WWII didn't end in 1945...

Pictures of my last "old" diorama. This time a "What-if" or "Luftwaffe-46" scenario. It's the Focke Wulf Ta-283. The diorama is set in Spring 1946. The Normandy landings was postponed in June 1944 because of bad weather and a later attempt failed. Because of this the German army could send reinforcements to the East and stabilize the front. During 1945 there was a general lull in the fighting because of exhaustion on all sides. There was even talks of an armistice. Now in Spring 1946, the Soviets make a final attempt at ending the war and are advancing ever nearer to Berlin. The Western allies put their hopes on the Italian front and repeated bombing raids on Germany (they have decided not to use the Atom Bomb in Europe, unless absolutely necessary). The Ta-283 is to be used in combat for the first time in another attempt at stopping the Alled bombing campaign.

The aircraft never left the drawing board and we will luckily never know if it would have worked as a combat aircraft.

I have painted the panel lines too sharp. Perhaps fix this sometime... The aircraft kit used is made by Huma Modell.

Soviet made artillery in the Saharan desert

Another old little diorama in 1/72. A Soviet made 122 mm M-30 howitzer in Egyptian service during the Six Days War in 1967 or the following War of Attrition until 1970.
The howitzer were used extensively by the Soviets during WWII and large numbers found their way to the Middle East in the 1950s and 60s.

The M-30 and two of the crew are by Zvezda. The figures have been slightly modified to look like Egyptians rather than Soviets in WWII.

The third figure is from Esci's Warsaw Pact Troops.

Ammo box is scratch built by myself (from matches and plastic sheet).

1 Divisione corazzata "M"

My first post for a very long time. Thought I catch up and post pictures of an old little diorama depicting a Pz IV serving the Italian unit 1 Divisione corazzata "M" during exercises in 1943. The "M" stands for Mussolini. It was a Black Shirt armoured unit equipped with German AFVs (Pz IV, Pz III, Stug III). It never saw any combat as a unit and didn't oppose the overthrow of Mussolini in July 1943.

The tank is the old Esci/Italeri with some minor improvements (on the turret and the driver's hatch). The Italian tank crew figures are made by Waterloo 1815.

How would the Italians have performed if they had been equipped with better tanks and other heavy equippent from the start?

Americans over there!

So here it is, the completed ABM 42 diorama. It's a scene from Sicily 1943, with a camionettisti unit having some minor problems. I imagine they are passed by another Italian unit. The vehicle commander is pointing to in which direction the american forces are.

East Germans in 1/87

I finally gave in.. I've been watching the East German frontier guards from Preiser at my local hobby shop a long time but never bought them since they are made in the "wrong" scale 1/87. They are even smaller than what I'm used to, 1/72. But my curiosity finally took over and I bought them the other day.

In the box there are six figs in six different poses. Some arms and equipment are seperate and needs to be glued. And they are small! (20 mm in height). In the box there are also a frontier marker post, a guard dog and some signs made in paper that you can glue on walls, road signs or similar.

Of course, if I got the figs in 1/87 they will also need vehicles of some sort in 1/87 :-D  I searched the internet and found a lot of things in scale 1/87; it is after all the prefered scale for train hobby enthusiasts. Most were civilian stuff, but there are a few military minis in 1/87. The best I found for my new figs were made by Herpa, a big producer of vehicles in 1/87. They have a little series of mini vehicles for the East German army and I ordered a couple of Trabants and a russian made UAZ 452 van. Seems like Herpa are continuing the old Minitanks line (originally released by Roco?).

Let's see what else will come in 1/87 in the future...

ABM 42 finally ready painted!

I've had this Italeri ABM 42 painted in base colour more than a year but not until now have I finished it. Finally! It was fun to paint and since it hasn't got any roof you can see inside the vehicle for a change!(compared to a tank that's almost always closed for view inside)

I painted it as a vehicle belonging to 113a Compagnia Arditi Camionettisti in the Italian Army, Sicily 1943. The driver is made by Waterloo 1815, from their set with Italian tank and vehicle crews.

 

I'm not that used to paint desert camouflage but I'm satisfied with the result. I've also tried to imitate the look when paint is scraped off from areas that are frequently walked and touched on by the crew, exposing the bare metal under the paint.

A desert Ferrari packing guns!

And here comes the rest of the crew, also from Waterloo 1815. The commander in the middle is from the figure set X MAS ("deci mas", not "christmas"!) and the two others are from the Folgore paratroops light artillery set. I've changed heads on the two seated/lying figs, so they got the bustina cap instead of a paratroopers helmet.

And finally the base on which I plan to put them when it's finished.

Flying saucer project

I have also started on my UFO project, using the Pegasus Hobbies Alpha Centauri UFO I recently bought. The plan is to make an imaginary "Nazi UFO". The inspiration comes from the movie Iron Sky (a comedy about nazis on the moon...check out the trailers on youtube). There is also a myth (?) about germans making a flying saucer and having established a base for it on the Arctic during the war, called project Haunebu.
I have scratchbuilt part of the cockpit by using parts of an old Me-262 double seated night fighter model that was wrecked since before. The two round "engine parts" that are under the seats are made from left-over Sherman tank wheels in scale 1/35. The unpainted pilot fig is from Revell.