Arming my G-scale German Heeresfeldbahn train - An easy model you can build

 

When participating at garden railway running sessions at fellow MRC member's garden railways, I often bring my G-scale WW2 German Heeresfeldbahn military narrow gauge train and run it on unsecure lines and into 'unknown territories'. -unaware of any potential danger of saboteurs or partisan actions. It is a military train after all, so I decided to give it some light protection against ambushes or railway sabotage. It's only for a small narrow gauge train, so nothing big or complex, just perhaps a small armed wagon in front of the locomotive?

I haven't seen any periodic photos of small machine gun trolleys or armed railway cars used by the German Wehrmacht on their narrow gauge lines during WW2 (just standard gauge ones), so this is just some modeler's licence and a product by my imagination. Hopefully it's not too improbable.

I did't want a too large armed wagon in front of my small narrow gauge locomotive, as I think that would make the engine seems small, so I decided to try one of the smallest I got by LGB:

Even if the wagon was lightly weathered, I decided to give it a more heavy weathering depicting a surplus wagon that would be available for this kind of service:

For the German soldiers I sourced some free files at Thingiverse I could 3D-print. They were actually meant for 28mm Bolt Action, so by scaling them up to 1:19th scale they looked a bit more chunkier and 'over-sized' (like many wargaming miniatures often do). Even when 'down scaling' them a little bit more to the right height for sitting in this scale, they still looked oversized due to their larger 'wargame proportions'. Perhaps too much bier and würst? For instance the ammunition for the machine gun looks like it's 0.50 ammo for a M2 Browning machine gun instead of 7,92mm. I don't actually mind that much since I'm not into this scale because it's a 'fine scale'.

The 3D-file comes with multiple machine guns, but I went for the MG42, as I have a soft spot for this weapon after being a main instructor on the NATO equivalent; MG3.

After carefully removing the supports:

This is eventually what the equipage would look like (after some adjustments):

But first some imperfections and layer lines needed to be filled and smoothed on the 3D-printed figures with Miliput and modelling paste:

To make the surface even smoother they were given a couple of coats of car spray filler:

Then they were primed:

And painted:

Finally they were given a light brown- and black wash and lightly drybrushed:

I think they looks less 3D-printed now. I also think the soldiers looked a little bit unprotected on the flat wagon, so I decided to give them a couple of sandbags for protection too. The sandbags them selves were again sourced from a free file on Thingiverse, rescaled to 1:19th scale and 3D-printed. To remove the layerlines and replicate fabric I decided to drape them with tissue paper soaked in diluted white/wood glue:

Finally it was time to tie everything together and give the whole thing a coat of mat varnish. Despite being 3D-printed the surface of the soldiers was so smooth that it was really challenging to get it as flat as I wanted.

It seems like they're ready for some action. Coincidentally a member in our model railway club invited to a running-session in his garden instead of going to the club one afternoon/evening due to very nice weather, so I decided to take them for a day out:

It was a long and heavy rake of wagons the locomotive was hauling this afternoon, and about it limitations coming to the gradients:

All in all this has been a fun little project thus taking a little longer time than expected. Thank you for reading! 

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