This diorama combines the Tamiya "
Long Range Desert Group Chevrolet Truck", a
Dragon SAS jeep or, "
SAS 1/4 t. 4x4 Patrol Car" as they label it, and figures from Masterbox to create a diorama of part of a Long Range Desert Group patrol getting their bearings and bivouacking for the evening.
As it comes from the box, the truck is a radio vehicle. I converted it to a gun truck with the addition of a 20mm Breda gun borrowed from the Italeri "
Horse Drawn Breda 20/65 mod. 35" kit. Mounting the gun required minor surgery to the rear bed and the addition of wooden side extensions. I had planned to build the Dragon jeep out-of-the-box but the little gem of an engine screamed for some detailing and an open hood. Just in case you're wondering what an "SAS" jeep is doing here, the LRDG replaced Chevy trucks with jeeps as the patrol commander's pilot vehicle during the summer of '42. The notable difference was that the LRDG didn't arm their jeeps to nearly the degree the SAS did. Typical armament for a LRDG vehicle was a twin Vickers in a single mount or a single Browning .50 cal. It seemed that the SAS, whose mission was different, tried to see just how much firepower they could squeeze into a tiny vehicle by installing as many as five machine guns in three mounts.
Tamiya has re-released the LRDG truck twice recently...with a set of Masterbox "
Long Range Desert Group " figures (used in this diorama) and a boxing with a 20mm Breda in tow. The kit I used was the original "no frills" kit that had been in my stash since its release in the 1980's. I incorporated the
Eduard photo-etch set and
DEF Models resin wheels which are a big improvement over the kit's rubber wheels (which make nice spares for the bed of the truck.) It was a fairly lengthy build but it was gratifying to finally finish a kit that had been languishing in the box for decades. And, as an unexpected bonus, it took first place in our local IPMS chapter (Fame Cities/Canton-Akron, Ohio) "British Commonwealth" theme build contest for January of 2015 and won "Best Diorama" at the Cleveland IPMS show sponsored by Western Reserve and John Glenn chapters of IPMS.
By the way, the LRDG did not tow anything. Load the beds of their
vehicles to overflowing--yes. Tow--no. More than once, I ran across this
little tidbit mentioned in memoirs and operational histories of the
LRDG. And, when you think about it, it makes sense. A towed gun or
trailer would only be a complication when trying to free a vehicle stuck
in sand (which happened quite frequently) or traveling at high speed on
uneven surfaces. So, if you buy the Tamiya kit with the Breda gun, do
not hang it from the hitch on the back of the truck!
The stowage came from a number of sources: Tamiya,
Value Gear, a few scratch built items, and
Bronco (their
"W.W. II British Field Accessories Set" is a must if you build Commonwealth vehicles--and a pretty good value for the money given the number of items it contains.)
The Chevy 30cwt truck was painted with a custom mix of Tamiya paints to match British "desert pink" per
Mike Starmer's formula. When it came time to paint the jeep, I had to make a run to the Whistle Stop Hobby Shop to pick up another bottle of Tamiya paint required for the desert pink mix. I
mentioned to Kevin what I was working on and he said, "hold on. I have
just what you need" and reached under the counter to pull out a tin of Humbrol no. 250 "Desert Pink" enamel. I'm pretty much an acrylics guy...haven't used an enamel paint in years...but was willing to try it just to see how the color matched with my custom mix. Remarkably, the two colors were almost spot-on!
The diorama base is a thin layer of air drying sculpting putty similar to Das Pronto (sorry, I repackaged it in a ziplock bag and threw away the original packaging so don't remember the brand.) It had a bad habit of cracking while drying so I had to re-apply the putty to fill in areas that cracked. Once it was finally dry and crack-free, I treated it with several different sizes of gravel, sand, and kitty litter applied with a solution of Woodland Scenics scenery glue. After that dried, the whole thing was airbrushed with Tamiya earth-colored acrylics and very lightly dry-brushed.
The pillar ruin is a
Nemrod product and the larger base to the pillar was sculpted from the aforementioned sculpting putty. The trooper leaning against the pillar enjoying a snack of canned Georgia peaches is from the
Masterbox "
Commonwealth AFV
Crew" set. All figures were painted with
Vallejo Model Color and
Panzer
Aces acrylics.
