1:35 Ostnatý drát moderní typ I

A blocked road at a checkpoint

A crossing guarded by a barrier, concrete obstacles in a checkerboard and barbed wire strung between them — that is the scene this accessory founds. The perimeter of a present-day base is a rewarding subject precisely because heavy equipment meets quite ordinary things in it: a post driven in askew, an end of wire tied on temporarily and a sign nobody reads.

Modern barbed wire differs from the wartime kind in the spacing of the barbs and in the way it is strung. It tends to be tensioned straighter, often in three to five rows one above the other and angled outwards in the upper part. On a model, even tension is therefore decisive — as soon as one row sags and another does not, the eye catches it at once.

A method that works: first the posts are fitted and left to dry, and only then is the wire strung. The ends are wound around the post with tweezers and secured with a drop of cyanoacrylate glue applied with a pin. Before the wire is glued, it pays to leave it a day flattened under a book, so that it loses the memory from storage.

Painting: the wire is sprayed with a dark base coat and the rust is built up with pigments only once it is strung. Dealing with the corrosion beforehand means wiping it off while handling it. The posts take more pronounced shades than the wire itself, because both wood and concrete fade in the sun faster than steel.

Fencing tends to be the most fragile part of a whole scene on a diorama, and that is why it pays to lay the route out on paper first. It works best when the wire does not follow the edge of the base but enters the scene diagonally and is broken somewhere. A snapped row with a bent post says more about what went on in the place than perfectly straight fencing around the whole perimeter.