Thanks Adam and Shawn!
So, here I am again... I'm very sorry for my prolonged absence.
As it happened every weekend somehow ended up with one sort or the other of catastrophe, annoyance or simply time consuming "non-standard-events"...
Anyhow... before this all started (not that it has
ended... I just happen to have some time to do a post I've been wanting to do since yesterday evening...) I was fiddling around with some way to build an impact from cotton.
Turns out the second ricochet impact wasn't much of a problem but the initial one was was quite the...
female dog...
It alternatively fell apart, looked much like a turd or more often like one imagines a
shoggoth...
So while I was turning the problem around during my break last Friday it occurred to me that we had a lot of leftover thermoplastic scraps, so I collected some, trimmed them a little and put them in the oven at 130°C and voilà =>
(still looks like a shoggoth though.... )
I added some of the cotton I had tried previously =>
Then added some debris=>
(the commander of "4" is just to cavalier to invest much energy in overly emotional avoidance manoeuvres, after all it's just a field stone the size of his head coming at him at several hundred m/s, no need to cease acting nonchalantly )
Now with everyone placed, glued and the dust toned down a bit with some white and black pigments, so as not to be so
freakishly yellow =>
Forward right corner with "3", the infantry company CO acting all gung-ho, some of his men coming up and one of the MG34 gunners and his assistant moving forward =>
Upper right corner with the second MG team already in the process of setting up, the assistant gunner joining them shortly coming up the slope as well as the SDM and his spotter searching for a possibility to deploy their means of precision fire from the high ground =>
Centre with the battalion commander's ADC in R01 trying to figure out where exactly the incoming fire originates with a platoon level NCO trying to spot smoke, a casualty-in-the-making catching some fragment with the evacuation of the wounded crew members of "5" in the background=>
Forward left corner with the aforementioned nonchalant officer of "4", "his" stone, the third MG team doing some spray and pray being supported in this by a NCO from behind "4". Also everyone from the "manoeuvre force" the CO is trying to get forward is behind "4" stopping to avoid the fate of the unfortunate bloke in the centre =>
Behind them is the burning number 5 38(t) with the other two crew members evacuation the vicinity of "5" with the two unfortunate infantrymen who where closest to the tank when it was hit still trying to get a grip =>
(the smoke here will get a lot darker, it's just something of a placeholder)
So that's it for now... there should be some relaxation in the next weeks, but as I frequently predicted just that and subsequently went silent for weeks I really shouldn't promise anything...
Once I get around to continue here there are still telegraph masts and wires and a cat to do
...
Best regards
Raoul G. Kunz
Steve, I'll have something for you in reaction to your last message as well as some explaining about what I'm about currently for you within.. well.. the week at least