75th Anniversary of Battle of Monte Cassino and Northern Italy (Terrain Build)

Annoyingly, I had taken some more photos of the next steps in painting the machine gun nests but deleted them. Grrrr.

So to a brief text narrative of the steps. I primed the model as I wanted the paint to adhere correctly to the cocktail sticks. This was a simple grey primer from Halfords. I then painted the filler in the same was as the concrete bunkers, with the cheap brown paint.

The cocktail sticks got a Camo Medium Brown base which I then applied a wash to. I think two washes to try and get some depth. To finish, I lightly dry brushed some middlestone over the sticks and applied a thin coat of middlestone to the ends of the cocktail sticks with the intention of making these look like the sawn wood rather than the rough bark.

The flocking and hedges was exactly the same as the concrete bunker.

These just need to be sealed now with some watered down PVA and perhaps an matt varnish applied to the logs to complete.

I also attempted to build a nest out of just cocktail sticks applied to the filler. This was an attempt to create a non ‘dug in’ nest. Frankly it was very fiddly and just doesn’t look as good but they might still get used so I painted them up anyway. I’ve included them below as how not to do it!

I’m going to try and make a machine gun nest that is made of logs and dug in to the surrounding ground. I’ll start with a base made of 3mm MDF cut into the approximate size of a medium FoW base. I’ve chamfered the edges and scored the top.

I’m going to build the earth out of filler so the scoring will help with the adhesion. I’ve place a decent amount on to the base and then an extra dollop in the middle.

The logs will be made out of cocktail sticks (tooth picks) which are a decent scale for 15mm. I’ve started by sticking two uprights at the front of the base.

Behind the uprights, I want some short logs sloping backward to create a V shape. The idea being that the machine gun would be positioned at the apex of the V. To do this, I’ve gently pushed the dollop of filler forward toward the uprights while pushing the short cocktail sticks in to the filler.

I now need to create the roof. I’ve cut some longer cocktail sticks and have gently pushed these into the dollop of filler and across the V of the short sticks.

I then put a little more filler over the ends of the newly laid ‘roof’ to hold these in place and to make it look like the nest is dug in.

Final step was to push the filler at the apex of the V out of the way to create the impression of an opening (like drilling out the gun barrel!). I’ve also put some water on my finger and smoothed out the filler.

I just need to leave these to dry now – I’ll give it 24 hours just to be sure as the filler is quite thick in the middle and will take a bit longer to harden.

I’ve now given the bunker a light dry brush of mid grey.

I lightly drilled out the gun barrel – not all the way as it was quite fiddly but enough to create the imitation. I painted the gun barrel middlestone and then applied a wash.

With the basing, I started with the clump foliage. I soaked this in a 50:50 mix of water and PVA until it was sodden. I then applied it straight to the base and left it to dry. This was, I avoided any of the scatter getting stuck the ‘bushes’.

Applying the scatter was just a case of painted the PVA on to the base and sprinkling. I went for a mix of a dark and mid tone scatter to build in some variation. Once dry, I sealed this all down with a water/PVA spray – about 5 to 1 ratio.

I think these bunkers are now finished. A couple are a little rough and ready> i probably should have spent more time on the cutting of the foam to get a better angle and end result but otherwise, I’m quite pleased with the result.

Next up, I will look to build some machine gun nests.

Once the filler was dry, I’ve given it a couple of coats of thin, brown acrylic paint. I’ve got some cheap acrylic for this which cost about £4 for 500ml on Amazon. I only use it for terrain. I’ve also used a cheap brush as filler is quite rough and ruins the bristles.

Next up, I will need to paint the gun barrel and give the bunker a light dry brush. I can then flock the base and it will be finished.

Having now seen the bunker sat on the table, I think it needs something to blend it in to whatever table it is sat on. I’ve taken some 3mm MDF sheets and cut bases that are larger than the bunker and chamfered the edge.

I’m going to use filler to stick the bunker to the base. To ensure a good contact, I’ve scored the base. I’ve then put some filler on the base, pushed the bunker in and then sculpted the filler around the bunker.

I’ve used the Halfords’ grey primer spray. The foam isn’t going to take paint well so I really need a good base for this. The primer also has the added advantage of being a good concrete colour!

After the primer, I’ve given the bunker a black wash.

As seen from the previous entry, some of the sides are a little rough. I’ve taken some filler and plastered this around the model and let it dry. I’ve then sanded it down and despite the pictures making it look lumpy, it’s actually smooth. The filler also adds some texture.

I’ve have some left over 25pdr gun barrels. While these aren’t German, once mounted in the bunker, it hopefully won’t look too obvious. To allow the guns to be mounted, I’ve cut a little groove into the foam to take the gun.

I’ve also cut a slice out of the short side which will become the bunker gun opening once glued together.

A lot of super glue was used to put the two pieces together with the gun held between them.

I’ve then tried to carve the upper part to create a slope around the top. Having looked at a lot of bunkers, this appears to be common.

Carving the foam was very easy with a sharp knife (I used the knife that came in the foam!) however my skill let me down a little and each bunker is not particularly uniform.

I’m going to kick off with creating the bunkers that littered the defensive lines created by the Germans. They weren’t present (as far as I know) at Monte Cassino but were further North.

I have some left over high density foam that was used to package some kitchen knives. This can be carved easily with a sharp knife and I think I can sculpt it into some bunker looking shapes. It’s also effectively free!

I’ve started by cutting the foam to the same size as a FoW base. I plan to glue two pieces together and mount a left over gun barrel from the bits box between the two glued halves.

Before I start out, I want to explain some caveats (or excuses!)

I’m limited by skill, time, space and cost (in that order of descending severity!). I’m going to have to compromise in some areas and the first area will be going for more generic, re-useable terrain vs. specific Italian terrain. I’m therefore going to make some terrain elements that can be used across a lot of different battlefields but at least fit in to an Italian battlefield.

I plan to build some specific terrain items. In particular, I have a lot of sofa foam that I plan to turn into at least a part of the imposing hill that overlooks the town of Cassino. I also hope to build some Italian houses at some point but I’ve no idea how yet….

There may also be large gaps between updates, simply because real life can sometimes get too real and take over.

I’d like to briefly explain why I’m looking at Monte Cassino and Northern Italy. I was first drawn into WW2 through some of the BoW Flames of War vlogs. Previous to this, I had not gamed historical battles and had mainly been interested in Sci-Fi and Fantasy gaming. After spending some time looking at FoW and WW2 I decided to take the plunge and found myself particularly enjoying the history and geo-political background to the gaming. This was all helped by some of the excellent History articles penned by @Oriskany et al.

I felt that Northern Europe and the Eastern Front had been covered extensively and I wanted to consider some other theatres of WW2 without getting too obscure. Italy looked an interesting bet, particularly as the Royal Sussex Regiment (I live in Sussex) and the Royal Essex Regiment (my home county were involved). My wife is South African and I also found that there were several SA divisions involved in the fighting. So, even with such tenuous connections, it seemed a good choice.

Italy also provides a great representation of the effort the Commonwealth and the world in general committed to supporting the Allies. The British Army alone contained Polish, Canadians, New Zealanders, Indians and South Africans. The Free French also fought and included forces from Morocco and Tunisia. The US were well represented on the Italian peninsula and part of the US forces also included the Brazilian Expeditionary Force.

Monte Cassino was a particularly hard fought series of battles starting 12^th January 1944 and German resistance lasted until their eventual retreat on 17^th May. The efforts and heroic actions on both sides defy my comprehension and during the course of the battles, the British army handed out five Victoria Crosses. Following the capture of Monte Cassino, the Allied forces were able to break through the Gustav defensive line and push North to meet up with the US VI Corp who had landed at Anzio on 22^nd January and had been hard pushed to hold their positions. The link up of the two groups opened the road to Rome and Northern Italy.

My Army build project can be found here: https://www.beastsofwar.com/project/1224831/#snav