I was just curious to see if anyone has ever attempted or built their own German WWII bunker for any helpful tips or tricks.
I've got a buddy that was in the 2nd Rangers (not during the war, it was in the 90's), so I'm going to attempt to recreate the assault on the German Observation Point at the tip of Pointe du Hoc.
I found some old diagrams of a typical OP from an Army TM from 1945 and I've already converted it into 1/35th scale and diagramed onto foamboard.
Unfortunately, because it's 1/35 the dimensions are like 20 X 18 X 10, so it's pretty big.
Probably go with a mixture of foamboard and insulation foam and coat with spackle or plaster and go from there. Not sure how I'll do the rounded front opening yet though.
Again, just seeing if anybody has attempted this or see's flaws in my logic so far.
thanks

Hi,

I'm planning the construction of a type 630 bunker - it's not so big as yours.

I've research what I could find on Internet and have made the plans at 1/35.

Now I'm planning how to buil it - if in plaster making molds in wood as in real life or using insulation foam as you sugest.

My original plan was foamboard base with insulation buildup inside covered with light layer of plaster for the concrete look, but.....I went to the work area to make a sizeable dent in the project last night and came to the conclusion that I'm all messed up.
I don't think the insulation is going to work.....can't get it cut straight enough the way I want, and the closest retailer for balsa wood to me is about 100 miles away, so I went out and bought some more foamboard today and think I'm going to go with that and then put light coat of plaster over.
If you still need diagrams/plans for your 630, check out chapter V, US Army training manual TM-E 30-451 dated 1 March 1945 (it's on the net) and it's got most of the actual measurements on there.

Peacemaker: check out the coverup gallery and you'll see some very nice bunkers built there. Alot of the guys had their stuff in RRB explaining how they did it, good luck and post some pics. That is one heck of a big project to tackle!

This is as good a way, as any. The foam board is easy shaped and fixed together. Use a cheap hot glue gun for speed. When finished, score it with a blade to give the plaster more to stick to. As the plater dries, use a lollipop stick to imprint the shuttered timber. Glue a handle perpendicular to the stick and this is quite quick. Dont worry about getting an even imprint ..... this adds to the effect. Rough is good! When dry and hard, sand or cut off any heavy or "out of scale" squeezed-out plaster. Its good to add some acrylic into the plaster and half the paint work is done ... it also lets you see what you are doing. This can be damaged with a sharp knife as you go along. Some rusted metal wire for inner support adds to the effect. Paint as normal and weather.

Peacemaker,
Do you happen to have the link for this handy. It sounds like a great read!

cool...thanks for the tips guys. This is my first attempt at anything remotely close to this. I'll take some pictures along the way.

Ambrose, the link is here for that Army TM:
Handbook on German Forces (TM 30-410)
There's like 9 chapters covered in three separate links. Just scroll down till you find them, the links are alphabetical.
Chapter V specifically covers the bunks like I mentioned. Each link opens an Adobe file and contains roughly 200 pages each, so dialup is a bit slow with this.

Hi,

PeaceMaker, thanks for your tip. It will help to check some doubts I have.

I'm not sure if "my new idea" is worth it or not, but wanted to see if I could get some opinions on the matter.
The idea is to install 2mm fiber optic strands into the bunker to simulate light bulbs in the ceiling.
I'm thinking the apeture opening to the type 636 bunker is about 1 ft. and scaled down to 1/35 is about .35 inch.
Never seen one of the bunkers in real life so I'm not even sure if they had a light bulb in the forward section or not.
I think it's do-able, but not 100% certain it's worth it.

If it will help, check my posting on page 1 Re; Drywall.

Art

This one made one.

Megaproject

I had intended for this to be entered into the Overlord Campaign, but we had to move households, so it set me back a while.
Anyway, here is how it's fairing so far.
Pretty basic construction with walls and such. I've hit a snag today trying to figure out the dimensions of the top. Can't seem to figure out the right dimensions, but hoping to start the plaster job to most of it this weekend.
This one is a view from the rear - entrance side without the roof obviously.


and this is view from the front - observation room side....still gotta figure out how to construct the dome-like exterior for the observation room.

Looks like a TON of fun! Are you going to make it so that you can take the roof off for internal viewing, or are you going to do a clear roof?

G'day
When i built my one for my "Atop Omaha" diorama,
i used an ice cream container, cut the entrace and slit in the front, then simply poored plaster on top and walah, instant bunker! cheers

WOW! How big is that thing??!

Phantom-Major- PM'd you some bunker websites that have been pretty helpful (some more than others).

Matrix-it's something like 20 inches long, 18 in. wide and somewhere around 7 or 8 tall.
The surrounding 'scene' still needs to be created/added for the full blown dio....it's gonna be rather big. Not bad for first time suppose.

Keith-I've been thinking about trying to find a way to be able to remove the top of it to reveal the inside. I started the construction of it by just doing the front observation room and adjacent map room and then got carried away with 3 other rooms shown in the picture. There's 1 or possible 2 more rooms that I flat out didn't construct.
I think I can manage to 'pull off' a removable roof but I'm shying away from it because I have absolutely no idea what some of the rooms would have looked like. It's kind of a shame leaving the roof on....it has the potential to be absolutely crazy.

the link wont load for me....i even tried cable modem and still nothing.....

there is a book called fortress europe? which covers just about every type of bunker and underground system used if your looking for a small bunker Mirage
make some nice ones in 1/35 for a cheap price

not sure why the link won't load. I just tried it myself and it worked fine.
I downloaded the file that I needed, but it's like 40 meg, don't think I can email that.
The chapter I used is only like 15 pages, but it's in .pdf format and adobe program I have I can't delete anything.
I'll try cutting and pasting to word to see if that works.
I can email the file to you after that if you want.

Sure if you can cut it down i would love to have it. Thanks

Here are a selection of some useful reference books on the subject. All of them are inexpensive and between them cover all theaters of WWII...