Hey Gents,
Here is the full picture layout of my Tarawa diorama. If you look further down the page you will see my historical justification as well as my figure breakdown. Please forgive me for being long winded, like so many of you and am really passionate about historical accuracy.
I am only in my first year of modeling so if you have any comments, questions, or tips I would love to hear them to help expand my knowledge base.
I hope I posted this correctly. Have been having issues in the staging area.
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This diorama depicts a marine NCO landing on Red Beach 2 of Tarawa (Batio) Atoll during the later part of the day of November 20, 1943. I have always been fascinated by this particular battle because it was so crucial to the Pacific campaign of WW2 yet it is widely forgotten about in the shadow of battles like Guadalcanal, Saipan, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa and now that the Pacific miniseries has been out for a while, Peleliu.
Tarawa changed the way Marines would attack an island as well as gave them the first taste of fighting a well fortified Japanese defense. While Peleliu was the first "defense in depth" that the Japanese implemented, it was greatly influenced by their experience on Tarawa. It is believed that if Tarawa had been a much larger "coral rock" island like Peleliu, Tarawa would have been the first Japanese employment of a "defense in depth."
However since Tarawa is a small island 3 miles in length and less than 1/2 miles in width composed of sand and no rock elevating little more than 10 meters above sea level it posed no more than a large beach head sprinkled with hundreds of machine guns manned by approximately 3,600 Imperial Japanese Marines. Admiral Shibazaki, the Japanese Garison's commanding officer boasted that, "it would take one million men one hundred years" to conquer Tarawa.
Now that I have given my diorama some back ground I will break it down the scenes motivation and composition. Tarawa was almost completely surrounded by a coconut log sea wall to prevent the erosion of the shore from the tide. This provided great cover and concealment for the 2nd Marine division on D-Day and D+1. But it also provided a formidable barrier preventing the marines from moving inland because the second the wall was scaled they ran head long into nearly point blank machine gun and rifle fire.
So I wanted to depict the split second of utmost courage marines had to face scaling that wall. For the coconut log wall I used a 2-4' long 1 inch diameter wooden dowels that I cut in approxametly 6" increments. I then angled used a dremel tool to create the "grooved" surface of a coconut log in the appropriate scale. I then used a "dirty" water mixture to coat the logs brown smudges that provides the proper visual texture and aging.
To create the two levels of the diorama I created the coconut log wall then added Styrofoam blocks to great the additional height then coated the foam with celluclay to act as the ground cover. While the clay was still wet I added a few foot prints on the low side of the wall as well as planted the Japanese "aiming stake." After the clay dried I covered it with white sand I got from Coronado Island, CA and secured it with scenic cement. Veterans say that the sand of Tarawa was a white as snow.
Beings that there was a huge naval bombardment of Tarawa before the invasion there would have been palm fronds blown all over the island. So I cut 1/6 scale palm fronds from paper and bent them in a curved shape just like real coconut trees, painted them so they looked dried and dead and partially buried them in the sand.
After the base and ground work was complete I added the figure I had already created for the scene. Because he is carrying a carbine and a side arm and not apart of a crew serve weapon such as a 60m mortar or 30 cal. machine gun, I depicted him as a Staff Sgt, which at the time would have been a platoon Sgt. For his web gear I used two very important detail that help tell his story as well as show historical accuracy. First is his first aid pouch. Marines for the majority of WW2 were issued old hand-me-down surplus from the army such as the 1910 first aid pouch with two button snaps located at the rear of the figures pistol belt. The Marines weren't issued the new first aid pouches stamped with the U.S. symbol with a lift-a-dot fastener until the spring of 44 around the time of Peleliu.
The second web gear detail is the two canteens. The canteens I used were first pattern Marine canteen covers. The difference between the army and marine canteen covers were that the marine covers were slightly more narrow with the fasteners more on the top of the cover than on the front as well as there was no U.S. ink stamp on them. During WW2 there were 3 patterns of canteen covers. The first was most common in early campaigns in the pacific such as Guadalcanal. The second pattern came out shortly after and was an identical design except for the fasteners. The first pattern canteen covers used button snaps and the second patterns used lift-a-dots. I designed my figure with first pattern canteen covers to show that he was a veteran of the Guadalcanal campaign who did not need new canteen covers after that campaign. Many of the replacements to the 2nd Marine Division would have been issued second pattern canteen covers.
Before I go into my figure breakdown I would like to preface that when a specific part I am needing such as boots and web gear can be found in both fabric and plastic sculpt, I will always choose the item that is more historically accurate in terms of look and scale. For instance no companies that have developed marine ww2 figures have ever made a fabric 1st or 2nd pattern canteen covers. They have only made the 3rd pattern which is the "crossed dog ear style." Nor have I found a good 1910 first aid pouch. I also choose to use plastic boots and leggings because I can't find a marine legging that looks historically accurate with Newline Miniature boondocker boots.
Figure Breakdown:
figure- Soldier story 2.0 body
head- soldier story PJ
uniform- Dragon
boots- 21st Century Toys Flame Thrower
helmet- 21st Century Toys resculpted
helmet cover- Dragon
helmet chinstrap- Dragon
leather liner chinstrap- Dragon
m1 carbine- dragon with custom sling and rear sight
pistol belt- soldier story
pistol mag pouch- soldier story
carbine mag pouch- dragon
1911 and holster- soldier story 82nd Airborne
canteens- 21st Century Toys Marine Raider
first aid pouch- 21st Century Toys Jungle Fighter
kbar and scabbard- old model Dragon
watch- Marine Scout Sniper Dam Toys
right hand bracelet- custom
wedding ring- custom
Here is the full picture layout of my Tarawa diorama. If you look further down the page you will see my historical justification as well as my figure breakdown. Please forgive me for being long winded, like so many of you and am really passionate about historical accuracy.
I am only in my first year of modeling so if you have any comments, questions, or tips I would love to hear them to help expand my knowledge base.
I hope I posted this correctly. Have been having issues in the staging area.
This diorama depicts a marine NCO landing on Red Beach 2 of Tarawa (Batio) Atoll during the later part of the day of November 20, 1943. I have always been fascinated by this particular battle because it was so crucial to the Pacific campaign of WW2 yet it is widely forgotten about in the shadow of battles like Guadalcanal, Saipan, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa and now that the Pacific miniseries has been out for a while, Peleliu.
Tarawa changed the way Marines would attack an island as well as gave them the first taste of fighting a well fortified Japanese defense. While Peleliu was the first "defense in depth" that the Japanese implemented, it was greatly influenced by their experience on Tarawa. It is believed that if Tarawa had been a much larger "coral rock" island like Peleliu, Tarawa would have been the first Japanese employment of a "defense in depth."
However since Tarawa is a small island 3 miles in length and less than 1/2 miles in width composed of sand and no rock elevating little more than 10 meters above sea level it posed no more than a large beach head sprinkled with hundreds of machine guns manned by approximately 3,600 Imperial Japanese Marines. Admiral Shibazaki, the Japanese Garison's commanding officer boasted that, "it would take one million men one hundred years" to conquer Tarawa.
Now that I have given my diorama some back ground I will break it down the scenes motivation and composition. Tarawa was almost completely surrounded by a coconut log sea wall to prevent the erosion of the shore from the tide. This provided great cover and concealment for the 2nd Marine division on D-Day and D+1. But it also provided a formidable barrier preventing the marines from moving inland because the second the wall was scaled they ran head long into nearly point blank machine gun and rifle fire.
So I wanted to depict the split second of utmost courage marines had to face scaling that wall. For the coconut log wall I used a 2-4' long 1 inch diameter wooden dowels that I cut in approxametly 6" increments. I then angled used a dremel tool to create the "grooved" surface of a coconut log in the appropriate scale. I then used a "dirty" water mixture to coat the logs brown smudges that provides the proper visual texture and aging.
To create the two levels of the diorama I created the coconut log wall then added Styrofoam blocks to great the additional height then coated the foam with celluclay to act as the ground cover. While the clay was still wet I added a few foot prints on the low side of the wall as well as planted the Japanese "aiming stake." After the clay dried I covered it with white sand I got from Coronado Island, CA and secured it with scenic cement. Veterans say that the sand of Tarawa was a white as snow.
Beings that there was a huge naval bombardment of Tarawa before the invasion there would have been palm fronds blown all over the island. So I cut 1/6 scale palm fronds from paper and bent them in a curved shape just like real coconut trees, painted them so they looked dried and dead and partially buried them in the sand.
After the base and ground work was complete I added the figure I had already created for the scene. Because he is carrying a carbine and a side arm and not apart of a crew serve weapon such as a 60m mortar or 30 cal. machine gun, I depicted him as a Staff Sgt, which at the time would have been a platoon Sgt. For his web gear I used two very important detail that help tell his story as well as show historical accuracy. First is his first aid pouch. Marines for the majority of WW2 were issued old hand-me-down surplus from the army such as the 1910 first aid pouch with two button snaps located at the rear of the figures pistol belt. The Marines weren't issued the new first aid pouches stamped with the U.S. symbol with a lift-a-dot fastener until the spring of 44 around the time of Peleliu.
The second web gear detail is the two canteens. The canteens I used were first pattern Marine canteen covers. The difference between the army and marine canteen covers were that the marine covers were slightly more narrow with the fasteners more on the top of the cover than on the front as well as there was no U.S. ink stamp on them. During WW2 there were 3 patterns of canteen covers. The first was most common in early campaigns in the pacific such as Guadalcanal. The second pattern came out shortly after and was an identical design except for the fasteners. The first pattern canteen covers used button snaps and the second patterns used lift-a-dots. I designed my figure with first pattern canteen covers to show that he was a veteran of the Guadalcanal campaign who did not need new canteen covers after that campaign. Many of the replacements to the 2nd Marine Division would have been issued second pattern canteen covers.
Before I go into my figure breakdown I would like to preface that when a specific part I am needing such as boots and web gear can be found in both fabric and plastic sculpt, I will always choose the item that is more historically accurate in terms of look and scale. For instance no companies that have developed marine ww2 figures have ever made a fabric 1st or 2nd pattern canteen covers. They have only made the 3rd pattern which is the "crossed dog ear style." Nor have I found a good 1910 first aid pouch. I also choose to use plastic boots and leggings because I can't find a marine legging that looks historically accurate with Newline Miniature boondocker boots.
Figure Breakdown:
figure- Soldier story 2.0 body
head- soldier story PJ
uniform- Dragon
boots- 21st Century Toys Flame Thrower
helmet- 21st Century Toys resculpted
helmet cover- Dragon
helmet chinstrap- Dragon
leather liner chinstrap- Dragon
m1 carbine- dragon with custom sling and rear sight
pistol belt- soldier story
pistol mag pouch- soldier story
carbine mag pouch- dragon
1911 and holster- soldier story 82nd Airborne
canteens- 21st Century Toys Marine Raider
first aid pouch- 21st Century Toys Jungle Fighter
kbar and scabbard- old model Dragon
watch- Marine Scout Sniper Dam Toys
right hand bracelet- custom
wedding ring- custom
