WW2 D-Day Reenactment at Conneaut Ohio!

The largest  D-Day (1944) living history reenactment in the country takes place in Conneaut Ohio. Featuring over 1,500 reenactors from across the US and Canada perform a living tribute to the veterans of WWII through dress, mock battles, and living history displays. We had the opportunity to be there this year!

There were many demonstrations over the weekend and the mock battles were superb, especially the beach landing!

Encampments for Allied and Axis forces were filled with relics the reenactors brought to display.

And loved showing how these weapons were used in the day.

You could meet the real men and women that lived through those times too. Last year the Conneaut D-Day hosted over 150 WWII veterans.

Reenacting the capture of the bridge at La Fiére, the Americans gained control of the key crossing of the Merderet River.

Here German light armor advances on the bridge.

And is incapacitated as it nears.

After the battle, a column of German soldiers head back to camp.

There were several "Big Guns" including the feared German 88

and several armored vehicles including a Panzer III, Stug (seen here), M4 and an M4A1.

Also three variants of the M5 Stuart.

Georgie's Gal, a B-25 Mitchell, twin-engined medium bomber manufactured by North American Aviation took part this year. It made several passes over the beach on bombing runs. 

The B-25 was used by many Allied air forces, in every theater of World War II, although the majority of B-25s in American service were used in the Pacific. The B-25 was named in honor of General Billy Mitchell, a pioneer of U.S. military aviation.

The Polish contingent brought an artillery piece..

jeep to deploy it...

and a nice sampling of arms.

The US camp held many jeeps, trucks, motorcycles and this M3 Half-track.

There were a couple more participating in the actual landing. One hauling a howitzer.

The German encampment contained its share of armored cars,

transport vehicles of every size...

and many motocycles.

Watch the D-Day Cooneaut site for next years event!!

You can see additional images from this year on Cleveland.com 

Have A Great Battle!!

The Old Crow

How To Build Tents for a Historical or Warhammer Siege Encampment

Today we'll show you How to build tents for your besiegers encampment. You can't have soldiers and supplies standing about in the rain, so lets make them somewhere to stow their gear and have a respite.

To start you'll need a base, we used some 12 inch foam to carve our hill. You'll also need a piece of fabric, something natural looking, three round toothpicks and a stick you can cut down. We cut a 3" and two 1.25" segments.

Next we carved the hill into a rough shape that would hold a tent 3 inches long.

We then notched a point at the ends of our short sticks for the uprights.

After sanding the roughness off the hill, we measured the length of our support and placed the uprights into the foam. Once positioned we removed them, filled the hole with some glue and stuck them back in. Before it dried we glued the crossbar in place and pressed it together.

We added some areas of glue and attached small rocks and a mix of sand and medium ballast.

After it was set we painted the entire surface dark brown with sand in the paint for extra texture.

When it dries, you can dry-brush on some layers of lighter browns and greens if you want a grassy knoll.

Next make sure your material is the same length as your support, ours is 3", and trim the cloth to roughly a square. Fold it in half and crease it if you can. This will lie across the support.

Take your round toothpicks and insert them into one of the sides at the corners and then the center.

Clip off the extra length, leaving tent pegs behind.

Using the pieces clipped off, repeat these steps on the other side. Be sure to keep the material tight.

We added a few tufts of static grass for texture. and filled the supply tent with crates, barrels and sacks.

And that's how to build tents for your besiegers.

This one wound up being a siege supply tent.

Add more tents to a larger base for making bigger terrain pieces with additional scenery bits like trees and shrubs. We even have stumps from felled trees in this piece plus a campfire. The trebuchet is set up beside the camp for easier access to fire.

We'll leave you with a few additional photos and wish you a great battle!
The Old Crow