Battlefield accessories...

Taking a diversion from the Napoleonic, I have been reviewing lately my World War II inventories. This has meant building nine - no: ten! - out of my backlog of unmade kits, refurbishing several  other models that had been damaged or had bits missing, and putting together three four-horse artillery teams, and taking an inventory of my German equipment (another posting coming up!).  I also looked into some of my battlefield 'accessories'.

My first real attempt of constructing dragons' teeth
obstacles.  They turned out to be a bit on the tall
side.  About two-thirds that height would look about right.

Recently, one of my favourite blogs talked about 'dragons' teeth' anti-tank obstacles. Commenting on the posting I expressed the opinion that bits of egg carton might make a fine set of dragons' teeth. The picture below shows the central dividing cones cut out and before mounting on card (above).  It seems that I have no picture of the thing completed and flocked, but you get the idea.  There was no need to texture or paint these things: what you see here is what you get! For the moment this is the only section I have.  It is well over-scale for 1:76 scale figures, so the next lot will be much shorter. Research indicated, though, that these sorts of defences varied considerably in height anyway.  

Egg carton with the centre cones cut out.

A pair of UK Achilles tank destroyers tentatively approach
some angle iron obstacles.

While we are on the topic, here are my 'angle-iron' anti-tank obstacles and wire entanglements. I've added my recently made Armourfast Achilles tank-destroyers by way of scale.  The AT obstacles are made in fact from balsa wood concave corner beading, painted a mix of black, silver and rusty brown.

These have been placed upon sections of three emplacements, but I have a single emplacement stand which can replace one of the triple sections to represent a gap in the line of obstacles.

Obstacles in stands of three.

The balsa beading was simply glued together with PVA in the arrangements shown, then glued onto the card bases.

It might have been a good idea to have trimmed the
bottom corners to give a better notion of these obstacles being
anchored in the ground!

In the following picture, the angle-iron obstacles have been backed up by wire entanglements.  These are made from plastic sprue.  I cut 3cm sections of sprue, gluing the in pairs in an 'X' shape. I cut a notch at midpoint of each piece for reasonable sized surface area for bonding.  Then the 'X's were paired off and linked by a 4cm cross-piece in a 'saw-horse' arrangement.  These sections I might have left 'as is', but as I was needing wire entanglements, I felt some embellishment called for. They being the muddy-brown colour they were, i didn't trouble to paint them, neither.

Anti-tank and anti-personnel.

A line of wire entanglements showing how the scour-pad steel
has been looped 'under and over'.

The 'wire' I supplied with kitchen pot-scouring pad.  Sections of this I pulled out of the pad, cutting them off with a wire cutter.  Before looping the wire, however, I glued the sections to card bases, which I then flocked.  These sections I threaded under and between the legs of the 'X's, along the stand, and looped back over the top.

No gluing was necessary.

The right hand picture above illustrates the method.  Although the result is a little exaggerated, and probably not quite the way wire entanglements were constructed, they have the look of the thing!

Achilles AFVs penetrating a gap in the wire...