Arcane 15mm Jungle 'Hut'

With progress being made on the tank models for my planned Pacific Island scenario for my 15mm TANKS! game, it's time to start putting together some of the terrain. (I'm working on some sketches of what the 3" x 3" game mat will look like, with the Japanese defending.)

I am thinking along the lines of including three jungle huts and two Japanese anti-tank bunkers and a collection of scatter foliage to break up the line of sight. I didn't know where to start with the island dwellings, so I relented and spent some money on a pre-build which I intend to use as a template for a couple of scratch built houses/huts.

The pre-built model I bought is an Arcane Scenery and Models laser cut MDF Far East or Jungle Small House (£7.50)...

The model comes on two A4 sized 2mm MDF sheets and is quite easy to
knockout.

Once you knockout all the parts you end up with a big MDF jigsaw puzzle! But the instructions are good and it's pretty obvious where everything goes...

And you quickly pop the model together. The fit and design is very good and PVA glue is only really needed for the external framework (but you can glue the whole thing together if you prefer).

Lasercut MDF models have a tendency to be a little blocky, but this one isn't too bad (the roof is perhaps my only niggle) and - in this case - the bare MDF colour looks exactly right. You could get away without painting this jungle house.

It will be interesting to see if I can replicate this design. 

Japanese Bunkers
Galeforce 9 games have some stats for the use of bunkers in one of their Normandy operation expansions (which are a free download from their website), but these stats are for a concrete bunker armed with the formidable German 75mm Pak40. The stats would have to be tweaked for a Japanese earth and log bunker and I will have to figure out what gun would likely be emplaced in them (perhaps the excellent Type 1 47 mm Anti-Tank Gun).

As to the design of the bunkers, I've been looking around for a design I can replicate and fount this one...

This is the Masterpiece 1/35 model, but it will make a good template for a
scratch built 1/100 version.

Way Down Deep in the Middle of the Jungle...

Finally, there is the jungle foliage itself and luckily The TerrainTutor has some excellent 28mm ideas for making wargame jungle 'scatter' that I should be able to scale down for 15mm...

Phew! A lot of work, but let's crack on...

Next: Scratch built Island Dwellings.