carentan modelling

7/29/2019 Carentan modelling

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Carentan

A modelling odysseyby Dominic

Written by Dominic

Additional photographs and research by Sgt Perry

Editing by Matakishi

www.matakishi.com




Introduction

By Dominic, Sgt Perry and Matakishi

This booklet has been put together from several posts on the Lead Adventureforum. The main building photographs and instructions are Dominic'soriginals. I would like to thank another forum member, Sgt Perry, whocontributed information, translations from the French and contemporaryphotographs of Carentan throughout the build.

All right, that's enough background, on with Dominic's explanation of the

construction...

I received the Miniature Building Authority Cafe last Friday. It's a good copyof the "Cafe de Normandie" which appears in the Band of Brothers' Carentanscenario.

The MiniatureBuilding AuthorityCafe de

Normandie model




Using this as a starting point I decided to scratch-build, one by one, all thebuildings surrounding Cafe de Normandie. Here's what I've done so far:




DesireIngouf

This is a photo of Rue Holgate, at the end of it,

you can make out the Restaurant Desire Ingouf




DesireIngouf

The next step is to do the Restaurant "Desire Ingouf"

Here are some step-by-step pictures for building Desire Ingouf.

The measurements are all guesswork. There are photographs of the 2 frontsides. But the configuration for the 2 rear sides is also guess work.




DesireIngouf

The main construction material here is 4mm thick cork tiles. These tiles are

easy to work with, they take paint and glue very well. They can be glued witheither super glue or PVA. Using super glue, with the occasional addition of some accelerator, makes building with cork tiles very fast.




DesireIngouf

The base for the hotel is cut from hardboard.




DesireIngouf

Here's the roof, the roof tiles are by Auhagen, a German railroad model

company.

here is another photograph of theRestaurant Desire Ingouf from adifferent angle(along D913 in direction Cherbourg).




DesireIngouf And now with the dormer windows added.

For the detailing, I started with some textured tile sheets and cut them intostrips for the window outlines.




DesireIngouf




DesireIngouf

Then I drew in the curved outlines at the top of each window using a masking

tape roll as a template.

To make the tile strips conform to the curved window tops, I did a half cutalong each tile so the strip could curve a little. The keystones are just card cutinto appropriate shapes to fit the gap.

Next, using a textured brick sheet, cut into appropriate sized strips to line thebase of the building. The bricks are textured plastic sheets from Modulor.de




DesireIngouf




DesireIngouf

The next step is to mask off all the details in preparation for spraying. I'mgoing to use a granite textured spray paint to texture the walls.

Here's the model after applying the granite texture spray paint.

After searching for the real name of the building of Mr Ingouf, the next pageshows a picture with the road that Easy Company 506th PIR took during theattack on Carentan.

The 506th PIR was at the hamlet of La Billonerie on the roads to Periers.

On the google map part you can see nowadays buildings which were in picturesshown on previous pages.

After some discussion and some Googling, Sgt Perry and I managed todiscover what was written on the long sign at the side of the building:

"Hotel du Soleil Levant & Desire Ingouf Restaurateur". Literally -"Hotel of theRising Sun and Desire Ingouf Restaurant owner"

I'm sure the GIs had some fun in there after they liberated Carentan!

"...There is a house in New Orleans, they call the …"




DesireIngouf

Here is the (nearly) finished building.

It's not 100% complete as I'm still looking for a couple of suitable road signsfor the front, and a big poster for the rear corner (next to the Normandie ship).

There is a specific poster that they used in the Band of Brothers episode thatI want to try and find.




DesireIngouf

I bought some 1/35 Verlinden signs that are exactly what I need I scannedthem and reduced them to the correct size. Here is the model with the road

signs.




DesireIngouf

I toyed around with adding windows, but after putting in a couple, decidedagainst it as it became very fiddly. I figure most people won't miss it on thegaming table.

I finally found the poster for the back that was used in the Band of Brothers

episode.




HistoryofCarentan

Here's the famous crossroads from which Easy company 506th PIR attackedCarentan. This was taken in 1944.

According to the picture in Stephen Ambrose's book, Band of Brothers,Easy Company came from the left side.




HistoryofCarentan

Here's the picture taken from the same place nowadays. It's really changed alot.

The road on the left drives you to a private housing estate but there were onlyfields during the war.




HistoryofCarentan

Here's the picture taken from the road from which Easy Company arrived.

It's a gentle slope with old buildings in the front which, from what I learnedfrom the older inhabitants of Carentan, existed in 1944.

We can suppose that the MG42 was in position in this building.




HistoryofCarentan

On the left side, there's a wall with visible bullets marks. That's the only hint of a fight in the area.




HistoryofCarentan

Finally here's the picture of the house in which the US medical post was set upafter the battle.




HistoryofCarentan

Now I understand better the path of Easy Company through Carentan.

So there was no Cafe de Normandie... and they did not pass Chez DesireIngouf.

Easy Company, part of 2/506, arrived in Carentan to the Southwest which is tothe left of this photo.

They attacked across Rue Holgate south of the rail track towards this group of houses.




HistoryofCarentan

Then turned north east to enter Carentan about 200m east of chez DesireIngouf, near the train station.

Across the road from the train station is today's Town Hall, I think in 1944, thiswas a school.




FightinginCarentan

Where were the Fallschirmjägers and where did they open fire?

C. Carwood LiptonE Company, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment

"(...)As we reached the outskirts of Carentan we started getting German rifleand machine gun fire. The houses in this area were somewhat like row housesexcept that there were enclosed stairways leading up to the second floors fromthe outside. I thought that we were getting sniper fire from one of the upstairswindows. Buck Taylor and I were working as a team at this point, checking and clearing the buildings and area as went, so I told him that I would go up thestairway to that room and that after he had given me enough time to get tothe top he should throw a grenade through the upstairs window. I would then jump into the room and finish off whoever was there.

I ran up the steps and stopped outside the door. I heard the grenade thumpinto the room through the window and its explosion. I threw open the door and leaped into the room, my rifle thrust forward ready to fire. I couldn't see athing! The room was filled with dust and smoke from the explosion. If therehad been a sniper there and he had been able to shield himself from thegrenade he would have had me silhouetted in the door, but the room was

empty.

We continued to check buildings and work our way toward the town center.The rifle and machine gun fire against us seemed to decrease somewhat as wemoved farther in , but mortar and artillery fire increased. Men were getting hit.

Someone yelled that Tipper was hit across the street from me. I ran over. Hewas lying there conscious but hurt seriously. A medic was bandaging his faceand his eye was obviously gone. He had major wounds in on arm and one leg.I told him he would be well taken care of and moved on.

I came to a major road intersection, nearer the town center. There was small arms and machine gun fire coming down the street from the right, across my front. Across on the other side of that street, on the continuation of the street I was standing on, were several E Company men. There were explosions up onthe walls of the buildings on the left side of the street that they were on, and they looked to me like German 5cm mortar shells fired at a low trajectory sothat they were coming in somewhat horizontally rather than dropping invertically. I was on the right side of the street I was on, against a building onmy right, and I did not think that the fire could get to me, but I started yelling

to the men on the other side to move farther along. I thought that in the noiseand confusion they might not realize that mortar fire was being directed at them.(...)"




FightinginCarentan

After reading this Sgt Perry thinks that the US Paras were attacked when theyreached the first crossroad and that there was a house to house fight along theroad up to the crossroads with the RN13 and that Lipton was wounded there(near the Desire Ingouf restaurant).

I must admit I am still quite confused about the exact route taken by Easycompany from La Billonerie into Carentan.

If you follow this map, it suggests 2/506 (incl Easy) attacked La Billonerie andthen moved up the Periers road into Carentan (passing the rail junction andthe restaurant Desire Ingouf).




FightinginCarentan

On the other hand, if you follow this map, then E/2/506 may have attacked LaBillonerie from the west, then continued in a NE direction into Carentan, thatmeans passing the train station and the Mairie/Ecole.

Regarding Lipton's account above, it is quite interesting. I would like to seesome pictures of these houses that he describes - with the outside staircaseleading to the 2nd floor. (In Band of Brothers, this becomes the big factory

which has a sniper on the staircase, and Lipton runs in to clear the factory,after that he is wounded outside the factory. But in this respect, I think BoB isnot accurate.)




FightinginCarentan

Anyway, the only factory I can find in Carentan at that time was the Gloria milkfactory which is in the NE of Carentan, near the river port, which is totallyopposite to the direction that Easy Company arrived in Carentan.

This is an excerpt on Carentan from the US Army official history "From UtahBeach to Cherbourg"

"The 2d Battalion (506th), meanwhile, had moved out astride the main road leading into Carentan from the southwest. It received harassing machine-gunfire and interdictory artillery fire from the south most of the way into town. Asthe battalion entered, it met the 1st Battalion, 401st Glider Infantry, which had already come in from the northeast. This unit had pushed a patrol to the edgeof the town before dawn, but it still faced the enemy rear guard and wastemporarily stopped. At 0600 it attacked out of the wood at Bassin a Flot and drove rapidly into the center of Carentan. The meeting with the 2d Battalion,506th Parachute Infantry, occurred about 0730 after a short fight with enemy stragglers around the railroad station."

Based on this short excerpt, and the recent discovery that this house (located just south of the level crossing opposite the restaurant Desire Ingouf) might bethe location of the aid station that treated Blithe and Winters.




FightinginCarentan

I think it is correct that Easy Company moved up the Periers road and past therestaurant Desire Ingouf.

This picture should be the Auvers/Periers crossroads, with Carentan in thebackground.

On the right side of the roadbehind the Belgian gate is the"Cafe du Stade" where the MG42was located and near the Para onthe left, the cd903 (fromAuvers).

The Cafe de Normandie in the TVseries looks nothing like the realCafe du Stade!




FightinginCarentan

The map is a little confusing. The red marked route suggests that EasyCompany did not move north into Carentan, instead moving south towardsPeriers.

The position of the first aid station is also different. Sgt Perry has found outthat the first aid station is not the building near the railroads.




FightinginCarentan

I was puzzled by the writing on the wall of this building. It looks like "TAILLES",meaning "measures", but that doesn't make much sense.

Eventually I found this:




Carentangrows

After 3 weeks' work, here's a status update on Carentan. As you can see, the approach toCarentan is almost complete.

There should be one more house to the right of Cafe Normandie, and another ruinedshop/house next to the existing ruined house.

These will be my next builds. After that, I will have to start thinking about the factory.

Here are more shots of the town from different angles.

I figured Cafe Normandie should get a backyard since there is one in the DVD.

Three weeks ago

Today




TheRuinedHouse

This house appears on theBand of Brothers

Carentan set. It is between thefirst ruined house and the factory/warehouse.

This is the house with the chicken coop at the back, where "Shifty" takes coverfrom the MG in Cafe de Normandie. From this position, Shifty also takes outthe sniper on the stairs of the factory. Unfortunately, I can't say if this houseactually exists in Carentan.

I use 30x30cm cork floor tiles which you can get from any building suppliesstore for around EUR10 for a pack of 10 tiles. You need 1 tile to build a houseof this size. The restaurant in the other thread required 3 tiles as it was muchbigger.

First, draw in all the doors and windows. This will determine the dimensions of the house. For this house, I've opted for 1.5x2.5cm windows and 2x4cm doors.Each floor is 5cm high.




TheRuinedHouse




For the side walls, my measurements are 9cm wide x 15cm tall.




After cutting out all the walls, just sketch in the damaged areas.




TheRuinedHouse

Cut out the damaged areas with a heavy duty pair of scissors and all the doors

and windows.

Then glue all the walls together on a 3mm thick MDF base. I find that UHU all-purpose glue works well.

For added strength, reinforce the corners with PVA glue after the UHU has set.

Note that I've added the upper floor supports on the inner walls.

After building the basic house structure, I added the window frames and shutters.

For detailed method on how this is done, see the next part for the House on Place de la

Republique.




TheRuinedHouse




TheRuinedHouse The ruined roof is fairly easy (yay! no dormers on this house!!) Just cut out thedamaged part of the roof and use plastic strips to represent the damaged roof

supports.

The roof is removable, and so is the upper floor. Thus the building is fullyplayable inside as well.




TheRuinedHouse

Then add little rubble piles using broken-up pieces of cork glued together withwhite glue:




After the white glue sets overnight, the house will be ready for the next stage -masking, spraying with textured paint, and painting.




TheRuinedHouse

Finally, the completed the house!

I need to make the factory next, then I will see if I need a few more houses(need some shops) to fill up a 120 x120cm board.




TheRuinedHouse




HouseonPlacedela Republique

Here are some step-by-step photos and instructions on how I build an ordinaryCarentan house.

This is the house on Place de la Republique that I intend to reproduce. Ibelieve this real house is the inspiration for the house that appears in Band of Brothers 2 houses to the right of Cafe Normandie.





First step is to figure out where all the doors and windows are. I normallymake each floor 5cm high. The doors are 4cm high and the windows 2.5cm.





Then cut out the front and back walls from the cork.

Don't use cheap box cutters. I use a good heavy-duty Stanley knife which cutsthrough the cork really easily.





Next do the side walls and cut them out.





Cutting out the windows is tough, but a little bit of patience and half an hourlater:





I went to the hardware store and found this craft ruler thingy. I wish I haddiscovered it earlier. It makes measuring and drawing lines and angles such abreeze, I'm never using my old school plastic rulers again.

This picture shows the ruler set square thingy resting on a piece of 3mm thickMDF board which I've measured and cut out for the base of this house.





Once the base is ready, just stick all the cork pieces together. You can use UHUall-purpose glue for a quick bond, and after the UHU has set, reinforce all theinside corners with PVA white glue to ensure a solid bond.

You'll note that I've left a 2cm margin around the edges of the house for thepavement, which I'll score in later.





I have no idea why the windows on the second story are set off centre. I'venoticed that not all Norman houses are built symmetrically. Maybe there's aroom there that doesn't need a window, or maybe it's a stairwell.

I found this old postcard on the web showing Carentan's main square with theWW1 memorial. From the look of the cars it could be either late '30s or justafter the war. You can just make out the house I'm building on the extremeright.

The small car on the right is either a Renault 4CV or a Fiat 600. Both wherebuild after WW2. That makes the photo about late 1940s or early 1950s.





This photo is definitely pre-war. Probably 1920s. The house is partly obscuredby the WW1 monument.





The next step is to make the cork joints less visible.

In my previous buildings, I used normal plastic modelling putty. For this model,I'm trying out a wood filler which I bought at the hardware store. Just squeezeit out of the tube and use a sculpting tool to spread it over the joints,smoothing it out as you go.





The window and door frames are cut out from plastic strips. The curved partabove the front door was cut out from a sheet of plastic card.





Just to add a bit of interest, I decided to build a small outhouse at the back. Ihave no idea if the back of the actual house looks like this as I can't find anyphotos of the backyard.





The house interiors are all playable, with removable upper floors. The first stepis to glue in cork supports along the inside walls.





Reviewing the photo of the house again, I noticed that I made a mistake onthe upper window frames. So I spent some time to correct it with plastic strips.





The strip right at the top of the house has some decorative protrusions. Thesewere just wedges of plastic cut out from waste strips.





To do the window shutters, just cut out appropriate sized rectangles fromplastic card, and use some strips for the hinges.





Next come the doors.

The rear door was cut from a textured plastic sheet obtained from a modeltrain shop.

The front door is cut from plastic card and decorated with plastic strips.





The chimneys are cut from balsa wood which you can buy in a hobby or DIYstore.





For the roof I used textured plastic card from the model train store.

Just measure it and cut it out with a Stanley knife. Did I say already how muchI love my new Stanley knife? It cuts through plastic, cork and MDF so easily.On the other hand, my old and cheap box cutters don't work as well andrequire a lot more effort to cut.

Don't forget to cut a bit of indentation in the roof to allow for the chimneys!





These roof tiles are from Vollmer, a German model railroad company. Onsome of my other houses, I used roof tiles by another German company calledAuhagen. You could also use other brands, for example the ones stocked byAntenociti's Workshop.





Now comes the part I hate most - making the 2 dormers on the roof. It is quitea job cutting out all the small bits of card for each dormer.

As it requires quite a lot of cutting, drilling and filing to get it attached to theroof, make the dormers and fit them on BEFORE gluing the angle of the roof together (I almost forgot!!)

Dormers are a bloody hassle, but they have to be done!

Start first with the side walls. You have to get the angle right, otherwise thedormer won't sit straight.

The little tab at the bottom of the side walls is for supporting the dormer onthe roof. Cut a hole in the roof that will fit the tab. This will ensure that thedormer doesn't slide off while the glue is drying.





I got so stressed building the little roof for the dormer, I forgot to take photos.So here is a photo of the step after the dormer roofs have been built andfitted.

Join the main roof together and add triangular supports to strengthen the joint.





In this photo, you can see what the dormer roof looks like.

The fiddly part is getting all the angles right. I haven't worked out a good wayto do this yet, so it's all trial and error.

After joining all the roof tile pieces together, hide the ugly seams with strips of card from a corn flakes box.





And the finished product.





I haven't fitted the gate and garden walls yet as I'm going to spray the housewith a granite-texture spray.

I'll put in the walls and gate after the texture spray has gone on. So the nextstep is to mask off all the windows and doors in preparation for spraying.

Here's the house all masked, ready to be sprayed with Dupli-Color GranitTexture spray (Krylon Stone texture spray works just as well).





The spray worked, and the fence and gate have been attached.





The finished house.

The fences and gate are from Faller, another German model railroadmanufacturer.

The Faller fences are HO scale. I guess they are meant to be full height for HO,but they work well as low fences for 28mm.




TheFactory

Here is the method for building the factory.

The administration building is made from cork. The building front, sides andrear are measured as before, and the windows and doors cut out.

Plastic strips are used for all window and door frames. The roof is a texturedplastic sheet from Vollmer, cut to the appropriate size and glued together.

As you can see, the walls are simply cork cut to the required shape and gluedonto MDF board in which I have scored a pavement pattern with a knife.




TheFactory

The side shed and factory chimney are actually HO-scale German railroadaccessory models.

The shed is actually a locomotive shed, so it is tall enough for people in 28mmscale. But the side door on the shed is too small (HO sized) so I had to cut outa larger door for 28mm people.




TheFactory

For comparison, here's a screen shot from Band of Brothers showing thefactory in the background:

BTW, the factoryadministration buildingresembles the 25thArtillery barracks inCarentan.




TheFactory




Carentangrowssome more

Here's what Carentan looks like so far. I've made a 4'x4' (120 x120cm) boardout of MDF.

I'm not sure I like the look of it as the grey is just a bit too overwhelming.

I think it might be better to use a grass board with cobblestone streets placedon top.




Carentangrowssome more




Shops

Now that I have a load of houses, and a factory, I need some French shops formy town.

As I already built a house on Carentan's Place de la Republique, I decide tobuild a couple more buildings from this famous square.

This is a view of the square after the city was captured by the US 101stAirborne in 1944.

I decide to build the houses starting from "Cafe du Progres" to the "Horlogerie,

Bijouterie" and "Meubles"




Shops

Here's another view of these houses.




Shops

Unfortunately in both these photos, you can't make out the full structure of theHorlogerie-Meubles house.

I managed to find this picture showing a victory parade on Place de laRepublique, showing quite clearly what this house looks like (on the left).




Shops

So using the technique described earlier for building the house with garden onPlace de la Republique, I scratch-built these two buildings.

It will take me a bit of time to make the roof of the Horlogerie-Meuble house as it has

five(!!) bloody dormers!!




Shops




TheGame

Here are some photographs of the finished town in use. Miniatures are 28mmminiatures from Crusader and Artizan Designs.




Products

Companies and products mentioned in the text

Band of Brothers, a book by Stephen Ambrose and a film series by HBO.ISBN-10: 0743429907ISBN-13: 978-0743429900Just type it into Amazon for a huge list of the various DVD/Bluray sets.

Lead Adventure Forum the online community where this all happened.http://www.lead-adventure.de/index.php

Matakishi's Tea House my website where the original article is hosted.www.matakishi.com

Miniature Building Authorityhttp://www.miniaturebuildingauthority.com/

Auhagenhttp://www.auhagen.de/cms/front_content.php

Modulor.dehttp://www.modulor.de/shop/oxid.php/lang/1

Verlindenhttp://www.verlindenonline.com/store/

Vollmerhttp://vollmer-online.de/index.php

Antenociti's Workshophttp://www.antenocitisworkshop.com/

Fallerhttp://www.faller.de

Crusader Miniatureshttp://www.crusaderminiatures.com/

Artizan Designshttp://www.artizandesigns.com/


http://www.lead-adventure.de/index.php

http://www.matakishi.com/

http://www.miniaturebuildingauthority.com/

http://www.auhagen.de/cms/front_content.php

http://www.modulor.de/shop/oxid.php/lang/1

http://www.verlindenonline.com/store/

http://vollmer-online.de/index.php

http://www.antenocitisworkshop.com/

http://www.faller.de/

http://www.crusaderminiatures.com/

http://www.matakishi.com/

http://www.miniaturebuildingauthority.com/

http://www.auhagen.de/cms/front_content.php

http://www.modulor.de/shop/oxid.php/lang/1

http://www.verlindenonline.com/store/

http://vollmer-online.de/index.php

http://www.antenocitisworkshop.com/

http://www.faller.de/

http://www.crusaderminiatures.com/

http://www.lead-adventure.de/index.php

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