8.8 Flak 36 Limbered

While the T16s are being painted, I figured I'd show some photos that were posted on Flames of War, but not necessarily on here yet. Here's a project I did along with a Schutzen Kompanie a while back.

In Flames of War, guns that are limbered to a truck to move are just dragged behind. In some cases it doesn't seem too odd, but I still find it a little strange to have a fully deployed gun with its crew, somehow surfing behind a truck or halftrack.

Where this is especially strange is the 8.8 Flak 36. It is a huge gun on a cruciform mount, and until it's attached to its wheel limber, wouldn't move short of a tank hitting it. I did not want to have such a look, and the Flames of War model thoughtfully comes with limber halves. I set about converting the rest to have limbered versions of my unlimbered guns, for when they're dragged behind their halftracks:

 First up was the relatively simple limber and mounting. This was done primarily by tracing the metal one provided by Battlefront, with extra pieces for the most part using leftovers. The centre of the limber has two pieces of tinfoil, as well as some extra sprue bitz and small cut triangles. The front and back are the metal provided limber halves.

Next came the gun. For this, I got various sizes of plastic rod, combined them with carefully aplied pieces of tinfoil, and modelling wire, and carefully glued each piece, again using the BF one as a guide.

Here's the breach end. Thin plasticard, as well as a thicker clump grooved out simulated the actual breach, with remaining detail being a mix of plasticard, wire, and tinfoil.

The base of the gun went next, and involved a bit of guesswork. The detail is simplified from the real gun, as I hope in most games to not ever have to use their limbered versions! Again, the BF gun shield made a great trace proxy for the custom version.

Here's the full limbered gun, pre-painting. The gun wasn't glued facing down that far, but rather straight ahead. In the background you can see the deployed 8.8, and why I didn't want to have it just 'surf' behind the halftrack.

 And here it is painted up! The 'barn doors' have been painted with a grid pattern, which simulates how the deployed one was painted. While its detail is not exactly on, it does bear enough of a resemblance that from 'table distance' they're indistinguishable.

 Here as well is the only place it's distinctly not the BF version. From the gunner's seat, a couple of the detailed control knobs are just cylinders. Otherwise I'm very pleased with how it turned out, even if they sadly (luckily?) have yet to make it on the battlefield.