The Wargaming Table (2): Wire

In this second entry of the Wargaming Table I explain how to build barbed wire sections for First World War games. As in the previous entry I was looking for a simple, efective and cheap solution and here I show the results

• The bases are made of thick cardboard, cut in 10 x 5 cm rectangles .
• The "wooden" posts are actually pieces from plastic 1/35 models sprues, around 2 cm high and  glued to the bases.
• The bases are covered with plaster and  paintedt like my bocage bases  (base colour is terracotta, then dry-brushed with ochre and finally washed with dark brown). The wooden posts were painted dark brown and hilighted with a dry brush of sand colour.

The next step was the wire itself. I bought some wire in a DIY shop for a couple of euros (almost enough to recreate the  whole Hindenburgh Line on a 1:1 scale...).

The first thing I made was to ring-fence each base with two strings of wire running around the five wooden posts (one lower close to the base, the other above the first).  After that I cut strings of wire, rolled them around a thick pen marker and glued them into the base 

(Oberve the photogrpah above where you should see the ring fences, wire strings  running around the wooden posts, and the round wire pieces)

• I painted the wire in a red-brown colour to simulate the rusty and deteriorated condition of the barbed wire lines in the field. I also washed the bases with the red brown colour, splashed in an irregular fashion.
• Final step was spraying the whole wire sections with a matt varnish.

Before concluding this entry, two final comments.

• When I finished my first batch of wire sections, I discovered that wire "barbed " was sold in hobby shops. I got mine from the very niche chaps of the The Wargaming Command Post  I made a whole second batch of wire sections with it. It really improves the look of the wire sections and you can get 25 meters (!) for just 5 sterling pounds.

• Why 10 cm sections? It's a matter of taste but also of convenience for my games. It is modular (you can put as many secions in ranks and/or  columns as your game or your visual taste may demand) but also you can remove whole sections of destroyed wire, either because of artillery fire or tanks crossing, leaving the gaps for your Sturmtruppers or gallant British moppers to assault the trenches.

I hope you have found this entry useful. Please share your comments!