Thanks, all
Love the wonky target marker on the front, it’s exactly right
It should be, given that I traced it from a perspective- and armour-angle-corrected still from the film
I keep wondering why it’s this poorly painted, though. It looks like they decided to add it when the vehicle was prepared for the landings and they had a pot of paint out anyway to add the 8LCT and E1 markings. None of the other bulldozers at Westkapelle appear to have had these, though.
Very nice. Having a figure with it is good.
These things are very difficult to estimate the size of, I think. I mean, I have a fairly good mental picture of how large tanks etc. are, but not so much with these. Last year I went and looked at a D6A that was being restored, and was surprised at how big it was — and then remember that the D6A is the smaller of the two used in this landing. The figure helps a lot with allowing people to picture the size, especially for the total layman I hope
I remember seeing a photo of bulldozers lined up on the beach on D-Day. The caption read "The unsung heroes of D-Day"
Probably not an overstatement, no. Even at the relatively small-scale operation at Westkapelle (“just” thirty tank landing craft and three infantry ones), it was planned to land ten armoured bulldozers, of which eight seem to have made it ashore. A few (possibly three) extra were brought in a few days later because there was a definite need for more.
Now scale that up to Normandy …
