Historical background
The picture to the right (source: British Paté) showing the fighting in Normandy together with my enthusiasm for the ARK 8-wheelers was the inspiration for this diorama. My aim was to show another - rather technical view - from this vehicle. On the other hand the peculiar atmosphere of these times shoud be a topic as well: outbalanced military powers and heavy destructions on civil property as price for the liberation from Nazi occupation.
The missions performed by the Recce Btn 2 of 2nd Tank Division with their "Pumas" in the area of Chaumont at the end of June 1944 is historical proven. Some partial succes was achieved against the attacking US troops but all of it had to be given up due to lack of personnel to occupy the terrain. Apart from ground troops the Germans suffered hard from air raids. The outcome of such a thing is shown in my work.
Assembly
The chassis has to be researched prior to be able to detail it properly. Besides approximately 259.000 scratch-built nuts and bolts some PE-sets were used as well. Though easier if one uses the new Dragon model, I decided to do it with the Italerie kit - only for practice...
The wheels came from MIG and R&J. The PEs and the 5cm gun from ABER. It´s a pity that nearly everything of this costly items are hidden because of the upside-down layout of the Puma!
The painting was done with colours of the Tamiya brand. A lot of shading, detail and dry painting was hidden under a layer of heavy dust by means of an airbrush and pigments. This was done because that happens to vehicles that are situated nearby tumbling houses. The traces of the fire were also painted..
The house is an old kit from Verlinden. I upgraded it with some more details and selfmade items. The painting was done with a wide range of types of colours from water to pigments.
All figures are from the French company MK35. They got some extra treatment by changing the heads with those from Hornet. Vallejo colours gave them life.
© Georg Kaminski 2006
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