Bridge Work

In World War Two the fast moving warfare style of the Blitzkreig required the ability to build bridges quickly.

To help simulate these bridges on the wargame table, I have taken the old Roco bridge and combined it with the boats from the Airfix pontoon bridge. I use sewing thread as the handrails, and strengthen it with superglue.

This gives me a unique bridge that is inexpensive and quick to build.

I don't glue the roadway down to the boats. This allows my wargame army the chance to "build" the bridge. There are resin companies that build the proper bridge, but they are very fragile and expensive, so I use this one. It is a standard size bridge, I build my streams to fit under this treadway.

128mm Flak Gun

As we all know, the Germans used 88mm anti-aircraft guns in World War Two. When the US B17 bombers started to bomb the Germans they went for larger and longer range guns to reach these durable and high flying bombers. They essentially scaled up the 88 mm gun into the 105mm AA gun. Later, they scaled them up again into an 105mm gun.

Eventually, they started mounting these 128mm guns in pairs so they could fire large caliber shells at the bomber stream.

In Berlin, the Germans built massive concrete flak towers as air raid shelters and to mount and control anti-aircraft batteries. I took a pair of old 105mm AA guns from Fujimi, grafted them together and made pretty good representations of the twin 128mm AA gun system.

These guns were mounted on pedestals on the flak towers. I used a simple bottle top for mine. Painted gray it works just fine.

In the Rear With the Gear

In WWII the Germans made much of their food everyday from scratch. They had various stoves and ovens with their units and butchers and would actually slaughter animals for fresh meet and bake bread. In the background you can see a soldier with a bucket of potatoes.

One of the ways the Germans kept the retreat from the East orderly was to set up road blocks. The road block would include a field kitchen and the fleeing troops would stop to eat and then the military police could round them up and form them back into units.

The troops in the far background are ACW men with new heads from the HaT Bicycle set. The HaT set has extra heads and they come in handy for conversions. The horse and hitching rail are from Atlantic. The Germans had large numbers of horses in most of their units and this gives me some horse maintenance men and accessories.

The seated man with his legs crossed is a combat artist. I put artists, cameramen, still and movie with my units. Units fight better and have better morale when they are on television or otherwise being watched by the folks back home. Germans had newsreels that played in theaters right up to the end of the war.

Cobblers Bench

Generally, I don't paint the masses of my armies. With over 50,000 troops I really can't paint them all and so I don't bother to try. I will paint troops a solid color so that they will look like a unit. These troops are a mix of various metal and soft and hard plastic figures that will join one of my late war German regiments. Some started as ACW figures, some as civilians and many are actual Germans. I did a few conversions on a few of them, mostly head swaps so they appear more Germanic.







This photo shows the troops and accessories after I painted them. When I organize a regiment, I try and include all the various elements of the unit. As you can see from the troops in this photo there are radio operators, cooks, officers, horse handlers and others.







On the left side you can see the cobblers bench. I took boots from some of the "dead" guys in the plastic set to use as the cobblers work. The middle bench is the paymaster. He has a line of paybooks set out on top. Finally, the table at the right edge is the armorers table. An ammo can and two rifles to work on.








I used a bit of sheet styrene for the base, and table top. I cut up a ladder to make the table legs. I cut a bit of plastic box rod to make the crates as the bench. This gives me a more detailed headquarters than just a couple officers and a radio. It also allows my unit to repair broken infantry gear after a battle and keep morale high by letting them get paid!