I was just wondering what would be the easyist way to make an army surplus lot. If you read my other fourums this is a stupid thing to do. But I have a lot of WWII to modern era U.S.A army supplies.(Jeeps, personell carriers, I had a douglas cargo plane, tanks, and flat cars for transport). I thought of using a siding that goes into a lot with a hut to hold the smaller items and a warehouse to store the tents. I know to make it convicing that I need alot more stuff. I just don’t know were to start. thanks
I think your idea is a very good one. Just one thing. Remember that most, not all, but most of the Surplus stores are run and operated by former military personnel. Everything has it’s place and is typically in very neat order. No junk scattered here and there. A nice line of old jeeps and 1-1/2 ton trucks, maybe even a tent or two set up. Best of luck and I’d like to see pictures when you are done.
I can’t say for sure that it would have a prototype in real life, but I think a quonset hut would set the scene well for the office/warehouse building. And I would certainly expect to see an American flag on a pole in the yard. I’d imagine that a chain-link fence would be appropriate, too.
Actually i think there is a proto type
DCSC
Or Defense Construction Supply Company in Columbus Ohio
Now known as DSCC
Also see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_Supply_Center,_Columbus
would come close
You got me wondering what a Civilian army surplus outlet (as oppose to the Defence Supply Center mentioned above) - and googling brought up this:
Memphis Eqiupment which has some photos - mostly of military trucks, but you can kind of piece together what the lot looks like from the background of the images.
A lot of vehicles also seem to go through the regular used truck lots.
I believe DSC is more of a manufacturing plant.(rockets, missiles, guidance systems.)
There’s a military surplus/salvage yard in Memphis that is probably more like what you would want to model. Lots of trucks, tanks, jeeps and misc. It’s just a bunch of blue generic warehouse buildings like Rix sells.
http://www.memphisequipment.com/
Chutton01-Doh! You beat me to it!
Faller makes a lot of military-type buildings and what not, such as this:
http://www.dallasmodelworks.com/products/product_detail_accessories.asp?ItemNumber=FA-272-144025
Sounds to me like a multi-era civilian surplus lot is something you could pretty much improvise.
Also check out Tank Overhaul on Discovery(?) channel. It’s about guys who restore real armoured vehicles. Might give you some ideas.
Some Old Active duty Bases/Post now belong to National Guard and First responders (FEMA) so you have mix of new and old equipment. So you could have Barracks…gated areas… Civilian Contractor buildings and (Bone yards), Alot of old Post have the railheads next to empty gravel lots and old WWII Warehouses , These Old buildings are always painted white …
when is that show on the discovery channel?
Yay! I win! [:D]
Anyway, I’m wondering what period the OP is modeling - are there really a lot of tracked vehicles being surplused nowadays by the military? And what is being surplused, is it really worn out (I saw a History channel show on rebuilding Tanks, stripped the tank down to the hull, and reconditioned/replaced all the parts as needed). Anyway we’re (the US) is not building much tracked vehicles anymore (like new tanks or mobile artillary like Paladins - we are upgrading and restoring like crazy, though), and the ones we have are needed in the Mid-East, so those might not be showing up much on the lots nowadays - googling seems to show mostly Trucks and Humvees are being surpllused (which they are still building sizable amounts of, so I guess those predominate).
From military books and websites, seems there have been several big drawn downs/sell off since WWII, where all sorts of (slightly outdated) material was retired:
Post WWII (much of the WWII stuff that was in good condition, relatively unused, but was becoming superceded by new designs - think Shermans versus the M26 Pershing tanks)
Post Korean (lots of remaining WWII stuff, somewhat worn this time)
1970s - post Vietnam (1950s stuff)
1990s - post Cold War/Gulf War (the remaining vietnam stuff like the M60s, and some 1970s designs also)
This is an overbroad picture of course, but that’s what the websites are claiming and they do seem backed up by history.
it is steam-desiel transition era. thanks to my own stupidity
It’s The Militray Channel (owned by Discovery). Google “Tank Overhaul.”
Off on a “slight” tangent, but when I was a wee lad (in this case, 1958 or so); I saw on television the commercial demolition of a building with a surplus Sherman tank. I’ve got to think the owner of the company was inside and having a pretty good time.
Ed
Well, not sure if you mean the era is due to your ‘stupidity’, but nonetheless, get a lot of weathered/worn WWII stuff, and maybe Korean War stuff (lots of which was left-over but unused WWII stock, at least during the start). Maybe you could model an Army Surplus store along the lines of (the comic author) Patrick McManus’s ‘Henry P. Grogan’, which apparently was a cluttered emporium jammed with a lot of worn out junk that only young Patrick could love.
I also have a couple of hummers with rocket lauchers and what I ment by “my stupidity” was failure to metion it in the begining
Well, then ditch the hummers (or make a separate diorama), and stick w/ the WWII/Korean stuff. One last question - is the planned area semi-rural or at least not super-built up, where the store could logically have a big enough yard to store a good number of military vehicles, or is it dense storefronts where a Army surplus store would be unlikely to have room for a ‘use truck’ lot - one or two jeeps in a back alley would look a bit silly. I’m thinking of the current army-navy stores we have today on Long Island (I can think of 3 like this) - 1 storefront wide, on one side racks of camo outdoor clothing (jackets, parka, pants, hunting stuff), racks of camo hats, and backpacks/bags etc., and shelves of military-like boots, on the other side some army/marines posters & decorations, and a big glass case/counter containing mostly knives of all sorts from pocket to bayonets - the whole thing more of an outdoor/survivalist store done in camo and khaki rather than a true army surplus outlet…
I plan on having it on the outskirts of a town
The Department of Defense still auctions its unwanted locomotives,perhaps your surplus dealer would have one on his lot. Joe
what sort of locomotives? and what about railway guns?
The US Army had mostly switchers for base usage, so Alco S-1s & GE 44 tonners would be common enough in the 1950s surplus. Edit - the army had some road locomotives (heck, they had several rail transportion corps then - but for 1950s surplus it’d be older switchers more likely - here’s some images to start with Some US Army Locomotives
Looking it up, the US also had some railroad guns in WWII (wiki here, but for coastal defence only. I can’t see these in a surplus dealer, probably scraped on site.