready just to bug out and leave them after disabling them !!!

One gun shows clearly having been spiked !!!

Nige

Hello David,

I think you should find a picture and try to copy it....the war in the desert was really fluid and fast moving so I don`t think that sand bags are the issue but what time period or part of N. Africa you are setting it in. is it being used for anti-tank, anti-aircraft? in defence or in assault?... the Germans used these guns in both and there are plenty of pictures of them being fired on their wheels... one or two with them still attached to the prime mover.

PM me your email and l will see what l can send you.

Anto

Speaking as soldier with experience in the desert I can say that sand bags are not used as much as you think. I think guys get this sand bag thing from Hollywood,sort of like the gasoline explosions when a solid shot hits something or an artillery shell explodes. It looks good on film but a real explosion is just gray smake and dirt/dust.
Think about it. The Germans in the desert had an aweful time just getting fuel and ammo to the front lines. Why would they waste cargo space on sand bags? That is why you don't see many pics of them being used. Digging in was the best thing to do but that had its' problems as well. Some places in the desert are rock hard and some just plain rock. In Irag when we dug in you could get about 2 feet down and then it was like concrete.
If you don't have a lot of time,the best thing is to place your heavy weapon like the 88 on the reverse slope of a hill with just the barel above the ridgeline. It's called a "hull down" position and works quite well.
Concerning the pic of the abandoned guns,a lot of time there was no way to remove the guns in time or,the prime mover was knocked out or out of gas. HTH
J