Hi Gerry. Once again, a great job! Good composition/layout. Really tells the story. The only thing I see is that you need to drill out the barrels on the flak guns.

Jesse

I agree - excellent dio. If you wanted to, how would the snow in front of and below the lower gun barrels be affected by the weapon firing? I see you have recently spent brass casings in the floor area so the gun has been in action since the snow fell.. Just asking.

Nice chipping and weathering! Flakvierlings were not usually emplaced in the front lines (although there are pics of single 20mm's and 37mm's in use as anti-personal and light vehicles) where they would be liable to enemy tank attack, as they were primarily AA, so the presence of Panzerfausts and magnetic AT mines is debatable. Maybe if you had extended your dio a bit on either side with more infantry and an MG position in a continuous trench, it would show the weapon as being in the front lines. And drill out those gun barrels and flash suppressors! Well-done and accurate looking gun position. And the snow looks good too!

Hi Gerry,

great effort Sir!

First the pros:

- super snow effect, especially in the pit (looks icy, slippery and dirty, super!!!)
- nice chipping on the cans
- great paintjob on the shield!!
- love the wood planks (although they are a bit too brown)
- good composition, no blind spots!

and then the weak points

- chipping on the cans, but no shading/weathering on gas mask cases f.ex.
- the seams are black, painted in normal colour!! A real no-go, especially when the uniforms are white! Do yourself a favour...use heavily diluted oil colour (grey-brown) and let it flow into the seams/creases. Helps also to get rid of the perfect-wash white. All this quick and easy!!
- MG42 and mines are too "Verlinden", i.e. leave equipment lying around. These weapons are not organic for Flak units, so who is manning them? Flak crews are not trained to fight as infantry, and are not supposed to do so.
- You have included small clumps of high grass in (nearly) regular intervals...not realistic remember!
- The metallic colour you are using does not produce realistic surfaces (barrels f.ex.)! Maybe you should use something different.
- The black lines delimitating straps are too uniform. They look more like painted on. Uniforms are "soft", so these lines should vary in aspect over the whole length.

Definitely one of your best!!!

Not bad at all!

Cheers

Romain

Love the weathering on the gun, really really well done. Landscape is awesome as well.

The scene reminds me of Otto Carius's book. He talked about a 38 being used at the front line up there.

-Conor

Quite a nice little dio but a couple of things bothering me. The officer is Wehrmacht from the insignia on his peaked cap however you've got them in reversible smocks with a made up camo pattern on the inside. Wehrmacht reversible smocks were mouse grey to white and vice versa. The SS had reversible smocks with a camo pattern (usually oak leaf) on the reverse. I wouldn't say that's a hastily built position as it's well protected and is a uniform shape and is well excavated. Also why do all your figures always have beards? Not something you'd see an awful lot of apart from somewhere like North Africa with Long Range patrols ( SAS, LRDG) where water was at a premium. These guys are surrounded by snow so no excuse for not shaving

These guys are surrounded by snow so no excuse for not shaving

Wehrmacht reversible smocks were mouse grey to white and vice versa.

First of all , my compliments on a dio that is far better than most dios we see posted. The painting is excellent. Only two things stood out and grabbed me on the negative side. One was the mold line that you forgot to scrape off on the machine gun and the other was the spent shells. The spent shells look like they were cut off the rod stock with snips, giving it a crushed look .Use a sharp new hobby knife for a cleaner cut and paint one end of the cut shell , black. One other thing.............if the gun were to traverse around to the rear, it would knock over the rifles and hit the boxes too. Thank you for sharing.

You can get plastic rod stock of several diameters, from model railroad shops if you can't find it in regular hobby shops. Cuts clean with a hobby knife.I enjoyed your dio.

(comes from a period when things were not always available to buy like today