¹⁄35

Modest Sabotage

Introduction

The stories of the French Resistance during WWII are well documented. Thousands of local citizens actually took to arms against the Germans during the occupation, and even more contributed to frustrating the Germans shortly after the D-Day Invasion. Often minor, but “innocent” acts were staged to cause problems with German shipping, railway transport, or in this case, timely movement of troops to the battlefront.

Here we see the driver and delivery man from a local coal company apparently stalled on a narrow roadway, blocking the movement of an unseen troop of Germans. While they appear to be trying to fix their broken down delivery truck, two high ranking German officers observe the scene, one shouting violently as the two hapless shade-tree mechanics monkey around underneath the hood of the truck.

As there are few (any?) civilian transport or cars available in 1:35 scale, I have chosen to alter the basic appearance of a Russian Zis-5 Troop Transport truck. This Italeri kit was a pleasure to build, and serves the purpose well. I purchased two of these units during a recent blowout sale by Modelexpo-Online.com, and the $5 price was quite a bargain. Detail is good, including a nice engine, and the engraved wood grain is top notch.