A stunning, thought-provoking diorama of a period when the Germans were pushing forward by modeler Oleg Nikitin. During the Battle for Kursk, the use of dogs as bombs by the Russians often went wrong.
Wasn’t the directive to switch from Dunkelgrau to Dunkelgelb given in February 1943?
Yes it was. Although there are plenty of photos showing bands or patches of Dunkelgelb over Dunkelgrau on older build vehicles during summer of ‘43 on the Eastern Front, I don’t think that it would be too likely to see an overall Dunkelgrau Panzer by that time at that place.
Other than that aspect, I do like the work. Just wish that the photos had better lighting.
Incredible work. First diorama depicting a Red Army anti-tank dog I’ve seen. Masterful groundwork and scenery. Not a perfect piece but I love it.
Funny, I remember reading that the mine dogs used by the Soviets turned out to be a complete failure, since dogs were scared by war noises, and usually attacked Soviet tanks instead of German ones. The program began in 1942 and died out by the end of the year,
It does seem an odd lapse of research by a model-maker from (presumably) Russia to entitle the diorama Kursk, when the vast majority (if not all) German tanks had been repainted by July 1943 in dunkelgelb. There doesn’t appear to be any Division identifier on the tank either.
The story of Red Army bomb-dogs is a sorry tale, probably killing more Russian handlers & bystanders than German tanks. One theory has it that because the pooches were trained with Russian diesel-engined tanks, they often ran back under them (using their sense of smell) rather than the German petrol-engined tanks.
I wonder about that tale regarding how often those dogs would be employed when Russian tanks were around.
Ive seen one of those dogs back in 1977 when I was stationed in West Berlin. Part of your orientation was a trip over into East Berlin. The Russians have a museum for the Soviet Heros of Berlin. Inside it they have one of those dogs stuffed, inside a glass display case. It had on a leather football helmet and a anti tank mine strapped to its back. It looked really Freaky. We were told the program was successful, but terminated shortly thereafter. Due to the fact the dogs could not be trained to recognize enemy armor from friendly.
I could have sworn I saw a diorama in AFV Modeler - or some other modeling magazine- depicting something similar with a German halftrack and some Russian wood buildings in it.
This gives a seemingly fair assessment of “kamikaze dogs” in WW2:
I assume the fact attack-pooches haven’t figured in more recent conflicts says it all.