So full disclosure the u boat is from Bronco and I have had very poor personal experiences with Bronco kits in the past. I don’t have very high hopes for this one ether do to it’s price tag of 88 bucks on eBay. I ordered it a few weeks ago out of China and where I live that normally 3 months (so Lame) to receive it. So I figured I would built it and see if it goes with the rest of the diorama or might just end up in the drawer in the closet with the other Bronco kits I have built. As far as the Leopold gun goes my main plan was the dock with a few rail cars serving the boats so if it doesn’t work I can easily move it to its own diorama. More than likely I might try to build them into 3ft sections and make them where each boat and gun could be displayed on it’s own or link together for a larger diorama. I just hate to see large section seems in dioramas so it maybe the hardest part of the build would be hiding the seems. I do appreciate you guys input on stuff that goes together and things that don’t. I am very lost in the historical department all I can go by is if the box says ww2 german on it I figure there could be a possibility it would have been together haha
FWIW. I’ve been a long time model railroader. Since the 1950’s. 
Modeled in a few scales. In recent years I’ve been modelling 1/48 scale. (On30). I have a layout that’s 2’ x 22’. Not large but not small either. Suffering burnout and a few other excuses, 12 months ago I dipped my toes into 1/35 scale. So? So now the grand plan is to demolish the 1/48 scale layout and replace it with a 1/35 scale layout. Or is it a large diorama.
My point is that while it may seem a huge project model railroaders have had long term projects that last for years and years. So there’s no reason to think the same can’t be applied to 1/35 scale. Realism? Well maybe yes maybe no. But selective compression and some modeling license can work magic.
I’ll be watching this thread very closely.
bruce
Thanks. I have primarily always worked on the 1/35 scale amor side of things and was very disappointed to find out there is not a very good cross over from working model trains to 1/35th scale armor. I wished I could have built working train set in 1/35 scale. I really was hoping to buy hobby train tracks mostly because I there’s very little track options in 1/35 scale tracks and there fairly pricey. The tracks that come with the kits are workable if you cut the horrible bases off them and make your own so we will see how that works out at the end.
I have bought a few of the mini art rr accessories and I am looking forward to putting them to good use. I have used alot of those kits in the passed and love the way you can add normal day to day items that you normally don’t see in dioramas with there kits.
If you want a working railroad in 1/35 scale there is an option that doesn’t need metal rails and wheels and all the wiring. Google ‘model railroad dead rail’. That will give you lots of information. In a nutshell ‘dead rail’ is a means by which all the control and power is in the loco and run by battery. You can use a smart phone to run the trains on plastic tracks and use the plastic wheels.
bruce
Started up today and got these 4 sprayed with some mig surface primer. They all came out good but I can still see a glue seem on the tanker car that I will have to do some more work on. So I will put these aside and find something to keep working on.
Big time Coors country up here too. My kin used to fish around in the bed of his dually when the cooler was empty for what he called a ‘real cowboy beer’. He’d find a Coors light that had been rolling around for months, sun faded can, warm as Vegas asphalt in August, crack it open and down it in one pull. No thx, I’ll stick w my Miller High life!
Started working on a electric pump motor for my fuel storage scratch build. I think is ok. It will work in the background anyways. The pump will be harder to build but I am going to have to go dig in my spare junk boxes to see what I got. I found some good photo etch parts to class up the motor just not sure if I got any pumps. Haha
Capt, super nice idea. A very ambitious project for sure. A great start!
Looking forward to see more 
Some pics of my horizontal pump. I still got alot of details to put on it and work on the valves but it’s a start.
Here’s one with the base completed
I built that kit. Nothing wrong with it except that I think it is over-priced compared to other similarly priced kits. You can buy a well-detailed armor model with 2 - 3 times the parts count. I (maybe ill-advisedly) waterlined it, scrapping 2/3 - 3/4 of the model. A better display for it would have been full-hull mounted on a dock-side trestle (if they were ever mounted like that) for maintenance, etc. As a matter of fact, I believe they could be rail-transported - so there’s another idea!
A successful diorama doesn’t have to depend on how much you squeeze into it, or how big you can make it. Everything in it should have a common purpose, or idea. It’s good to have lots of detail, but make it relevant to the theme. ie; put one major model as a focal point, and everything else supports that focus.
You realize that if build this as one big diorama it will be huge, as in taking up an entire room!
And that is in 1/48 scale. yours will be bigger. I would do it in modular sections that can be assembled and dissassembled.
Ken
Oh yeah I have a unfinished basement that I am sure it will sit down there and continue to collect dust at the same rate I will ha. I guess I will leave it up to the people that end up getting my house after I die to figure outbwhat to do with it.
I didn’t know that Coors Light was even combustible …
Live and learn I suppose 
It is a top secret fuel additive the Germans used, its in all the top secret files found at Nuremberg after the war.
I wish I could find the picture of the old ww2 tank that inspired this monstrosity. It was the same shape as the beer can is why I decided to build it… I saw it like a month ago and can’t find it anywhere on the web now. I normally screen shots things like that but I guess I lost it.
Primed and finish the pump skid. I added a filter pot and all the valve handles. I also added a roof vent and a Handel on the man cover on the roof. I had alot of CA glue stains on the can lid and where the supports attached at the sides of the aluminum beer can. I they are hard to clean off so I think they will have to turn in to rust stains once it’s painted. I am pretty new to scratch building and not sure my creation meets the Era correctly so I am going to put this up the way it sits and move forward with the project. I feel like I went down a rabbit hole for a few days on this one. Haha
Here’s my biggest problem with my thoughts after my build. Why would the storage tank be smaller than the rail car tank! Huge fail in my site engineering planing haha ! Maybe had I thought more about it before I drink the beer I would have figured that out
Some rail cars have partitions. So they may carry 2 different loads. 
I think you are over thinking it. I think!
bruce
Haha thinks for the words of inspiration. Maybe it’s a gasoline tank and the railcar is diesel