I would like to make a dio with both opposing forces on the same base. Problem is, if you consider a reasonable firefight distance to be 100 yards or meters, you would need an awfully large base even in 1/72 scale. That comes to about 1.3 meters or 4 feet, not very handy. Other ideas I have would be one opposing force advancing past destroyed vehicles of the opposing force, building clearing, or even a bayonette charge. I'm curioius who out there has had success with both opposing forces on the same base and how they did it.

Who says a reasonable firefight has to be at 100 yds? The enemy could be on the other side of the hedge row for all you know. Im making a diorama with opposing forces on each side. The base is about 13in wide and 20in long. Nothing is reasonable in combat, its all chaos.

A few ideas come to mind:
CQB, as you've already mentioned.
A near ambush (near being within 35 meters, or hand grenade range) which conveniently makes your base 1m or less in length in 1/35 scale.
Two opposing forces who are unaware of one another's presence, like the scene in BoB where the wall crashes down.
Or how about a forced perspective dio, where 1/35 forces are battling 1/72 forces on a "distant" hilltop?

Yeah, I agree with with 18bravo, you can easily make it a close quarters scene. Oh, btw 18bravo, the seen with the crashind down wall is from Saving Private Ryan :-)

For my diorama, i can fit 20 figs, a pak40, tank, and jeep all in 20x13 inches. The distance inbetween is pretty far also. So pretty much just lay out somthing, have a good distance that you feel comfortable with and think looks good, then go for it!

I'm with TsunamiBomb and 18Bravo on the distances. I usually encounter the same problem frequently when doing my dios albeit at 1/35. Apart from a CQB, I think a little literary licence is needed in shortening the distance otherwise you'll end up with a lot of dead, uninteresting space.

Another alternative is to place obstacles between the 2 opposing forces like hedge rows as mentioned by TsunamiBomb. Other obstacles can be burnt out vehicles, bomb craters, trees, fences, small hills just to "disguise" the shortened distances. Sometimes what is off an exact scale may seem distorted or out of proportion to the eyes (i.e. Buildings) with the exact opposite being true in other cases.

Best bet is to place all your opposing forces including obstacles on the floor and move them around until the eye finds it reasonable rather than following strictly to scale. Then build your base around that arrangement.

Hmmm...a dio which presents two opposing forces would be okay. But the main problem here is the open space in between the forces. Your dio will probably have an huge blank space.

Also, even if you can portray it realistically, you will need a large dio. Unless this is what you really intend, you will have a problem of finding a place big enough to put it.

Maybe this could help...

When I was signing up for the Ardennes Offensive campaign, I was planning a "combat scene" wherein the US GIs, who were defending the perimeter of Bastogne, are shooting at a German force. If it would have been a diorama, there would be a highway between the opposing forces. When I laid it out on paper, I found the dio too bulky and too impractical with the stretch of highway as open space.

What I planned was to make two separate dioramas...one for the US GIs shooting at an enemy NOT depicted in their diorama. The second diorama consists of the German force shooting at something NOT depicted in their diorama. The "uniting" factor of both dios is a small depiction of the highway on each dio. Sort of like a "bookstand" dio wherein an "imaginary" highway runs in the middle.

When placed in a shelf with the dios around 5 inches apart, it would look as if the activity occured in the same place and the same time. It would also be more "practical" if you have a smaller place to display your work.

Due to the lack of time, I will only be able to make and enter the US side for the campaign. But after that, I will make the German side.

So, what I'm suggesting to is to make two separate dios for each force.

Hope this helps.

Angela

it would be pretty easy to get two opposing forces into the same diorama, provided you plan ahead.

there are many occaisions when troops(particularly infantry) will be fighting each other over short distances;

FIBUA-fighting in built up areas

Final stages of an assault-trench clearing/bayonet charge etc

Clearing destroyed enemy positions of wounded, bodies etc

with armour you are slightly more limited, there are lots of instances where, usually by confusion, tanks have got very close to their enemy.

at one stage in the battle of Kursk, german and russian tanks got so close they couldnt turn their guns quick enough so just rammed each other!

sometimes vehicles managed to get close enough to fire point blank at the enemy. in normandy a daimler scout car managed to get behind a tiger, knocking it out by firing point blank with its 2-pdr.

if you have a certain vehicle combination etc you want, let us know and im sure between us we can find something!

regards

joe

i know from stories of people fighting WW I that the trenches in flandern were at certain points less than 10 meter apart. One could throw stones (or more dangerous things) at each other.

This was sometimes done intentionally to limit the distance that had to be covered in open terrain when attacking the enemy.

Attacks and counterattacks, artillery fire making enormous holes in the groud and constant repairing and constructing trenches... At the end it got very complicated.

Distance is all relative. There are many senarios that would work for opposing forces to be at close distance. Think of the situations~ Urban combat can be house to house ~ Ambushes ~ Hedrow hell ~ all of these ideas are ideal for even 1/35th. Let your creativity flow, don't convince yourself that fighting has to take place at a great distance. It can, and has been up close and personal... Take sometime and think about it. Go rent or get BOB off the shelf, SPR, The longest day, A Bridge Too Far, all of these have great ideas that you can incorperate into a dio. Let go of that "modelers block". If you need some more motivation or ideas PM me I "ll get you going!

Paul

Heck nieghbor, I would even do some drawings for you, and send them to you!

If you're energetic and want to deal with multiple scales you can a 'forced perspective' shadowbox.
This is a dio in a box where you place the large figues near the window at one end of the box and the small scale at the other end of the box.
This tricks the eye into thinking there are greater distances between the two.

Actually in France there is a section of trenches preserved which has the exact same situation... enemy trenches less then 10 metres apart. What about the cities...

The infamous Stalingrad house of a few stories with each side occupying alternate floors (cellar, 1st, attc vs groundfloor, 2nd floor).

The bocage was just as bad (there is hardly a place where you can see 100 yards). The jungle poses the same problem.

Even in the civil war, Napoleonic era or before lines got closer then 100 yards on a regular basis.. as 100 yards is an afwully great distance to cover through open terrain.

Here is an Idea i've got in my "idea" folder for when I get into dio's.. I saw this in old war game manuals back in the mid 80's.. they show the forces on both sides of the battle and they ground they are on.. with slightly angled or jagged line running through the middle to show that distance has been condenced...

maybe a dio base with a gap of some sort in the middle (not a trench or any other groundwork just a gap in the base as an indicater of uninteresting distance... and have the forces facing each other on each side... if they are far enough apart you could have one side like dug into a ruin or some such and the other sied on some groundwork for a hill getting ready to attack .. the possibilitys seem pretty large to me.. .

though some may think this is just a crazy idea... it appeals to me for making a battlefield with forces at a distance without a lot of wasted space you have to make "interesting" for balance...



I tend to keep a lot of strange idea's written down in my folders in case I need them some day....

Chuckster,

Here is two 1/35th dio's that I made that I guess are considered close quarters. The one with the tank is 7" X 21" and the other is 12" X 12". there is more photos in my gallery. Hopes this helps you.

Picture Perfect !!!!

WRTBGS

70+ 1/35th figures

Personally, I would go with the forced perspective using 1/72, 1/35 and 120mm items You could convey huge amounts of distance with this in a limited amount of space. Just my .02 worth. "Q"

In the Pacific Campaign of WW2, the Japanese often did Banzai charges, in which case the fighting was hand to hand. Also, the Chinese in Korea sent wave after wave after wave until the barrels on our machine guns would melt. In Vietnam, the NVA would do the same thing. Watch We Were Soldiers, and you will see a common firefight in Vietnam.

Hi all

I think some times its hard to get the CQB thing to look realistic but strange things happen,and its very often not the heat of battle that gets the point over.
I can remember my dad telling me that when he was in Normandy he and a mate had taken up position in a partially burnt out chicken house my dad was peering out of the small square entrence of the chick house , when he saw about 6 germans run past no more than 6ft away .
My Dad kicked his mate but got no response he turned to see his mate munching away on the the dead chickens that had been recently barbecued when the the hen house had caught fire.
They quickly slipped away they did not fire which they could have done as they had no idea what the enemy strength was ,but he said very often you were very close to the enemy and you did not know it.
Cheers Chris

tango has an excellent example. that is a great story. Its fairly simple to make these close quarters dioramas because, youll somtimes find yourself 10ft away from the enemy and wont even know it. Thats the whole point of camoflage.

Not too long ago I remember seeing a really nice shadow box diorama using forced perpective of a panzerfaust team taking aim through a doorway or window at an approaching Sherman, really well done. Regards,
Robert

I saw this at the IPMS Nationals this past year. It was very nicely done. The box it was in was kind of large, but I think that was for all of the lighting he had in it. I'd still suggest the forced perspective. Most bang for the buck. "Q"

I don't see an issue with the distance. If you read personal memoirs of WW2 you will find frequent references to point blank fighting.
There was a battle ( I forget it's name) in North Africa where 25Pdr guns in support of 5th Hampshires fought Tigers down to under 30 yards. This is the equivalent of literally eyeball to eyeball in armoured warfare terms. Likewise during the Bulge, German infantry attacks at Bastogne reached the American trenches, & the last bodies actually fell into the foxholes. This is in "open" fighting. There are plenty of instances where the fighting was even closer, Normandy either side of a hedge, Stalingrad, Arnhem etc. I could go on.
As for earlier wars, battles were usually resolved by getting to close quarters, one only has to think of Waterloo, Rorkes Drift, Gettysburg - all involved hand to hand combat. I don't see why you shouldn't have both sides on a quite small base.

It is great with so many ideas, I was just reading about Quinns Post at Gallipoli (it is almost ANZAC day here in Australia & New Zealand) and the trenches were only a few feet apart, Ther is also a diarama at the australian war memorial showing the attack on Lone Pine with the Australians Standing on top of the Turkish troops who had built log covers to shelter them from shelling, I think the range is 0 feet

THose are superb dioramas

Hi Guys

I agree the issue of distance is not that important,as long as the dio is well thought out my dad was anti tank in Normandy and he said they were very close at times in fact so close they would sight up by opening the breach and targeting down the barrel, 60 to a hundread yards
Iam not sure but i think when one of Whitmans Tanks was taken out buy i think the Dorsets in a french village they were very close. In the Falklands there was some very up close and personal fighting
I just think at the end of the day, its how you plan it.
Just my two cents
Cheers Chris