Bill Cross builds up two of MiniArt''s European Trams for a diorama of collateral damage.

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Thanks!

Nice work Bill ! Good Idea about the microscope slides for windows. I might steal that idea myself.
Thanks for sharing with us and I hope to see a complete dio one day soon.
Tom

Very nice work, Bill.. I especially like the one that's burnt out.. and the street being so empty gives off this gloomy feeling

Hisham

Hi Bill,

great idea to display 2 cars together! It adds another dimension and gives you more room for creativity!!

You mentioned that you might add a couple of figures, and I wonder if any of these guys would be curious enough to go for a look at the inside of the tram cars ( I would ) .

IMHO the street could do with some litter too. Whenever I see real photos, I am amazed at the amount of rubbish lying around!

Congratulations Sir! Impressive show!

Cheers

Romain

Fantastic work Bill. Certainly a cool way to display these tram beasties. Love the work with the burnt out tram in front.

I agree with Romain that the street could use some more clutter but really it is only a small nitpick. It is pretty impressive as it is.

With friendly greetz

Robert Blokker

Looks great. Reminds me a lot of a scene I saw in the book"Kampfraum Arnhem". Wonderful book with awesome clear pics of late war German troops.
J

Thanks, everyone, for the kind words. I will look at adding some litter, though I don't have any good ideas for doing that in 1/35th. Any suggestions?

Yes, Hisham, I like the loneliness of the scene and feel that 6 figures are about right.

Ola Bill

Well you can almost use anything you like. Unused kitty litter, Bricks cut from cork. Strips of wood, stained painted and torn up, Newspapers drifting in the wind. Easy to print or make your own with a pencil and a scrap of old thin paper. Crates always work well. A sparewheel and other parts from a vehicle destroyed just off the edge of the scene. Which would work quite well considering one of your Trams got a few hits as well.
Tangled wire on the street. An overturned Park bench. A dead horse. The Piano on the street from Saving private Ryan and Band of Brothers. Pretty much anything can be litter in Battle.

Thanks, Robert! I want to avoid my usual temptation to throw in everything but the kitchen sink (which would be OK in this case, LOL).

Hi Bill, Nice work. I like the destoried one. very nice weathering! Cheers Ken

Hi Bill, Love the work and the detail on the burnt out tram, and the figures, and the correctness to history as displayed. The only thing i questioned was the hit penetrations. Cause the openings were so big i would have thought they would have taken the tram right off the rails or go completly through both sides. But other then that its a superb diorama, the weathering, burn damage, story line, colors to time line and etc..

Ken, thanks.

William, I wrestled with how I wanted to do that, but went with the low muzzle velocity round theory that would cause the tram to burst into flame (and burn out), say a 3.7cm PAK or 75mm Pz. IV "cigar" barrel. It's why I have the glass shards all facing outwards: from an inner explosion.

I based my overall decision on photos I've seen of burned-out trams, but I appreciate your concerns and they did cross my mind. Hits on tanks and other vehicles tend to be smaller because they're going into thicker steel; a tram was never designed to take an artillery or tank round, so the damage might be more dramatic. I was careful to remove all the inner wood portions and replace them with some scorched RC airplane wood "beams."

Well Bill, since Faust has more or less given the full list of "possible" trash, I can only repeat what I said earlier: congratulations Sir!!

The only thing I would do is reduce the harshness of contrast between the burnt abd unburnt parts! The marks would not end in straight lines. Moreover, burn damages include colour cracking under the heat, i.e. a surface that is actually not smooth.

Just my 2c worth!

Cheers

Romain

Simply superb!

Hi Bill
Yoy just couldn't go with one tram, oh no, you had to build two They look really great, you should be proud.
Best regards
Jacob

Very uncommon nice scene ! Uncommon because almost no modeller will do such a scene with 2 trams and and a few soldiers and no vehicles. Nice because it looks damned real and lively !!! I like it !!!

Very nice Bill.
Your brave using real glass.
Just my opinion,but maybe a small vehicle might add to it.
And of course litter. Keep them coming.

Tom

Stellar work Bill. I very much like the detail on the destroyed one. I have 2 in the wings for a large dio which is a work in progress using several of Miniarts dioramas.

Hi Bill,
A perfect scene you build. It brings back memories of my time in Sarajevo, where a couple of trams offered the same impression as your dio!
Respect!
And thanks for sharing it with us.

Really awesome dio Bill- the scale of those trams gives some breadth to the scene and the contrast between the burnt out tram and the one that isn't is great. Fantastic stuff.

A very striking and unusual diorama!

It makes me wonder now--would these trams have had tempered glass?

What a great diorama idea. The starkness of contrast is very well done. The burnt car is was done perfectly.

Skillful and creative work; well done

Hi, Bill,

Searching through my (printed) 1995 photos of the streets in Sarajevo, I found the one with the street cars. Since these cars were used as a target (for some reason also long after they were halted and left alone), there was no other debries and litter than that what came from the car! So, your scene in itself is perfect.
Furthermore, since you show a fighting scene, every soldier involved would be completely occupied with his survival, not spending a split second on the interior of the car!!!!!
My humble opinion: you created a winning scene, do not change it!

Great work Bill...

Another pic i've just found: