German WWII Pionierbrücke

I noticed that I do have some river boards, but no suitable WWII bridges yet. Since for now I'm concentrating on early WWII Eastern Front, a German Pionierbrücke was the obvious choice. In spite of that, I did build one.

My rivers are 10cm wide, but I plan to have some twice a wide in future, so the design had to be flexible enough to reflect that.

The width was determined by that of the average German army truck, and that of horse drawn artillery.

This a considerably longer example, across the Dnjepr, in 1941.

The bridge deck.

Sturdy supports.

The underside of the bridge deck, below it the two ramps.

Basic construction done. There were still a few emergency bridges in use when I was a kid, and I remember the ramps having cross bars to give horse hooves traction - so I added those to my model.

A start on the hand rails.

The finished bridge.

The examples I've see were all unpainted, so I only "dirtied" the deck, stained the supports at water level, and called it a day.

My first Bolt Action game.

I know one isn't supposed to beat Buddhist monks, but this one was asking for it.

Lars Schieving invited me over for a game of Bolt Action, my first ever, a small scale infantry do.

The first pic shows the start of the game. I played the Americans, Lars the Germans. Behind the farm house bottom left you see my tactical reserve, which didn't see any action besides being used for target practice.

The second pic shows the height of the game, after I eradicated that pesky German section which had been sniping at my left flank. My tactical reserve now found themselves behind a clump of trees.

The final pic shows the end. Lars' SdKfz 251 had surprised my center, and decimated my reserve squad. Luckily, that also exposed the Hanomag's flank to my .30.
I love the smell of burning Hanomags in the morning.

With only three figures left, Lars Schieving decided to throw in the towel.

It was a small game, nice introduction to the system, with enough randomness to keep it interesting.

Thanks for the invitation, and yes, I'll gladly beat you again.

WWII German infantry platoon

Finished another 1/72 FoW early WWII platoon, this time Germans, with as extras some transport and a few medics.

Village well

First scenery item finished after the  broken shoulder interruption: the village well. It had been in the works for several months already.

I started with a dead CD, and added some BBQ skewers and coffee stirrers.

After that, I added some sand/diluted PVA mix to mimic weeds, after which I spray primed the lot:

A brown wash, and some green on the weeds, and it began looking the part.

By the way, the bucket started its life as the tip of a ballpoint pen.

Last night I added the finishing touches, by painting the bucket.

The gossip benches around it remind us of the fact that wells usually were a focal point of village life.

Even though I built it with my WWII Eastern Front in :72 in mind, naturally it will serve equally well for just about any other period as well as fantasy, with both 20 and 25mm figures.

The young lady is from an IMEX Wild West set, the sitting spectator is an anonymous Chinese figure.

Railroad stop done. I've put it online in our webshop Papierenbouwplaten, for now only in h0 (1:87) model railroad scale, I'll gradually add more scales over time.

To make the outhouses a bit more versatile, I added three more alternative fronts.

Besides the international but modern pictograms there now are a modern D (Dutch: dames, German: Damen) and H (Dutch: heren, German: Herrn) and a classical German Frakturschrift of the same, and Old West "Ladies" and "Gentlemen".

I think I fixed all the last details, so it can go to the printer's.

After changing some details of the railroad stop shelter, I wanted to see if things still fitted properly.

They did.

A few more minor things and some more tabs and it will be done.

I also decided on adding some extra fronts to the facilities, for different periods.

Rural railroad stop - next step

Worked a bit more on the railroad stop shelter.

There was a lot of blank space left over on the sheet, so I added some facilities.

In the meantime I also did most of the added details of the shelter itself.

Some more tweeking, and adding tabs, and it will be ready for the printers.

German railway station - paper model WIP

Started working on a new paper building.

This one claims it wants to be a German railway station eventually.

I see the bottom floor in brick, the two top floors as half timbered.

Designing the roof will be fun. Not sure if it will be slate covered, or traditional German "beaver tail" roof tiles. First, the shape has to be right, then I'll worry about that. With four gables it's not going to be the easiest build ever, but the challenge is half the fun.

There will also be an extension, perhaps two, and an outbuilding.