Al.

More work done on the two West Bank defensive trenches. The first one sits on the south side of the bridge st the edge of a small orchard. It's primarily An infantry tench. The second one homes on the north side and is part of the support trench system.

Good progress. Full DCCoperation is a milestone. Well done.

How has the test day gone, Paul?

So true.....

Managed to get a bit more done on the trenches this morning. I'll post up pics after the weekend. In the meantime, we're on a research time to Europe for fields and farm buildings....

Progress update. Well, not as much as I was hoping for. It's been a busy few weeks and unfortunately the railway, as always, took second place. Anyway, this is were we've got too. Soft landscaping has started on the West Bank. Yellow has turned white and is slowly turning green. Grass isn't too far off.

That's looking good. Remind us all when it gets its first outing.

As it's free lance, you can pretty much do as you like. Films like Railway Children, Landgirls will give you the idea of how it looked back then. As you know, it's all about capturing the atmosphere of the era. I like the sound of your N gauge blitz layout. I've been thinking about my next layout after Remagen. I've been contemplating an Overlord theme. Still only ideas at the moment. BTW, don't forget the invasion strips on the Spit. By late '44, front line aircraft wore them on the underside only, but as yours is Home Front, they'd still wear them all round. Al.

Yep. Cats out of the bag... I'm watching yours with interest.

Br-05 arrived today. Armoured plate and camouflaged paint job to add....

Yes, a mark V is probably s bit too early to be chasing V-1's. But I'm sure few people will notice.

This looks interesting. Tell me more...

This is an impressive little layout. Look forward to seeing it on the exhibition circuit. Al.

From someone who knows this stuff, they look bloody good...! Well done. I watch with anticipation to see the wires go on. Al.

Simon. The size of your layout is impressive. Nice work on the overheads. I can see a lot of time has gone into them... Al.

Then you'd like my Hummell train. A unit of 9 guns and support vehicles loaded onto twin axle wagons.

Tanks aside. I've been working a bit of river traffic to go under the bridge. These are a small flotilla of e-boats that will be on a training op. The models at an S-3, two S-7's and an S-100. Still premature of work to do.

Don't disagree with you Lez. When you can build 5 Sherman's at the same rate as 1 tiger, yet take have s kill rate of 3/1 the Sherman's will always win. The T34 was even more efficient with the Russians turning them out something like 8/1. There were a lot of reasons why German lost the War. Technical innovation was not one of them. Without doubt the Panther was the best tank ever produced during WW2. It out classed everything but the heaviest of allied tanks. A good all rounder, and the starting point for all French and German post war MBTs. Glad you appreciate it. Al.

They're lovely loco's, Paul. Are you going to get it weathered?

Just caught up with this thread. Impressive work. Look forward to seeing the layout. Al.

They are M10 Panther used by the Germans during the Ardennes offensive -The Battle of the Bulge. During the early stages of the offensive, the Germans use troops and tanks disguised as Americans to deceive the Allied troops. Due to the lack of captured armour, they welded steel plates onto a unit of Panther tanks to make them look like American M10 Tank destroyers. Despite initial success, they where quickly found out - probably something to do with them shooting in the wrong direction- and were knocked out. However, they did cause enough confusion among the American lines to result in several friendly-fire incidents.

They're Revell 1:144 kits that have had the wings cut off. The 262s are the same, but I can't remember manufacturer. I've got an eye out for a Ju-152 as well to add a bit of variant to the train.

A bit more progress on the rolling stock today. These wagons will form part of the Messerschmitt Train These are the imfamous Me109s, bane of the RAF, being transported back to forward airfields after withdrawn for repairs. They'll eventually be a dozen or so of them along with a couple new Me262s. It's an odd fact that the Luftwaffe lacked forward repair bases for their aircraft. Battle damaged machines were often shipped back to the factories for repairs. It was one of the reasons they failed to maintain air supremacy. Anyway. The aircraft are coming along nicely. I've still a bit more work to do on the fuselages. However the wings are do and looking pretty good on the wagons.

A few more photos from Saturday.

Looking good Paul. Looking forward to seeing it in the flesh next weekend.