It’s a little late arriving but this will be my “D-Day 75 competition entry! As Gold and Juno have already ‘on site’ I’ll be going with “Sword Beach” which was the target of the British 2nd Army under Lt Gen. John Croker. If you are a fan of the great epic movie “The Longest Day” you might remember my favourite scene in the film where the Free French Commandos burst onto the harbour of Ouistreham and are seen charging around the harbour until they are stopped by fire from the German held casino. An incredible panning aerial shot, which I believe won the film an award! Well my diorama isn’t set there! It’s actually just to the west of Ouistreham where the Commandos came ashore as part of the 1st Special Service Brigade along with No.41 Royal Marine Commando, 3rd Inf. Div. 27th Ind. Armoured Brigade and elements of the 79th Armoured Brigade (known to all as “Hobart’s Funnies”)
The diorama will consist of a small section of Sword Beach with half of the base being sea scape with the rest being beach and sea wall with a short section of beach front houses and shops. Photo 1 is an aerial reconnaissance photo courtesy of, and recently released by the MOD, taken a few hours after the initial landings, which began after a 3am naval and aerial bombardment. As you can see from the grounded ships high up on the sand, the tide has gone out considerably since the first units stormed ashore! Photos 2 and 3, courtesy of the Normandy tourism sites show part of what was actually the end of Juno Beach and the start of Sword with part of the town of St-Aubin-sur-mer. These buildings carried on along the coast with a few open areas further east and on to Ouistreham. This is the sort of built up appearance I’ll be aiming for in the model. This will be quite a small diorama, I’m hoping for maybe four LCI’s (Landing Craft Infantry), possibly the same number of LCT’s (Landing Craft Tank) and perhaps thirty or so tanks (Shermans, Churchills and ‘Funnies’ and a dozen or more LCA’s (Landing Craft Assault) although that might alter as I’ve got to scratch build those (or maybe convert the Yankee LCA’s which are back to front compared to the British ones!
Anyhow, more to follow shortly!

Robin.

Thanks very much for that Trev! This is going to be a walk down memory lane for me - plus a need to regain some modelling skills I haven't used for over thirty years! Fortunately the modelling tools and 'add ons' are so far advanced from what we used back in the 1980's its proving to be an enjoyable process so far. In my youth PE was something you had to do at school - not the thing I'll be getting to grips with in this model!
The item that gave me the idea for this diorama is pictured in Photo 1. This little model made by Skywave (later to become Pit Road) was constructed maybe 40 years ago (and I still haven’t got around to painting it! ) It’s been sitting on the glass shelf in the bedroom cabinet all that time, along with my collection of other 1/700 scale ships and over the years the warmth from my tv below has managed to give it quite a marked warp! This is an LCT(R) or Landing Craft Tank (Rocket) and ironically this is the only model in the set it came in that I won’t be using for the diorama! During my various forays out to the old garage workroom I remembered seeing the rest of the set (along with over a dozen other Tamiya, Matchbox, Skywave and Fuji? ships, most in their boxes but some without). This one was also a ‘without’, it’s box having been converted into mouse bedding long ago presumably along with the decal sheet too, the rest of the set is shown in Photo 2 and consists of, from top left clockwise: a slightly larger type of LCT, an LCI or Landing Craft Infantry and another LCT which is the same class as the rocket one but with an optional canvas cover. Interestingly, the LCI which looks far more ship-like than a landing craft was renamed an LSI (Landing Ship Infantry) later in the war after D-Day when some of the LCTs were filled with troops instead of tanks and called LCIs instead! The empty space at bottom left was where the rocket version came from all those years ago. Photo 3 shows another of the rescued box sets – again by Skywave and entitled “The vehicles of beach head”. This box has been ‘moused about’ too and also had some rain roof leak damage but the contents were still perfectly good inside, even to the decals although I doubt they’ll still be usable now unfortunately. This set has the M4 Sherman (very useful) American GMC Trucks and Dodge Carriers (maybe not so but we’ll see), LVTs (Buffaloes) which I don’t think we were using until after D-Day, little LCAs or Landing Craft Assault which I will need to convert into the British LCA and finally, another useful item – Barrage Balloons! Finally in Photo 4 we have the ‘seascape’ part of the diorama. This was bought on ebay for £5 and is one of a series of photographic sea bases for 1/700 scale model ships produced by a company called Coastal Kits (I’ll be ‘adapting’ this one to create a coastal sea effect, but more on that later!) They actually produce two versions of each sized base, this one (11 x 29 cm) featuring just plain water and another with the bow wake and turbulence already included.
The last two components not shown here will be a set of houses from another Skywave set “European Buildings” which seems to be still in production (the landing craft set ceased production about twenty years ago, although there was another version of it which is still available from some model shops which contains the landing craft set, the beach head vehicles and a British O Class Destroyer with a vacuum formed Normandy beach diorama base) and, to complement the Shermans, a set of resin Churchill tanks which will also be getting the ‘Hobart’s Funnies’ treatment. Both of these were obtained on-line from a model shop in France.
In the next instalment, beginning the wooden base frame ready for the Perspex floor.

Until then, as usual, Happy Modelling to you All!

Robin.

Nice start Robin.

Mark

Coming along nicely Robin, am sure this will be another special build from you.... Look forward to seeing it come together....

Regards

Alan

looki8ng good robin

Coming on very nicely Robin.

Mark

Many thanks to Mark and Kev for their kind words as always! Hopefully tonight will see the first of the LCTs completed and then its on to the three bigger LCTs (the ones with six of the flipping PE Oerlikons on each one!) You'll be seeing the first of those guns in this installment as the four LCIs are finished off (well, apart from the crew figures to come later!)
The blue camouflage scheme was added in with Vallejo 70.943 Grey Blue. The actual scheme was found online on one of the D-Day info sites. Camouflage schemes for all the participating vessels were worked out about 18 months before the invasion and all LCIs and LCTs together with the LCAs (smaller assault craft) were painted accordingly (at least they were supposed to be, a few assault craft did appear in overall grey or olive green as they were transferred from other areas like the Med.) The finished ‘new’ paint job is shown in Photo 9. It was then time to dirty her up a bit! This was achieved with a wash of Citadel Shadow Black Ink which was thinned down and washed over the decks collecting in the steel plates plus a careful application with a thin brush into the gun positions to add some shadow in there. On the following vessels I switched to Citadel Skaven Brown instead of the black, this is almost as dark but not as stark and gives a hint of rust too which looked better! I also washed over the stairs to accentuate the steps as you can see in the following shots. The round bridge was also shadowed together with the square windows below it. When the ink wash had dried I could then go over the raised details like the steel plates and stairs again with a dry-brushed Sky Grey to highlight the raised bits and finally, dry-brushed Vallejo 70.918 Ivory to pick out the most acute angles. Photo 10 illustrates one of the kit AA guns dry fitted into a gun position. Photo 11 shows that same gun over the top of its replacement – a brilliant but microscopic PE brass version. I found these on ebay from a Chinese supplier who also produces a large range of ship’s railings (more on them coming soon) and even 1/700 scale crew figures (more on them too!) The price is incredible – the fret contains parts for about 75 guns and cost less than £3.50 (including free p&p)! The Oerlikons consist of two pieces on the fret, the gun itself which is in two halves which have to be folded together and superglued, and the gun shield. I added a third part consisting of a 0.8mm piece of brass micro tube into which the gun is glued forming the pedestal. I gave up trying the glue the gun shield to the gun (which I think it’s supposed to do) and glued it instead to the pedestal tube. Photo 12 shows the stern section with those steel plates picked out in ink wash and dry-brushing and Photo 13 shows four of the five Oerlikons glued in place. They were painted with Vallejo Grey Primer, which is a little lighter than the hull grey and picks the guns out nicely. That’s not my finger down the bottom but a small coffee stirrer with a resin cast of the lifeboat ready for painting. The shipyard is well under way in Photo 14 – the first prototype is at the bottom complete with her ship’s railings and white ensign at the stern. Next up is number two, fully painted and ready for the railings. Number three has been primed and hull painted whilst at the top, number four is primed and I’d just begun painting the superstructure grey. Photo 15 has number one and two, both with their railings on and the mast rigging made from rope coloured EZ Line going up (number one now has her second smaller white ensign on the rigging). The rigging was then coloured silver with a liquid chrome marking pen. Three and four are awaiting their guns in Photo 16 with the first set of five ready to glue onto the brass micro tubing in the foreground. Notice the black water line in this pic, this is made from a thin strip cut off a black waterslide decal sheet and carefully applied along the bottom of the hull. The white ensigns were a bit sneaky! I found a site with a photo of the group of flags, which I saved as a jpeg. I then inserted it into the ancient Corel Printhouse program and reduced it down until the flags were the right size and then printed it onto a sheet of white decal paper. A coat of lacquer and lots of decal flags for pennies! Finally in Photo 17: all four almost ready for action. Number one has her ramps fixed on in the stowed position as she will be approaching the beach (I was still waiting for yet another set of railings to arrive at this time to fix onto the ramps), the other three will have their ramps down with troops disembarking in the finished diorama.
In the next installment, before starting the first of the LCTs, converting some 1/700 scale Shermans into Hobart’s DD Amphibious tanks!

Until then, Happy Modelling to you All!

Robin.

Many thanks to Alan, Kev and Mark! The eyes are just about holding up but its touch and go at times!
Before continuing with the first of Percy Hobart’s Funnies, here’s a quick run down of the excellent PE brass additions I found on Ebay. The maker has a huge range of these sets including double and quadruple AA gun mounts (which look very complicated) and also turned brass barrels for the larger ships main guns. Compared to the European market these are damned good value and take about four weeks to come over from China! From clockwise: the Oerlikon 20mm AA guns, the long rails for the LCTs, two sets of 1/700 scale crew figures, the smaller rails for the LCI ramps and finally the rails for the LCIs themselves – highly recommended!
Photo 1, courtesy of the Imperial War Museum illustrates one of the most successful of Percy Hobart’s designs – the Sherman DD (Duplex Drive) Amphibious tank. The Sherman DDs made all the difference to the British and Canadian sectors on D-Day where they (mostly) went in before the troop carrying landing craft and provided close artillery support as well as convenient moving cover for the first wave of soldiers. They would also have provided the same advantages for the US troops landing on Omaha Beach if it hadn’t been for two disastrous mistakes! Firstly, the sea conditions were far rougher than the DDs were intended to operate in, consequently, the British and Canadian LSTs went as close as they dared to the coast (well inside of the range of the big gun emplacements on the coast) and dropped their tanks at about 5000 yards from the shore. Out of 30+ tanks offloaded, only 3 were lost to the heavy waves. The American LST commander however refused to go anywhere near the danger zone and ordered the tanks off whilst still far out to sea. This act of stupidity was made worse by the fact that the British and Canadian tank crews had been trained by the Royal Navy and taught to follow the sea conditions, keeping the heavy waves to the rear even if it meant landing a little off course on the beach. The Americans refused the assistance of the RN instructors however and trained their own drivers, ordering them to make straight for the assigned beach. This meant that in trying to keep on course they ended up side-on to the wave crests, which swamped the canvas screens. The end result was that out of the same number of tanks only 3 made it to shore with many of the other crews drowning as the tanks sank. The lack of armoured support cost the American troops dear on Omaha.
Photo 2 shows the box of 1/700 scale vehicles as I found them in the old garage workroom! At least these had a box, which was more than the poor old landing craft set! Although the box was a real mess, the contents shown in Photo 3 were pretty well perfect after thirty years – a bit spotty with mouse wee but washed up nice and clean. The parts to make a Sherman tank are shown in Photo 4, each tank is made of four pieces: main hull, two sets of tracks and wheels and a dinky turret on top (not shown here with a standard Lego brick for size comparison). I glued half a dozen of the hulls and tracks together and temporarily glued the turrets to a square section of styrene before making a silicone mould to cast them in resin. The first casting of the turrets is shown in Photo 5, a few air bubbles here and there but I get enough good ones out of each pouring to make it worth while and its only a tiny amount of resin used each time. Then it was time to try and make the canvas screens. The first one was of a fully lowered screen like in Photo 1, which I made in Milliput putty. It wasn’t too bad to be honest but I couldn’t make the extended screen in that way so after a few experiments I ended up with the self adhesive, aluminium tape I bought for the paper model Sopwith Pup. The four different examples are seen in the penny shot in Photo 6. From clockwise they are fully down, fully up, starting to lower and lowered at the front, (the crews learnt to lower the front to fire the gun as soon as they came aground whilst keeping the back extended to avoid the waves swamping the exhausts!) The Milliput prototype was discarded as although fine on its own, it didn’t match the ‘look’ of the metal foil ones. The prototype DDs were then fixed to a small slab of Upvc with a tiny drop of Deluxe Card Glue, this was enough to fix them in place whilst the liquid silicone was poured over them inside the Lego box but allowed them to be easily removed afterwards. With the mould completely set I could then remove the originals, all but the one with the collapsed screen came out cleanly and could be used again if needed. The odd one out lost part of the aluminium foil screen as it was pulled out of the rubber – no great problem though and the first resin castings from the mould are shown attached with the same card glue to a coffee stirrer ready for priming with Vallejo Grey Primer in Photo 7. Once primed and dry the little models were painted as shown in Photo 8, first with Mig Russian Green (which in this scale is a pretty close match for Olive Drab) and then washed with Citadel Shadow Black Ink and finally dry-brushed with (I think) the same Russian Green with a spot of Vallejo Ivory for the highlights. The canvas screens were painted with Vallejo Khaki with a thinned down Citadel Skaven Brown Ink shadowing on the interior and some Khaki and Ivory mix highlight dry-brushing on the outside. After all that the tiny little turrets were added on with the barrels shortened down as the DDs only had the basic 75mm guns (anything bigger couldn’t fit inside the screens!) Since this photo was taken I’ve cast some more, this time cutting off the hulls below the canvas. These will be positioned in the sea for the full screen versions and in the surf heading for the beach for the partly lowered ones.
Got some more prototyping to do yet – Sherman Crab flail tanks, Churchill AVREs and bridge builders still to come!
In the next instalment its back to the ships with the medium sized LCTs (now that I’ve got some tanks to fit in them!)
Until then, Happy Modelling to you All!

Robin.