Here are a few pictures of the tank and figures that will go into my Battle of the Bulge diorama for my local club's December group build. The diorama, as presently contemplated, will take place in the close range fighting in the twin villages of Krinkelt-Rocherath where US infantry from the 2nd and 99th Infantry Divisions, beat off attacks by the 12th SS at close range using bazookas. The tank is Dragon's Panzer IV Late J. The German figures are from Warriors, Nemrod and Verlinden. The US figures are from Warriors and Michael Roberts.









As always, comments are welcome.

Keith

Everything looks great so far Keith. Would the US infantry have on great coats? Just wondering.

Shaun.

Looking good so far,but dont see any great coats?
Arthur

Keith -
Looks super so far. Can you give us a little more on the diorama itself? Will the Panzer IV be shown after taking a hit or about to be hit? I think the figures are great and I plan to check so of them out. My "Bulge" diorama will have a 1SS Panther w/SS Grenadiers and Volksgrenadiers (Verlinden, Warriors, and Dragon). Please keep us up to date on your progress,

Blade48mrd

Do to a general shortage of winter coats, not everyone had them. More ofthen then not, they succombed to exposure if not combat deaths. This dio could be set in the early parts of the campaign.

Jeff

Jeff beat me to it. There was a serious problem getting warm weather gear up to the frontline troops. You can see many pictures of US troops wearing the 1943 jacket in the Bulge fighting. All three US figures are cold weather figures as they have scarves, gloves and the bazooka figure is wearing the wool jeep(?) hat. The scene, hopefully, will have the two German infantry peeking around the corner of a building, while the tank commander is yelling at them to move out and check around that corner. The US figures will be ...somwhere else, exact location to be determined ... trying to avoid detection and set up an ambush of the Germans. All of the figures are very nice. The only real difficulty being the removal of their weapons from the pour blocks, which did not go well and necessitated the use of replacement weapons for two of the Americans. The US figures are: Warriors 35059 and 35060; Michael Roberts 54-006. The German tank commander is from Verlinden 1711. The other two are Nemrod 35040 and Warriors 35259.

Keith

Looking good already. I like the idea. Great work.

I like the pose of the American with the bazooka, but ( I know, nitpicking again ) isn't there usualy another guy with the bazooka rounds behind him? Or will one of the other figures carry the rounds?

Cheers
Henk

Keith, I love the storyline, I cant wait to see what your plans for the base are. The panzer looks good so far as well. The figs are great. I think you made some great choices there. One question though, the wires for the commanders headset what are they made of? PE? Keep us posted! Cheers Kevin

as they said in Band of Brothers, they didnt always have winter clothing...

looks good, figures are well detailed, how big is this going to be?

Thanks for the comments. Good point Henk about the ammo bearer. Unfortunately, historical reality will have to give way to the availability of figures. I am not aware of a cold weather loader figure?

Shain, as far as the size of the diorama, that is to be determined. My initial idea was for a small diorama, but it keeps growing larger as I locate additional figures. Right now the plan is to use Verlinden's Ruined Ardennes Farm and some of Kancali's fine products.

Kevin, the headset wires on the tank commander are wire from Radio Shack (they sell a bag of three spools of different sized wire, a great deal and very useful), it is the same wire that is holding the spare tracks on the front of the PanzerIV. The plug(?) for the wires, is simply a small piece of scrap plastic. Eventually I will cut of one of the wires coming out of the bottom.

Since I posted the pictures I added additional spare track on the lower front of the Panzer IV's hull (Dragon provided a ton of spare track links in this kit, unlike the Pershing kit I am also working on) and drilled out the ends of the schurtzen racks. Eventually, the Panzer IV will have some mesh schurtzen panels on the sides.

A great source for this diorama has been "The Ardennes: Battle of the Bulge" volume from the series The United States Army and World War II. This is available (along with 14 other volumes in the series) on a CD set for about $25 from the US Government online bookstore.

Anyone have suggestions for paint schemes for the Panzer IV?

Keith