Treflon's blog: Wunstorf airfield diorama

Hello again!

It's been more than a year since I last published something. Thing is I have been awfully busy: some jobs have found me and so I had to deal with them...

Anyway here is my latest diorama, representing (very loosely) the capture of a German airfield in April 1945 by British paratroopers following operation Varsity. I intended to faithfully recreate the capture of Wunstorf airfield on April 7th 1945, but truth is, after having spent hours reading about British Army organisation, divisions, brigades, batallions,... I just gave up. I honestly think you need a PhD in astrophysics to understand anything about the structure of the British Army. (and to understand the rules of cricket, but that's another story...)

The idea was to have a post-battle scene, when our paratroopers have been rejoined by forward scouting elements of the Guards' Armoured Division. (I picked the Guards Armoured division because I had some leftover decals from a Bren Carrier, and because the name sounded cool...)

The choice of the subject was dictated by the fact that I always wanted to build a diorama including both planes and armoured vehicles. And also because of the kits I had in my stash. I know people usually plan a scene and buy the kits accordingly, but I must confess I do the exact opposite....

So on to the build....

Messerchmitt 109 G-10 Erla built and Eduard Brassin G6 engine

This is the Revell 1/32 offering, ref 04888. It's a very decent and cheap kit, but, as usual with Revell kits, the parts' plan is all over the place: the part numbering defies any logic known to man. I suspect Revell engineers are all former RAND corporation employees. Or aliens hell-bent on driving humans mad....

Since the aircraft was supposed to be abandoned, it made sense to expose inner details, such as the engine, and to remove part of the canopy (I've always wondered why abandoned German planes featured on WW2 photos often show the moving part of the canopy missing...)

For the engine, I acquired the wonderful Eduard Brassin set for the Revell BF 109-G6, hoping there would be no fitting issue. Luckily, there weren't any. On the plus side, even though I hate working with resin and photoetch, I must admit the build was fairly enjoyable. Which is a good thing considering the engine kit price is twice as much as the plane....

Here's a pic of the undercoated engine....

... and one of the (almost) completed engine

... fitted on the finished plane

The building

After sketching the general shape on paper, I cut some pieces of foamboard to form the walls. These were temporarily taped together to have an idea of the final aspect.

Walls were subsequently covered with engraved plastic sheet.

Hangar doors, a small door and window framing were all added from plastic strips and sheets. A piece of homemade corrugated metal sheet and a drainpipe from plastic tubing were also added.

Finally the building was undercoated with brown acrylic paint from a spray can and placed on the base to check the general composition

The vehicles

The dingo is a Mini Art reference, which builds into a very delicate (in fact too delicate for my taste, I don't like spending hours assembling invisible details such as the supensions...) model.

The BSA motorcycle and welbike are both Tamiya references, and were assembled in no time. All were given a base coat with a mix of XF51 Khaki Drab and some XF61 (I think, I can't remember exactly) and weathered with washes of Burnt Umber Oil paint.

The BSA and welbike were drybushed with a mix of Ivory, Yellow Ochre and light Green oil paint, while the Dingo wasn't drybrushed at all. Instead higlights were carefully painted on with a 00 brush and some Vallejo Model Colour light green paint, in a similar way as figure painting. Tiny scratches were added with brown-black and very light green Vallejo colours, and some streaks in various shades of brown were painted with oil paints.

Final touch was the use of "Green Earth", "Cassel Earth" and "Yellow Ochre" artists' pigments in various proportions.

The figures

The paratroopers and MP are from Tamyia. They were built straight from the box, except for the MP who received a Hornet head. (I must say that Tamiya most recent figures have really improved, but even then, some of their faces are not quite up to modern standards)

The 2 officers inspecting the plane are from Mini Art ("British Officers" set), and had their heads replaced with Hornet ones.

Aaah Mini Art... Mini Art figures... What can I say? Invariably with Mini Art figures, I always experience 4 stages of growing disapointment:

Stage 1: Excited by the subject and the figures' poses, I buy the box.
Stage 2: Opening the box, one can usually notice a severe amount of flash and poor quality of the most minute items. Not big a deal,,,,
Stage 3: Inspecting the faces, you notice a strong resemblance with a acid-burnt baboon's face
Stage 4: After thoroughly cleaning the figures, replacing the heads, sanding the whole figure (the plastic is rather "grainy" and has many micro imperfections), undercoating and applying the first coat of paint.... you discover in horror that the micro imperfections have magically reappeared!

I wouldn't mind if they were reasonably priced, but hey, they cost the same as Dragon's! (Granted, at least they pick interesting subjects, unlike the latter. I'm surprised that Dragon hasn't issued "9th SS division on the beach" or "10th SS division go fishing" yet... I guess it's only a matter of time...)

Here are some pics

All together....

And in position....

The tree

Simple electrical wire, twisted and covered with Duro. The smallest twigs are zeeschuim glued to the larger pieces of wire.
The leaves were made as described in an earlier post, here , and individually glued to the zeeschuim twigs. I agree the final result looks a bit sparse, but I got a bit fed up after 6+ hours of gluing individual leaves....