Alright,c'mon man!! Only one photo? What's up? We wanna see more!!
Never mind,i typed the entry while the rest of your excellent pics were loading.
.
j

OK, we have to know..how big is this sucker and can you move it with a wide load permits. All kidding aside let me say beautiful work! Next up atomic Annie? ..

That is not just another DIO. Really great work.

was'nt expecting that, wow great work, i would love to know the dimensions of the dio,best regards allan

No, really, I have no words. It is fantastic. This is really a great job. How many working hours did you spend ? How big is ?

Thank you for sharing the pictures !

on my kneeds!! >

It is 14 feet long and 4 feet wide

Roger,

Phenomenal! I dunno what else to write.

OK, I read that you scratchbuilt the excellent D311s. I have no idea where some of those other models can from. Would you be willing to list the vehicles and crane, tracked tractor, as to which are scratched, and what kits are used?

(BTW, are the haning X-1 and V-1 the big Pegasus models?)

indeed they are the Pegasus V1 and x-1. Leftovers from the deceased 1/18 hobby. There are quite a few vehicles and cranes but I will try to name some of them. The tracked crane is Accurate Armour although altered to represent a ww2 version as their model represents a post war crane.



One of the tractors is the PLUS Model tractor built pretty much stock.

another crane is the DES Strabokrahn. Directions are virtually nonexistent and pictures are illegible. Best to get the book "Der Strabokrahn" if you are going to do it. Fair amount of scratch as many pieces were missing from kit and directions were so vague that it required a lot of research and scratch building to complete



The Bussing Nag is Azimut with a 5T crane that I can't remember the name of. Truck is pretty stock but the tool box was scratch built as well as stabilizers.

The Italian truck crane is Cri.el. Rear canopy and engine were scratch built. Tried to use an add on kit to do the crane portion of the truck but the quality of the castings were too poor so scratch built the crane on the front.



As for the 2 enormous cranes that were used to assemble the Dora, I can take no credit whatsoever for them. A very excellent engineering/artist friend made them for me. I can only take credit for the research. he did a terrific job. Mail truck is Small Scale Accessories. It was a Phaeton hospital truck which I converted to a mail truck. They have some excellent subjects but castings tend to be extremely rough and basic. Plan on a lot of prep and detailing. That is a few of them but there are altogether about 40 vehicles, cranes etc. so if there is one in particular you would like to know about, let me know. Very much a work in progress. Lots of figures and vehicles still to go.

forgot to put pic of mail truck

Ahhh! Thanks for sharing more photos and information of this most impressive work! Keep 'em coming -- please!

Hi Roger,

you must be counted among the best diorama builders ever! Not many people are able to be brilliant in all the separate fields...composition, vehicles incl. conversions and scratching, figures..and terrain!! And one should not forget the patience to invest 100% in every single part of the dio!!

You have done it!!

Hats off and deep bow from an old dio builder!!

Most impressive show Sir!!!

Cheers

Romain

This is a tour d'force for anybody to admire. This dio shows all kinds of cool subjects that are rarely,indeed,if ever,shown in scale. The wide variety of vehicles is interesting and also indicative of the gigantic headache that was the German logistical situation in WWII. Not much in the way of standardization going on. Spare parts for a giant array of disparate vehicles!!
I also see my old friend the Italerei horse drawn ambulance and a nice effort on a horse drawn arty piece!! COOOL!!
Nice job. And the most impressive thing is you haven't lost interest after all that work and time!!
J

:O WOW! Very nice work! Just awe inspiring every time I look at this work of art I find something new and fascinating. One quick question did you scratchbuild the Doras ammunition cars?

Cheers Alex

Gee Roger, this goes beyond modeling and enters the world of art.

Each station or scene and or vehicle or kit built right here is a herculean effort at best!

I can't imagine the cost in not only currency but man hours it took. Was there a source picture you went by as a reference?

This is clearly not just another dio.







Jeff

Alex: when I first decided to do a diorama of the Dora, Trumpeter and Dragon were just coming out with their lines of German rail stock. I assumed I would be able to use the rail products produced by these companies at least as a basis but it wasn't until well into the project that I learned that virtually nothing on the market could be used for the Dora. All of the railcars and locomotives used by the Dora were made exclusively for the Dora and Gustav and were not based on any existing rail stock. The undercarriage of the ammunition cars, however, is the same as a German heavy (8 wheel) rail car so at least the undercarriage already exists.

One nice thing is that if you want to get a really good idea of what the Dora's ammunition cars looked like, you can go see them yourself. The military museum in Lesany, Czech republic has two of the Dora's ammunition cars. They are the only surviving components of the Dora besides some shells. All of the locomotives and other ammunition cars as well as the Dora herself were destroyed but these 2 cars survived. They had doors and windows cut into the side as they were used to haul cargo after the war. It is well worth a stop if you are in Lesany. Standing next to these cars and imagining what they have seen is a very moving experience.

I am really pleased to see that no one has commented on the Dora gun itself. The idea for doing the dio was not to show off the Dora but ,instead, to show the tremendous logistic support it required-the special locomotives which had to be built just for the Dora, the special refrigerated railcars which had to be built just for the Dora, the special cranes which had to be built just so the Dora could be assembled, the manpower,etc. To me that is the really the remarkable thing about these guns and that is what I wanted to show. The challenge was how to present that idea without it being smothered by the sheer size of the gun itself. I didn't want people to look at the dio and say "wow, that's a really big gun." Thanks for the compliments, but the fact that no one commented on the Dora itself is the greatest compliment of all.

well, back to work. I'll post some pics in a few months of the dio's progress. I have a couple of hundred figures to get going on so I best concentrate on that rather than taking pictures. Thanks and good luck on your projects.

Roger, you're right..!!!! Better work than taking pictures and write postings...even if we directly suffer from it..(no more pics! )...but we must concentrate on our indirect reward.....more top notch scenes/figures/vehicles/dios etc!!!!

Have fun then!!!

Cheers

Romain