The Defeat of
the German Panzerarmee 1944
After D-Day, the German Panzers knew only one way, the way back. The positive aspect was, it made the supply line shorter, the bad point was a lot of bridges and railway lines were destroyed either by the US-Air Force or by the French Résistance.
The idea to build a diorama with a German Panzergruppe on a ferry, came as I found an article about the German retreat from France. During the return the Germans had to pass over a lot of rivers. One major problem was the river Seine.
In one of my French magazines, there were some nice pictures of the different types of ships the Germans used. Actually you could say, everything able to swim, was used.
From local ferries up the several German MFP (Marine Fährprahm) everything was more than welcome.
As the maximum seize of any of my dioramas is related to the shoe boxes I use for later storage, the size would be 21 x 27 cm, or just DIN A4. (Very similar to the American Letter size)
So I wanted to show a ferry coming to the banks, where the Panzers would wait.
For the Panzers I decided to go with some Panthers.
Besides the German tank crew from Preiser, everything else is from Dragon.
The Panthers got some add-ons as radio antennas, side protections, and some spare wheels on their turrets. The side protection is made with thin plastic sheets, the radio antennas are taken from a brush. All trees are hand-made. For the water surface I used acrylic paint from the local home depot.
After D-Day, the German Panzers knew only one way, the way back. The positive aspect was, it made the supply line shorter, the bad point was a lot of bridges and railway lines were destroyed either by the US-Air Force or by the French Résistance.
The idea to build a diorama with a German Panzergruppe on a ferry, came as I found an article about the German retreat from France. During the return the Germans had to pass over a lot of rivers. One major problem was the river Seine.
In one of my French magazines, there were some nice pictures of the different types of ships the Germans used. Actually you could say, everything able to swim, was used.
From local ferries up the several German MFP (Marine Fährprahm) everything was more than welcome.
As the maximum seize of any of my dioramas is related to the shoe boxes I use for later storage, the size would be 21 x 27 cm, or just DIN A4. (Very similar to the American Letter size)
So I wanted to show a ferry coming to the banks, where the Panzers would wait.
For the Panzers I decided to go with some Panthers.
Besides the German tank crew from Preiser, everything else is from Dragon.
The Panthers got some add-ons as radio antennas, side protections, and some spare wheels on their turrets. The side protection is made with thin plastic sheets, the radio antennas are taken from a brush. All trees are hand-made. For the water surface I used acrylic paint from the local home depot.
The ferry is hand-made too, I searched some time on the internet for pictures of old ferries and together with the pictures from that french magazine I made some hand sketches how it should look. The basic is just a piece of wood, covered with some plastic sheets.
