A Pak 40 battery readies for to counter an armored assault. Thus is the basis for my first attempt at a diorama in many more years than I care to remember. The center of the diorama lies in a battery of Pak 40 antitank guns.... one from the Dragon 7.5cm Pak 40 kit and the other the Tamiya &.5cm antitank gun/Pak 40 kit; can you tell which is which? I built both just to see if the 'hype' over Dragon and its efforts was worth the money... for these, not sure as I was very pleased with both guns. THe figures represent my first attempt at them since I was a teen ( a highly classified tiemframe... over 30 years now). I used Woodland Scenics Learning Kits for Landscaping (LK954) and Scenery Details (LK956) to do the base and am very pleased with the results... having said all that, the guns and figures are NOT fixed so I am open to considerations for improvement. Enjoy!

The whole dio looks good... The groundwork especially. Like the idea of the small slope behind the guns. Just one thing though, the base seems a little too big for these 2 guns. Maybe you can try making a smaller base next time... but looks good for your first! Keep it coming..

I agree. There seems to be too much open space that needs to be filled. Also, I am bothered by the lack of continuity of the uniforms. Some troopers have their sleeves rolled up like summer and others have overcoats like winter.

The actual builds of the Paks look good

Ditto to Alan above. The greatcoats and rolled up sleeves are a major disconnect, especially when the foliage gives the impression of high summer. . The figures also look rather shiny, an application of dullocoat is in order.
The two PaK's look good, however. I l;ike the bundled garss camo. Nice touch.

AJ at al... agree the greatcoats and short sleeves are a disconnect of a degree.... but was playing with cards I had dealt in OOB scenario (ok... it was two kits I was OOBing).. thought was scenario was fall/early winter so some would be in greatcoats... some still in summer wear.... ok, its a push but best i could come up with in my mind.... some comments on size of dio but my intent was to try landscaping and linking such into the scenario ..... thanks for comments.

It seems like Tamiya's venerable PAK 40 is a first dio subject for many of us. I'm particularly impressed by the scenery--it looks like some veteran NCO had to pick a spot in a hurry, and his experienced eye found an excellent natural terrain feature, or perhaps a farmer's road.

As for the overcoats/rolled sleeves, I'm always amazed when I see real photos from war, and people seem to be in all sorts of different dress/undress, even in the same photo. I imagine different people react to extreme terror and adrenalyne differently, and either don't feel the heat/cold, or don't notice it when there's tanks less than 2,000 meters and closing!

Reminds me of my own, less ambitious "Stand in the Steppe." Also a first dio attempt.

Then I believe you did a great job there... the landscaping done is way better than what I did for my first. Hope to see more builds..




I started my first dio with that gun too... the figures are in a ready position to be place in a dio... that's why..

dioroma base ıs perfect

Not a bad one for the "first" !!!

keep them coming, you already got some nice pointers in comments above so i wont repeat any...

Just draw a sketch every time before you start a scene and pay attention on choice of kits and figures you will use so they are same period and uniforms...

Mirko

NIce first attempt Vic. The guys have pretty much covered it. Just some minor suggestions. The guns seem to be on a dirt road and possibly set up hastily. However, they aren't dug in so the recoil is likely to send the gun back a bit making the aiming for the next shot difficult. Perhaps if you could add a bit of soil to the scoops at the end of the 2 support arms to kind of give it the impression its dug in.

The other is your grass is a bit pale considering the rest of the vege is pretty green. A bit of trimming to give it an uneven top might help a bit in the realism too.

Still a good effort all in all.

Very good for a first dio! Keep it going like this and pay attention to all the others have said! Congratulations!
Cheers and happy modelling!
Prato

Vic:

Good job. Ground work looks good.

Brian