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Bailey's Bridge 1/87


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Hi,

 

some pics of Artitec's new 1/87 Bailey's Bridge. Bundeswehr used to have it in their arsenal, don't know if it saw action in the early 80's, so it is fiction ;)

 

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happy modelling

 

Macki

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Nice! You get a new appreciation for the Bailey bridge design when you see an armoured vehicle in the middle of a long span.

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Nice.

 

Love the eye level photography too. Can’t but help think of Thunderbirds (which would, of course, involve it being blown up)!

 

Graham

 

 

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Great diorama! Still used and it’s offspring. It’s amazing how many places around the world they crop up in.  Around the corner from me here in Oz are 2 footbridges made from panels, a car park fenced off with half buried panels and there is an arched bridge made from Bailey panels on the training area which is an interesting bit of engineering.

 

Linky

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On 10/02/2018 at 4:50 PM, tophat57 said:

Not sure about the German army, but the British army had these too. There's still one in place and in rgular use on the Stanford Battle Area in Norfolk here in the UK. Bloody things last forever!

There's one still in use near where I live in Dorset....Yip they last forever.....that glourious precision made British built bridge that is the envy of the civilised world  ! !

 

MM

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Thanks for your kind comments!

 

On 4.2.2018 at 16:42, Derek A said:

Wow, how much real-estate does that take up?  It looks great!

 

Size is 30 x 70 cm (apprx. 12'' by 28''), scale 1/87

 

Cheers

 

Macki

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On 19/02/2018 at 11:47 AM, Macki said:

Size is 30 x 70 cm (apprx. 12'' by 28''), scale 1/87

That's very interesting, I honestly thought it was much bigger, the detail at that scale is really fantastic!

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  • 9 months later...

Hi Folks,

 

here it is:

 

http://modellboard.net/index.php/topic,61658.0.html

 

I have been lucky enough to receive some review-samples from Artitec and featured it in our German forum "Modellboard". The Artitec kit allows you to build a I/1 or "S-S" - bridge (as there were numerous different names for it) straight out of the box. I/1 will mean a single panel, single storey bridge of appr. 18m length. In 1/87 this is appr. 20cm. The extension set allows you to build a II/1 or D-S-bridge with extended bridge classification. Please have a look at the pictures in my feature.

 

Unfortunately there is only a few and by far no compilation and real historical work on this bridge building equipment which - according to Gem Dwight Eiisenhower and other important allied leaders was one of th three tools the Allied had to win the war. You can find the US TM 5-277 in different prints and a lot of pictures but no real compilation about history, development and building of these bridges.  


 

In US-Army terms there were three "different" bridges with different widths, the first one being the "Standard Bailey Bridge" or Portable Panel Bridge type M1 (US), the second one the wider M2 according to US-terminology and the third one the "M3" with same width as the M2 but wider space between the panels again to widen the track there. The Standard Bailey-Bridge and the M3 were British constructions, the M2 was constructed in the US. The difference was - a little simplyfied - only the width (M1-M2) and the shape (M2 and M3) of the transoms and the positioning of the panels at the transoms, and the thus resulting new planking. I do not want to go too much into details here with smaller parts like spacings etc.

The British Army simply referred to this type as the "Bailey-Bridge", Standard Widened Bailey-Bridge (SWBB or M" in US-terminology) and Extra Widenend Bailey Bridge (EWBB) whichg is the US-type M3

 

During war-time mainly the "Standard Bailey Bridge" was used by the Allied Forces. The parts were manufactured in the UK for British Bailey-systems and in the US for the bridges used by the US-Army and/or US-army Corps of Engineers. Although the same built the two makes were not to be mixed and it soon became clear that many of the original "standard" US-bridges did not fit due to false gauges the had.

Bailey-Bridges and later modified constructions like the Acrow 300 are still in use and after the war private companies were permitted to build them, e.g. Acrow-Wolfe. Still there are bridges available on the market which have their origins in the Bailey-system.

 

Artistec´s bridge is an excellent and on the spot HO-sclae replica of a M2-bridge. This type was mainly used by the US-forces and as far as I understand they had this equipment here in Germany as well. Apart from this there was the M3-bridge which mainly was used by the BAOR here in Germany.

The Federal German Highway Office still keeps material for appr. 800 metres in store. Thsi material however is of the smaller standard system built in the 60ies and 70ies and I assume that there are only a few "original" panles left. Today it is only used for emergency bridges built after disasters and only will be built to connect less important roads. For motorways and other fast and important roads the so called "D-Brückengerät" is stored.

 

The Bundeswehr - as far as I know - never had this material in their inventory but was trained on the system according to the Germany equivalent of the US TM 5-277. The THW, the Federal Germany dister relief organization within the German Federal Emergency Protection system is trained and equipped for building these bridges.

 

You can build any stationary Bailey-Bridge out of these kits if you don´t mind the slight differnece between the space between the panels which is appr. 5-6mm. If you wish to build one "under construction" there is plenty of ways building  and modelling the parts and equipment needed scratch. I am trying to do the drawings dor some of the most important parts, e.g. the rollers etc.

 

The question for me is: how were they originally painted? The standard Bailey-Material coming from GB should have been painted SCC 2 as it was built during the time 1942/1944 - bute the later ones? The US-material I assume would have been painted in "olive drab" and variations of this colour until the disposal.

 

The material we still have here mainly is painted in a very rich and dark green which reminds me of the British AFV-colours of the late 40ies/early 50ies. This material definitely is of British origin and can easily be recognized by the prints on panels, transoms etc.. Some parts have been repainted in aluminium colours, however again the British made steel parts.

 

Best regards

 

Michael

 

 

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17 minutes ago, Toryu said:

Hallo Macki,

was hast Du als Gras verwendet? Das drittletzte Bild ist von der Realität nicht mehr zu übertreffen!

Gruß, Michael

Sorry - asking where Macki got the grass. It looks so realistic.

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I would change the topic into "Bailey-Bridge".  This is not a bridge made of "Bailey´s" although the latter might be more interesting in this season. The official name in the UK was and is "Bailey-Bridge" and in US-terminology "Portable Panel Bridge". Thus the parts have the abbreviation BB xxx or PPB xxx depending on the origin.

 

I also assume that Macki´s pictures were taken at the 2018 Nuremberg Toy Fair and as far as I know the diorama/Tabletop was built by Artitec. Artitec does in my view the best dioramas/tabletops in HO-scale. There are some showinfg models and figures in snowy surrounding and these certainly cannot be topped. 

 

Cheers

 

Michael

Edited by michael_hase
wrong name
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Fabulous modelling in particular the staging of the whole thing.  If I may tell a story, in the late 1970's I was on exchange with the British Army commanding a CVR(T) Scorpion.  On a major exercise I was withdrawing from an OP line heading back for resupply and had to cross a river on the modern version of Bailey bridge put in by British engineers.  Just as we were crossing the bridge a pair CH-53 circled and landed a couple hundred metres away in an adjacent open farm field.  Troops flooded out of the back as rushed towards the bridge.  'Hey aren't CH53 enemy' I asked my gunner.  'Yeah' he replied so as soon as we were off the bridge I ordered 'Driver halt' and shouted a fire control order to the gunner.  He traversed onto the two helos and troops and began yelling 'bullets, bullets' as I reported 'Loaded' each time I notionally loaded the 76mm gun.  You need to understand the Brits would not trust an exchange Kiwi with any blank rounds.

 

At the same time a Land Rover with an umpires white cross pulled up and the umpire approached me and said something like 'Are you engaging the assaulting force'.  'Yes with 76 HE and coax' I replied.  He spoke into his radio and the assault was stopped by other umpires who had arrived in the helos.  'You can report you have wiped out the two helos and all assault forces' he told me.  After sending in the appropriate contact report, we carried on.  A few days later when I saw the Squadron Commander he asked how I came to be at the bridge crossing at just the right time.  I explained pure fluke of timing.  He laughed and said the exercise enemy were very unhappy as I had destroyed their coup de main which was a key part of their plan. They were also claiming the umpires has spilled the beans on their plan hence a Recon troop was placed on the bridge.  No just one Scorpion on a Bailey like bridge! 

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Hi all,

 

thanks for your kind comments and likes, sorry about my mistake english.  The short grass is from Noch, the other i can't remember which brand. Herbert from Artitec asked me to build a diorama for the Nuernberg Toy Fair and that's what i did 😉 The Bundeswehr had Bailey Bridge in the very beginning and afterwards in stock on corps level. The Diorama is fictional, i don't think they used the Bailey equipment in the 70ies anymore.

 

The pictures where taken by me  before the diorama went to the Toy Fair.

 

Cheers

 

Ralf

 

 

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The diorama/toporama is excellent - no doubt as the others which have been exhibited by Artitec at Nuremberg Toy Fair over the last years.

The Bundeswehr never, not even in the beginning, had this equipment. it always was "Brückengerät fremder Heere" which means bridge-building equipment of foreign territorial armies. However they were trained on this and the equipment came from the US-Army.

In the 70ies they only used the M2-mobile floating bridges, no Bailey-equipment.

Nevertheless the diorama is very good.

 

M.

 

 

Edited by michael_hase
correcting wrong words
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