I am ashamed to admit that I had started this way back in 2001. The last 6 years were rough ones. Susan and I worked many 70-80 hour weeks, rarely had a day off and I had to build and paint so much box art, (IN the hundreds), there was really little time to model a superdiorama. I built the original “Legacies”, working part time in a single year! I have space available for this “Monster” in the museum, however, I do not have room for another of this size. Besides, I am getting up there and I am not quite as fast as I once was. “Logistics” will therefore be the last Superdiorama.

Now retired, it has taken some time to get back into the “Groove”, but I am getting there. These are photos taken yesterday of the base and buildings. Please remember nothing is finished and every building is in one stage or another of completion, and not a single one is even near finishing. It is a work in progress. The title came about as a result of the “Feel” it will have. It will be extremely “busy”, with vehicles, (Over 30), and well over 200 figures. The story line is 4th Armored division rolling through a German city in April 1945. The XYZ Express, the largest single express truck program in the ETO, (Even larger than the Red Ball), is converging at the “V” intersection. Patton and entourage will be trying to manage the traffic jam. Just below them in the cutaway of a train station will sit a BR-52 locomotive w/tender hooked up to a K-5E Railroad Gun. The huge train shed which will span the entire front of the diorama, will be collapsed onto the locomotive and RR gun at various places. On the major cross street, A US construction battalion will be clearing the massive amounts of rubble to make the road passable. On the street farthest back with the “OLD Town” buildings will have masses of refugees scurrying to the rear lines. There will also be ambulances carrying the wounded to the field hospitals and German P.O.W.s being both trucked and marched to the camps.

 

Here are the pics.

Click on photos to enlarge.

The first few are of the train shed, a canopy that leads into the train station, It will eventually span the entire front of the diorama. The canopy only has a base coat of paint.

Click on photos to enlarge

This area will all be under the canopy with a K-5E RR gun. Note the truck for the gun behind the tender.

A small square in Old Town with a statue of Hermann Von Balke. SCratch base with a Pegaso 90mm figure.

This is “Old Town”, such as the one in Mainz or other cities in Germany. They were a lot of work and still more coming.

Another angle.

For the moment, I call this the Cinzano building. It will become a restaurant and hotel.

These are row houses that all have stores on the first floors with apartments and hotels on the upper floors. They back up to the Kaufhalle, (Department store).

The street parallel to the train canopy will be used by the armored column. The intersecting street will be the truck route.

The tank column will be coming through the tunnel.

I stuck the deuce and a half in there to give the viewer some proportion.

This building will have a basement and you will be able to look down into it. All my dioramas are built like this. A lower base that is completely flat. An upper base that has hills and valleys. The buildings are always made to lower into the upper base and rest on the lower one to be certain they are all true, regardless of the contour of the upper base. This diorama has a difference of 11.5 inches between the lowest and highest point of the base.

The rear of the Black Dog Brewery. There will be several pounds of rubble on the streets when complete.

“Der Schwarze Hund” A beer brewery and hall. “The Black Dog”

Last, the “Kaufhalle, literally “Sale Hall” Department store. This was, of course, the largest and most difficult building in the Diorama. After making the various parts of the facade, the casting and recasting took a considerable amount of time. The patina on various parts of the building is only in it’s second stage. There are two more coming. All the window frame have to be made separately. the front ones are in place and one on the third story has been made to accommodate the curved corner windows.

Note the elevator shaft with brass doors about the center of the photo.

If you enlarge the picture and look closely, you can see the ancient elevator motor with data plates, etc.

All the damaged steel girders in the roof were made with Plastruct.

Don’t ask how much longer to complete this monster. Hopefully a year, but maybe more.