This Old Bunker

I had built these bunkers about 15 years ago when I was tootling around with a Second Anglo-Boer War project. They were made from air drying clay over a card board shell.

The Canadian Mounted Rifles chasing Boer bitterenders across the veldt project faltered on not finding a decent proxy for the CMR. So the bunkers sat in their tan paint. And later research revealed to me that Boer War bunkers were different anyway. Oh well, never mind.

I used the big one as a Afghan National Army/Police sangar a few times in my 20mm Canadians in Afghanistan project. I had vague thoughts of turning them into components for a Patrol Base. It turns out bunkers in Afghanistan were very different as well. Oh well, never mind.  Making all those HESCO bastions was intimidating and I shelved the idea.

QRF rolls out past an ANA checkpoint to rescue a LAV patrol hit by an IED.

Then I thought they'd look really good if I gave them a bit of a reno and incorporated them into my Quar trenches.

The small bunker originally had a flat roof painted to look like rusting tin, but I added coffee stirrer planks as a floor and built a parapet out of some extra plastic and greenstuff sandbags I had accumulated. I always try to shape any leftover greenstuff into sandbags instead of throwing it out. I had to get out the Miliput and make more to finish it off but that's ok. Ladders were made from match sticks to allow access to the roofs.

Then it was just a matter of spending a Friday night on Zoom with some friends and painting them. I used Games Workshop Dark Angels Green Contrast paint to go over all the sandbags (which had already been painted burnt umber then drybrushed tan), and then dry brushing with craft paint Antique Green. Any wood was painted burnt umber brown, then dry brushed grey, then hit with a sepia ink wash. I used the ink on any tan crevices among the sand bags that the previous four coats of paint missed. The ground, originally sand, was painted and flocked.

Small bunker

Interior view showing cardboard shell with skin of air drying clay overtop. Rhyfler Puwl demonstrates proper use of a firing slit.

Side view

Rear view

Big bunker

Interior view. An M2b HMG just reaches the firing slit!

Side view

Rear view. Wall of sandbags to protect the entrance on this one.

Action shots! 31 Combat Engineer Regiment assaults a heavily fortified Royalist defensive line.

About to put a grenade through a firing slit

Have a satchel charge!

Through the wire!