A Small Fortification

For an upcoming Egyptian campaign game I need a redoubt. 

 

The model needs to hold one battalion of three stands and a gun stand so I have defined the interior space as 150mm x 150mm with a 30mm deep embankment. I assume that that this would simply have been a mound of sand, but how did they stop the sand from collapsing back into the centre of the redoubt. Normally there would be a buttress of gabions, but I had none to spare and no time to order any so I chose to make the wall from wood – although where they would have managed to get wood from is a good question since transport was limited and wood would have been limited to palm trees, some crates and barrels and maybe some dunnage from the ships, all hauled to the front lines by hand. The advantage of making using the wooden internal walls, of course, is that the redoubt can then be used for other periods.

 

Nonetheless I made the wooden parapet wall from my old standard – match sticks – glued together in various configurations. I made three sides with solid walls 150mm long and on the fourth side I left a 50mm gap. They were painted a weathered timber colour.

I then fixed some polystyrene to the front edge on each of the walls then the combined parts were glued to a foam core base, applying a ground cover to the interior before I added the fourth side.

 

Once the glue was well and truly dry I trimmed the face of the redoubt to a roughly 45° angle and filled the gaps with a poly filler. At the rear of the redoubt, at the entrance, I added a few barrels from the Renedra range – since they were to be half buried in sand I was able to use half barrels.

I then coated the whole of the exterior with my usual basing material, an artist’s modelling compound into which I added some fine sand. I pressed a few stones and some broken match sticks into the surface to create a bit of additional texture, then left the whole model in the sun for an hour to dry.

 

Next I painted the barrels in wood tones then the whole exterior and internal base area a sand colour that I washed with a thinned down coat of GW Seraphim Sepia. Finally I gave the sand areas a very light dry brushing with GW Stallarn Sand lightened with a bit of white.

 

And that was it.

 One redoubt with the 28th Foot and a gun in position ready for battle on 10 March.