I promise that this will be the last post on revetments, seriously, the last one. Following a suggestion from one of the readers at forums over on TMP got some of the corrugated coffee cup insulators to use as the corrugated iron that was often used as walling for trenches. This worked very well, after cutting and painting they make an excellent sustitute for the very expensive (nearly a dollar for three square inches) model railroad stuff that I had found earlier.
I then began pouring over photos to see exactly how it was used. It seems that the Allies were far more lavish with this stuff, actually lining whole sections of trench with it. The Germans were rather more restrained but seemed to use it what appears to be a haphazard manner, perhaps in repairs or to shore areas of soft ground, I can't tell. Last night I put together another section using the corruated iron mixed with the cardstock "wood" that I have been using so far and here are the results;
the rough iron color needs rust and weathering
a Foundry 28mm Prussian inspects the work
I tried not to use too much of the corrugated,
just in case I wasn't happy with the results
more views
I must say that I am liking the results. I have to find a mix of wood and metal that looks correct and then I will be off to the races. In the mean time does anybody know if poison gas killed grass and weeds? I can't imagine that it did them any good, but did it kill them? I am working on the large areas of No-Man's-Land next and I need to pick up some flocking in the right color.
The Froggies started using gas with tear gas grenades (leave it to them to even screw up WMD's). You would know more about that than any of us, so you can figure it out yourself. The big three are Chlorine, Mustard Gas, and Phosgene. Chlorine is deadly to plants in high concentrations and it takes less to harm plants than it does to harm people so it would really defoliate. It can even kill trees, which take some killing. Mustard Gas is even more toxic than Chlorine for plants a it combined amonia which does them no help either. Phosgene on the other hand is naturally occuring in plants and what makes photosynthesis happen and some really nasty stuff. The gas is automatically contained in the plants so normally poses no danger. That "new mowed hay" smell is phosgene in small dose. A Phosgene gas attack would not harm plants, but would also not do much for them because the plant does not need new Phosgene to grow and would probaly ignore the gas in a natural setting. At best it might cause a slight improvemnt in plant growth. However, the Chlorine and Mustard Gas attacks would devastate plants. Bleaching them out and disolving them in short order. Basically, any spot that did not get gassed by the Chlorine/mustard gas would probably look REALLY Green, and everything else would be a sickly gray brown quickly descending into muck.
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