4 months left until Christmas, new winter diorama // in 4 Monaten ist Weihnachten, erstes Winter Diorama 29/52

Wierbelwind on duty in East Prussia

 I know, nobody wants to hear that, but while we still enjoy the last warm days, Christmas and winter time is coming closer and closer. Today in exact 4 months we have Christmas again. So I thought it would be a good idea to present a new diorama with a winter feeling. The diorama is actually very small.

Wiebelwind mal anders

Da wir ja schon bald wieder auf Weihnachten zugeht, hatte ich am Wochenende etwas rumgespielt und ein eues Video produziert. Einfach aml schauen und sich überraschen lassen.

Welcome to Germany or crossing a river with the M2 ponton bridge // neues Winterdiorama 3/52

I decided to build again a diorama with bigger dimensions but still fitting into a shoe box.
The theme is the use of my M2 ponton bridge system. The scenery plays around the operation Bodenplatte (the liberation of Bastogne). 
The basement is a MDF plate which I had left over. The banks are made with gypsum and snow powder. The water is made with some stuff, I had left. And that was the problem, initial I planed a summer theme, but the water was first clear but then during the drying process, it got milky. Therefore I changed from summer to winter time. with my snow powder I covered everything and added several trees to imagine the feeling of a forest. The tanks are from Dargon, the M2 is my own design.

top view of the 1/144 diorama with the M2 pontoon bridge

left side is a German Bunker, made with foam and paint

the M2 pontoon bridge

the banks of my milky winter river

1/144 abandoned German pillbox

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Deutsche Version

Mal wieder ein Diorama fertig bekommen. Auch dieses gehört zur Serie, schon lange angefangen und nicht fertig gemacht. Doch jetzt ist es fertig und es gefällt mir recht gut. Dabei; geplant war alles ganz anders. Ursprünglich wollte ich eine Sommerlandschaft darstellen und dort den Flussübergang. Doch als ich das Wasser mit der alten Masse eingoss, wurde es während dem Trocknen erst klar und dann immer milchiger. Rausreissen wäre eine Option gewesen, doch dann dachte ich, okay, dann spielt das Diorama halt in der Zeit der Elsass-Kampanie oder rund um die Befreiung von Bastogne. Die Panzer sind von Dragon und direkt unverändert eingebaut. Die Figuren sind handbemalt und sind Abgüsse vom Dragon Landungsboot Diorama. Die Pontonbrücke ist von mir aus meinem Shop und wurde entsprechend angemalt und aufgeklebt.

andere Flussseite mit Panzerhindernissen und Bunker

die M2 Brücke, Schlauchboote mit einem Aufbau aus Profilen und Fahrbahnplatten

Die nachfolgenden Fotos sollten eigentlich den Übergang etwas in Action zeigen, so mit Nebel und Rauch. Also draussen auf der Terrasse alles aufgebaut und die Rauchtablette gezündet. Aber egal wie, ausser verbrannten Fingern, klappte es einfach nicht, der Wind hat den Rauch immer in die falsche Richtung geweht.

Seitenansicht des 1/144 Dioramas

ein ganz bisschen Nebel ist rechts am Bildrand zu sehen

1/144 Jagdpanther somewhere in Belgium 18/52

During the Ardennen Offensive the Germans had 51 Jagdpanther in use. Most of them saw actions in small groups. During the Ardennen Offensive or like the rest of the world calls it, the battle of the bulge, we had a lot of snow. I always wanted to build again a small winter diorama. Grass in different green colours you get on each corner and you see it on 99% of all dioramas. But snow, - that if a total different story. 

The diorama was built on one weekend. Basement is a thin piece of foam board, the frame is from a Swiss cake package, the ruin was built with foam too. The ground was made with a mixture of everything, small stones, sand and a bit of gypsum. The ruins were painted with several dark colours. The Jagdpanther is out of the box, it is the old Cando model.

That's it.

Here is a very good essay about where the Jagdpanthers saw actions / got lost.

General information about the Jagdpanther can be found here or here.

Jagdpanther in an ambush

Jagdpanther hiding in a ruin 

1/144 Jagdpanther

As this was done in less then two days I copied the idea and made a second, very similar diorama.

1-144 Jagdpanther in winter fighting

1-144 Jagdpanther in winter fighting

1-144  Tiger in winter fighting

As you can see on the last picture, not only Jagdpanthers fighted in the Battle of the Bulge, there were although some Tigers. 

Winter fighting or a Hetzer on his way to Bastogne

As there are so many dioramas with summer topics, I wanted to try it with a winter theme.

I used the following vehicles:

• German Hetzer from Dragon
• GMC truck from 21 ^th Century
• US Sherman M4 from Dragon
• Soldiers from Pegasus

For the basement I used an old piece of wood which I brought into a rectangular size. Then I used a router to shape a 5 mm deep form into the wood. In this deeper form I pressed a kind of soft clay to create something like a way with an intersection.

After drying I made the first test in which way the vehicles would fit best.

Then I added some trees and of course the snow.

I hope you enjoy my small diorama even the snow maybe is not fine enough.

 

here I put for some time a Puma on the diorama

 

Winter wonderland in 1/144

Here a model which I build many years ago, just when I started collecting tanks in the scale 1/144.
From a modeling magazine I got a good idea about a bleaching material what I could use for snow.

As a basis I took a 12 mm cork coaster which you find in each Swedish furniture store. On the top I modeled the landscape in a combination of gypsum and paper. Later I painted everything in dark brown and scattered it with this bleacher powder.
The only thing I forgot where the tank tracks in the snow. Therefore I tried a modification which I later removed.