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Gothic Line Panther turret bunker

Tim A.

Tim A.

Well-known member
It's a rainy Sunday here in Georgia, a good day to start a simple project. I have the old Tamiya Panther Ausf A kit. The hull is useless so I've decided to build a scene using the turret. It will represent one of the Panther turret bunkers used by the Germans in Italy as part of the Gothic Line defenses.


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Tim
 
It is Luiz. I read the Allies thought it was unusual for the highly mobile Germans to use these stationary defenses too. The Allies assumed the Germans were having technical problems with the Panther tank to use the turrets in this way. The Germans used the D and A's for the bunkers and they worked very well.

I've started putting some ground color on the foam. The actual ground cover is next. of course the turret isn't painted yet. Some of the 75mm turrets were purpose built for these bunkers. the most noticeable change was not using the cupola by having just a simple hatch cover. I haven't made up my mind on this yet. photo's show these bunker turrets both ways.


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Tim
 
Cool project Tim!

Just curious, what do you use to cut the insulation foam so nice & square?

Tom
 
TomN said:
Cool project Tim!

Just curious, what do you use to cut the insulation foam so nice & square?

Tom[/quote

I cut it with my jig saw and just used a sanding block for final shaping. The 1/2 piece that represents the bunker top is done with the utility knife then sanded down to the right thickness. The large rocks are scrap chunks from carving the terrain slope.
Click to expand...
 
Thanks Tim,

I've used that stuff before, when I was building a train layout. Great stuff to work with, but I had a hard time
getting straight, square cuts using hand tools, i.e....steak knives...

Tom
 
I'm not sure what I did to make my reply to your question appear to be part of the quote Tom, but if anyone needs help screwing up something on the computer I'm the man.

I saw a railroad layout (old MR mag?) where the entire layout from floor to mountain tops was stacked foam, no traditional benchwork. The article said the owner owned a building supply business, lol foam at cost of course!



Tim
 
After suffering from a head cold for a week I'm back among the living and have added the ground work. Next comes some figures.


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Glad you're feeling better Tim, great work, ground works looks fine. Like how you have things mixed up a bit, the tall grass and shorter. I always think of being uniformed when messing with ground work.

:popcorn
 
Nice looking diorama so far. Also, an innovative use for that turret since you weren't going to be able to use it on the tank chassis.

Cheers,
James
 
As the Germans built up their defensive lines to blunt the allied advance it was easier to mate up unused turrets with casements made in Germany and shipped to Italy. They were generally small blocks for a couple of people in between other bunkers and machine gun nests

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Looks good (y) (y) (y) (y) (y)
James
 
Thanks Andy, James and James.
Thats a nice elevation drawing James.
These positions were extremely hard to detect from the air or ground until the gun fired. Then they were even harder to knock out.

Tim
 
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