Introduction

The German Army and Navy developed a wide range of anti invasion obstacles to hamper and impede the Allied Landing on D Day. Accurate Armour have a nice range of these ‘obstacles’, and this is a brief look at their Nussknackermine I/II or ‘Nutcracker-mine’ as it was known.
The concept of the obstacle was to rip the hull out of small craft as they approached the landing beaches. Originally designed by the Kriegsmarine and called the KLM, a shortage of the KLM led to locally developed mines being made from readily available materials, hence the Nutcracker mine was born.

The Set

The set consists of 5 Nussknackermines, with each mine made up of 7 parts. You get a resin (concrete) base which secured the mine to the sea bed, a white metal girder, 2 x resin (concrete) for the top covers, plus some wire to make the 3 metal lifting handles that were attached to the concrete base. Also included in the set are a very simple set of instructions to aid building.

The ‘concrete’ bases are well detailed, cast in a green resin, they have external and internal detail. Cast inside the base is the anti-tank mine which, on the real Nussknackermine, was designed to explode when triggered. The outside of the base shows the concrete casting marks, and has the 3 sets of holes pre-drilled for the lifting rings.

The girders, being made from white metal, are quite realistic and only require a small hole drilled into the base through which can be inserted some piping to secure it and allow it to move, if so desired. Being white metal, they are soft and bend fairly easily!

The top ‘concrete’ doors are simple items that cover the top of the base, their purpose being to keep the sand out and move with the girder. These come cast in light grey resin.

Conclusion

A neat seat of anti-invasion obstacles, that will add additional detail and a sense of scale to any beach scene you are doing. Either being unloaded from the back of a truck or show in place spread out around the beach area, they provide a wider choice of finish for the modeller.

Normal precautions should be taken when working with resin.