In the beginning, it was just a few figures to paint as the Crew of my B-25 Mitchell R/C plane, which is about 54” wingspan, so maybe 1/35 scale figures, so off I go to buy men, glue and paint. Some background: I have built models all my life, from shitty to glorious, and one of my customers is the owner of the hobby shop I have shopped at for 35 years, Pegasus Hobbies. So I knew where to go and what to buy, then I got home…

I finished my guys and put them in my plane and brainstormed, “what if this plane did an emergency landing, and caught a Tiger on a field out of fuel, pinning it with its massive amount of .50 caliber guns? So I bought a 70$ Russian Tiger Tank model, I’m not cheap, and it was a sweet build, I ended up modding it several times as you will see.

I needed landscaping and looked around and found some cheap shapes at the 99 cent store, and papier-mâché of course, but coverage? It was right then I knew I needed a plan, this was going to grow, I wasn’t sure just how big, yet. After a bit of research I found Woodland Scenics, which makes all kinds of very cool things such as bare trees, shrubbery, loose grass, dirt, sand, just an abundance of ideas, and with that in mind I decided what to do.

The Bocage

Actually means little boxes in French, however, from the wiki, in English bocage refers to a terrain of mixed woodland and pasture, with fields and winding country lanes sunken between narrow low ridges and banks surmounted by tall thick hedgerows that break the wind but also limit visibility. It is the sort of landscape found in England in Devon.

“The 1934 Nouveau Petit Larousse defined bocage as ‘a bosquet, a little wood, an agreeably shady wood’ and a bosquet as a little wood, a clump of trees’. By 2006, the Petit Larousse definition had become ‘(Norman word) Region where the fields and meadows are enclosed by earth banks carrying hedges or rows of trees and where the habitation is generally dispersed in farms and hamlets.”

In WWII, The Bocage would play havoc with the Allied Advance, so I went with Operation Cobra, and an Allied advanced scout finding a full blown German repair base.

Caught unawares, they get shot up bad, and call for help, then it all unfolds…

My son got involved when he saw the decals, especially for the men themselves, and he did some fantastic work under lamps and magnifiers. He had a go at painting, but he fucked up so badly, I made him do a complete repaint, which he did flawlessly…and said, never again. Now it was my job.

The Bocage needed to be at least 15 feet scale in places, so I glued down some shapes and began gluing shrub pieces, it took an hour to finish an inch, granted, I added hidey holes and things, but it was 30 inches long. There was also the Bocage tunnels; they were fun because I needed to keep them open some just to see the guys running through them.

Details: At this point, it’s midsummer, so when I come home from work, I just want to cool off, and paint…really what I began to do is run several jobs at once, spray big pieces, paint men, assemble, landscape, repeat, for 6 months. And the farther we got in the project, the more detail was necessary. I did 240 men total, and I spent 2 hours on each one, and I could have done better (and lost my mind).

By this time we are done with this panel, 30”x 50”and stow it in the garage ’til next year.

We spent a lot of time watching historical docs on YouTube, focusing on what they really looked like, camo, lifestyle, all that we could find. I scoured the Internet looking for new figures for the next phase, and bought just about every German and American 1/35 scale figures you can, then set up the next section.

The Base: the following Spring, I started filling the section I had built over the winter, this needed a bit more thought being quite busy. So what does a Base need?

(click to enlarge images)

The Storyline: Nazi fanatic Commandant throws everything at the force attacking, simple, it’s a caught off guard scenario, kinda like reality. There are culverts, ditches, a prime mover, wounded men, a pig sty, and my son made sure that every piece was the right division for the time and area, including 240 helmet insignias! I painted my men in groups, and mixed up the uniform colors for each one, while staying accurate. I lost about 200 pictures when my W7 machine died, but there’s a lot of neat stuff to check out.

I had a great time doing this project, it took 2 years and about 1400 hours between my son and me, and I think $1500 or so, but spread out.

Armory: US
M3 Lee
M3 Stuart
Sherman
Jeep

Armory: Germany
3-Flak 36/37
2-20mm AA guns
3-75 mm guns
Tiger1
Panther
Hetzer
PZ4 H
2- 75mm AT guns
2- Hanomag troop carriers
1- 8 ton truck to move this shit
1- Rail mounted PZ 4 turret

As I thought I was finishing, several knowledgeable friends asked, “where’s the radio room, how about a shitter?” It just happens that there is a radio room with operators you can buy, and I found the most realistic copies of maps, and shrunk them down.

I wanted a nice, expropriated office for my Commandant, and I found some nice period pieces cast in resin, so I set him up. I found 1/35 scale Nazi propaganda posters on Ebay. Sweet! I built his entire room, fireplace, desk, library, map table (with accurate maps), and a fraulein, again, custom paint.

Paint: For all projects I use Testors, and Testors Model Master, and Tamiya Acrylics

Landscape: Woodland Scenics, hands down. Use a white glue/water mix, spray and spread.

Brands: Start with Tamiya, best bang for the buck, because quality counts, Ukraine has Szvezda, but there are many others. YMMV.

At the end, things were looking good enough to find an actual place in France, and I found it! My Name, Lozon, France, not 3 miles from my diorama! Maybe closer!
I made sure to setup street markers, etc but not Lozon sadly. Still cool, it’s a real place.

I ended up very happy with the results, and it kept me busy for 2 summers. I know it’s amateurish, but hey I’m an amateur!

View more photos:

Gallery 1

Gallery 2