Ambush

[Darwin]

For over 60 years now, I have been threatening to do a model railroad layout, and over the years have bought lots of bits and pieces toward that goal. It has occurred to me, though, that perhaps I should start developing some of the skills needed to build a layout on something other (less expensive and more forgiving) than the actual railroad equipment...some of which has become collector's items, as long as I've been following this dream. This thread denotes the start of a paper model diorama based around the HO scale Polish armored train Smaily that I have been working on. The photo shows progress on the train...it still needs a couple of flatcars to be a full construct, along with some "cargo" for those cars, and a whole bunch of assorted armored vehicles that are more or less appropriate for 1939 Poland, and maybe even a couple of aircraft if my ambition doesn't exceed my builder's attention span. Without the flatcars, the consist is about 26 inches long. I figure the entire diorama, as it is fleshing out in my mind, will be on the order of five feet long and at least a foot in depth....should keep me busy for a while, and lots of kitbashing to avoid mixing in p*****c beyond the toy soldiers. Unfortunately, I cannot find any WWII Polish military figures on the web in any scale, let alone HO. I have a couple of fairly good German infantry and tank crew plastic kits, and ordered a set of Soviet infantry figures, hoping they will be close enough to convince the casual observer that they are Polish and the Germans aren't fighting each other. As far as German armored, there are lots of early war light and medium tank kits available, and maybe even some halftracks. I'm figuring that a couple of the Gaz trucks and Ba series of Armored Cars will work for the Polish side, but maybe someone knows of some kits for Polish light tanks or scout vehicles that would be believable as part of an armored train. I also need to bash out a set of half-tracks based on a Gaz truck...lots and lots of little tasks ahead.

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[John Bowden]

Cool.......... but I was hoping for the tank v railroad scene from Kelly's Heros.......... always like the way the director shot that scenes and the camera's POV.

[Darwin]

Hmm...will have to pay close attention (as long as it doesn't involve any cash) when I transcribe the Kelly's Heroes VHS tape to DVD...it's working it's way to the top of the pile...

[Kevin WS]

Nice to see this Darwin.

I am an armoured train/armoured railcar buff so I look forward to seeing this develop.

Your rolling stock looks great - how about some more shots....?

[Darwin]

Kevin, some pics of the Smaily engine, tender, and command car are in http://www.papermodelers.com/forum/railway-related-builds/25281-panzerwagen-marszalek.html
The panzerwagen in the above thread is not associated with the Smaily. I'm still debating whether to include it in this diorama...it is possible that, as it hit the fan during the blitzkrieg, the Poles may have thrown together anything that still rolled to try stemming the flood. Three panzerwagens plus a couple of flatcars worth of light tanks would have made a pretty impressive mobile fortress. Next lull in the building sessions and I'll try to get some closeups of the Smaily's panzerwagen.

[Kevin WS]

Most of the armoured stuff on rail is very well documented so you should be able to find out what was and what was not used.

But, personally, my feeling is model and combine what you like! If it looks fine it is fine!

Thanks for the other link - very clean models!

[1970magno]

On page exclusivemodels are some tanks and vehicles 1939 Polish.

Ursus A, 4TP, Samochód pancerny wz.34, Polski FIAT 614, 7TP.

on page Y's Papermodel Workshop are a tankette.

013 TKS 20mmFK

[1970magno]

Exclusive Models (http://exclusive-models.org/)

Y's Paper Modelworkshop / Models by Visiters (http://www.terra.dti.ne.jp/~yoshidom/)

[maurice]

There's a Tatra drasine in the Downloads section.;)

[Darwin]

Thanks, guys. Maurice, glad to see you are still lurking around. I miss seeing your posts...hope you have been doing well. I have the Tatra drasine in the stash, but was thinking of something a bit more unusual as a scout vehicle for the train...like a halftrack Gaz truck equipped with RR inspection vehicle rig. I may wind up trying to scratchbuild a track set for the Gaz truck at PaperTigerArmaments.com. I've been looking hard at the stuff at Exclusive models, but am concerned my seasoned-citizen eyesight may not be up to putting together such fiddly models, especially after making them even smaller to fit with 1:87 scale. As far as the problem of 1:72 figures in a 1:87 world...they were giants back then, donchaknow.

[maurice]

Hi Dar
Thanks for remembering me. :)
Lurking is about all I'm good for these days.
Moved back into me new house (as predicted at http://www.papermodelers.com/forum/254146-post13.html ) 15 months ago and still haven't fully unpacked yet.

[John Bowden]

wait......... who's that stranger.......... Maurice!!! Yea!!!

[Darwin]

A bit more progress. The train is complete. I've added a couple of flatcars from another ABC magazine train set. I've started on the scout for the train. I decided to go with a couple of Zis 6 trucks from Paper Tiger Armaments configured as a track inspection outfit. The picture I saw of such a lashup had the trucks with a halftrack configuration; however, as fiddly as the model is after further reduction to 1:87 scale, I decided to leave them with normal street wheels...I've seen plenty of track inspection cars that use the unmodified street wheels for propulsion, so it is believable. All that is needed for the conversion is rail wheels added front and rear. Going is a bit slowed down by lack of instructions for the Zis. The frame is a single piece, with no hints as to where the fold lines are and what the finished item should look like. Length of the frame is a bit less than two inches (about 5 cm).

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[Darwin]

A little more progress. The majority of the day got sucked up going into town to visit my pain specialist. Not all a waste... I mentioned the potential for paper modeling as a pain therapyt to the almost-a-doctor that saw me and gave him our web address. Turns out he is a p******c modeler, and has an 8-year-old who is looking for things to do. I gave him our web address and a couple of others....maybe a new recruit for us.

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[Darwin]

I was hoping for the tank v railroad scene from Kelly's Heros.

John, definite possibilities, but not with this dio...can see it now, three Shermans fanning out from the tunnel face, Oddball at point with a lenghth of pipe covering the cannon barrel and loudspeaker blaring, blasting heck out of everything (I can see some of bestpapermodels dios being incorporated here, along with the latest scalescenes coaling station....tempting, very tempting).

[Darwin]

One down, one to go. For the purists out there, yes, the front wheels sit too far back on the body. This was intentional, as I want to use those lovely frame extensions to hang the rail wheels on, plus it goes give the Zil a bit different look, so it might be something Polish rather than Soviet.

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[Darwin]

An update, just in case someone might have interest in this string. A few more vehicles complete.

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[Vermin_King]

Well done. I've done a few vehicles at 1/72, and my nerves got a bit frazzled. These look very good.

[hawkman67]

Nicely done rail cars and vehicles.. for being small scale they look great. Nice and clean..
Jeff

[NStarkel]

Nice Sd.Kfz.7s, mind if I ask how you did the folds underneath the front grill? I have a uncomplete one laying around cause of it.

N.

[Darwin]

N., the fold line nearest the radiator I made a valley fold, and the other folds were all 'mountain' folds. The folded region of the piece forms a square tube, with two gray sides and two white sides, with the top of the tube forming a shelf at the base of the radiator. Thus, the two colored sides are visible from the outside of the vehicle, and the two uncolored sides are underneath the vehicle. When putting on the bumper, I just cut off the tab and glued the bumper to the "tube" formed at the bottom of the radiator.

Verm, it gets even worse at 1:87 scale. However, the only thing I've really had problems with are the headlights. Teasing them into position so the blackout slits on the lenses were horizontal was a real trick.

[NStarkel]

Thanks, I'll give it another go after I'm done with something else.

N.

[Darwin]

Have you ever been in the position of completing a build you are really pretty proud of, and on your way to post it on the brag board you happen to see a posting by someone else of your subject that makes you want to turn your model into a nuclear-grade spitwad and take up tatting? I'm, of course, referring to Hotfingers scratch build of his 1:72 scale German 88. However, I'm going ahead and posting my version of Paper Tiger Armament's 88,

[Darwin]

:eek:Geez, talk about hitting the wrong button. Oh well, here are the pics of the 88 for the common builder.

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[hawkman67]

Darwin,
Good pictures of your models. I for one think they turned out very well, they both look very nice. I like that you did both one ready t fire and the other in it's transport config.
Jeff

[Darwin]

Thanks Jeff. The advantage of doing a large diorama is being able to include a variety of configurations of the same model...really adds to the interest. Now if I can just come up with figures in the proper poses for what I'm planning...

[marco1971]

Hello Darwin,

great collections of models! Good job!

Marco

[hotfinger]

I am not an avid follower of things on railroad traks but I can say that what you have is some serious thing. Nice set and very nice work. Will be looking forward for your future postings and of course, the diorama. Cheers!

[Darwin]

A couple of BT-7s done (one of them still has a couple of details to go on, but my nerves have had about all they will take for one building session at this scale).

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[CMDRTED]

those ain't mulligans mortars coming down on us those are german 88s! great job on them.

[Darwin]

And now for some SdKfz 251s, again from Paper Tiger Armaments. This particular model offers up over a half dozen basic variations, even including a folding bridge. I took this opportunity to do a side-by-side build of both a 1:72 scale and HO (1:87) model to see just how much size difference there is. My conclusion is that the two scales can be mixed in the same diorama, but it has to be done very carefully...the 1:72 components should be located toward the front of the diorama, and not be close to any HO scale components, which suggests the dio needs to be depicting a large (several acres worth) scene, and not something like a street corner scene. My initial thought was that I would set aside the 1:72 model for use in some future diorama, but I think it would work to make it into a command vehicle and 'distance' it from the action of the scene to give an impression that the diorama has a greater depth than it actually has.

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[John Bowden]

I really liked the 88............. man that was a GUN!:eek: