SCRATCH BUILD: Ouistreham Fire Control Post

Several features are evocative of Sword beach area in 1944, some of which are still standing such as the ‘Twin Villas’ of strong point Cod and the Fire Control Tower at Riva Bella.

Regular visitors will know that my goal is to build a Normandy table for Sword 80 that will be recognisable as Sword beach to anyone with even a passing interest in the topic or familiar with The Longest Day.

Adding to my previous work on the Twin Villas as seen here, and the Casino bunker as posted here, I’ve now built a miniature version of the imposing FCP (Fire Control Point).

A BRIEF HISTORY

Essentially the tower was built as a fire control point for German artillery to shell the beach and approaches in the event of an Allied landing operation.

On D-Day itself the tower was largely bypassed by British forces, only being captured several days later. There are plenty of books and websites which run through the story so I won’t repeat it again here!

I’d recommend checking out the excellent Atlantikwall site. I’ve been referring to it for several years and there is a good overview of the FCP here.

In my opinion no trip to Normandy and the British beaches is complete without visiting the FCP, now a museum called Le Grand Bunker. It’s well worth a visit, and you can’t really miss it given the height of the building.

THE BUILD

Having made a start on a first attempt using foam board, I wasn’t really happy with the result and the model was far too big. I’d scaled down from the real thing into 1/76 and while accurate in terms of dimensions, it had too much of a footprint for the boards and wouldn’t really work.

So back to the drawing board, and I rebuilt a version using mdf pre cut sheets. Once the main structure was built I then covered it in Vallejo Textures Concrete, added some details from old sprues, door made from styrene, and mounted it on an mdf board. This second version is only around 1/3 the size of my ‘FCP, Mk I’ but is still going to be the tallest building on the table.

The Tobruk covering the entrance and emplacement set into the roof are both from the Defence in Depth range available from Andy at Grubby Tanks.

Once the Vallejo textures had dried I added a variety of light washes and drybrushing to the concrete, painted the base, and flocked. Zvezda 2cm Flak added to the roof.

There we have it, the FCP at Riva Bella ready for action. It might not win any prizes, and might not be 100% accurate, but I think it’s recognisable for what it’s meant to be. Onto the next WIP!