WN20 Strongpoint ‘Cod’: The Twin Villas

Sergeant James Mapham of the 5th Army Photographic Unit took many photos before, during and after the Normandy landings. Several of these serve as inspiration for various elements of my large planned Sword beach game – including this iconic view.

As quoted from the Imperial War Museum (IWM) website’s object description for image B 5111, the photograph is taken from

LCT 610 carrying Sherman tanks of 13th/18th Royal Hussars during the initial assault on Queen Red beach, Sword area, in front of strongpoint ‘Cod’, circa 0800 hrs, 6 June 1944. A flail tank of ‘A’ Squadron, 22nd Dragoons burns after being hit, and other tanks and infantry can be seen making for the beach.

I’d originally considered scratch building the ‘Twin Villas’ which you can see in the above zoomed-in photo, but found a 3D print of each. Here’s a summary of how I’ve brought them alive, I hope to have done the buildings justice!

Here in the first photo we have the prints as they arrived in black and placed together. A clean up with sharp blade and an undercoat with the trusty Halfords grey rattle can primer, and stage one is done.

Stage two, I applied PVA to the rendered wall sections and sprinkled fine sand onto it. For the first floor render on the taller villa, I used Vallejo Pumice to give a different finish.

Stage three, I block painted all the render with a cheap artists acrylic sand. Windows and doors painted Vallejo White, and the timber painted Red-Brown.

Here we have it! Drybrushing done on each area with the appropriate colour. Roof areas have been base painted Red-Brown, washed with Agrax Earthshade and then drybrushed with Dark Sand. Guttering and drainpipes have been painted AK Splittermuster Green, toned with Nuln Oil and highlighted with a Splittermuster Green/Dark Sand mix. At this point I’ve superglued the buildings together, but leaving the roof sections as removable.

Twin Villas ready for action, now they just need the Cod strongpoint completing to hold up the anticipated British landing.