The repair base in Orsha

The full title of the diorama is "505 Heavy Tank Battalion - repair base - Orsza November 1943". The diorama was made in 1:35 scale, based on the photos in the book "Der Strabokran - German Gantry Crane 1942-45" by Volker Ruff. The tank repair unit was stationed in Orsha, in what is now Belarus, roughly halfway between Minsk and Smolensk.

A construction that immediately catches the eye is a portable overhead crane. Such a crane had a lifting capacity of 16 tons (35 274 lb). Ten soldiers were making the crane to working position by about one hour. About 100 such cranes were produced by the end of the war.

The diorama shows the scene of mounting the turret on the tank chassis. The mechanics are trying to keep the turret in the right position, while the hull is being placed under the turret. The tank commander is watching the operation.

For the construction of the diorama were used plastic models of Tygrys I tanks from the Dragon set, a resin crane model from the Des Kit and other model kits.

There is a model of the portable overhead crane towed by a Henschel 33 D1 truck in the Gallery, as well.

Sources:

• https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strabokran

1 Jul 2019

Modeller: Artur Stańczyk

Photographer: Ender

These photos are available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license. This means that you can use them for free for any purpose, even for commercial purposes, as long as you indicate the author of the photos and the link to the source, i.e. the website address from which they were taken. You must also provide the license name and a link to its terms and conditions.