Defences can take many forms, from a simple wall to a rampart topped by a palisade or even a stone curtain wall for a medieval castle. Unfortunately, in a book of this size it’s not possible to include everything, so this chapter will just demonstrate how to construct some simple defences of the type that an army could carry with it, or easily build when needed.
PROJECT 19: Chevaux-de-frise
‘Chevaux-de-frise’ is the plural of cheval-de-frise, which derives from the French for ‘horse of the Friesians’. Apparently the Friesians didn’t have any cavalry so they invented a defence against them; they obviously worked because they’ve been used for hundreds of years, from medieval times, the American Civil War to the Second World War (Figure 231). Sometimes they were used en masse to form a defensive line, other times to act as a simple movable barricade on a road.
Figure 231: Chevaux-de-frise in the American Civil War.
• Square section balsa
• Cocktail sticks, toothpicks or wire
CONSTRUCTION
Construction of the chevaux-de-frise is very simple: a square or round section beam is pierced by stakes of wood or metal, each one at 90° to the adjacent one (Figure 232).
Figure 232: Schematic crosssection of the main beam.
Take a length of square section balsa and cut it to the appropriate length. The size of the balsa beam will depend on the scale of your chevaux-de-frise. Remember that you will need to drill holes through the main beam for the spikes, so you might find that the best approach is to determine the thickness of the spikes first, and then choose a beam with a large enough cross-section to allow you to drill through it, leaving sufficient space around the holes so that you don’t risk splitting the beam when you push them through.
To decide on the length for your spikes you need to bear in mind that the beam needs to sit halfway up the spike, and in most cases needs to be somewhere between the waist and shoulder height of your figures.
Figure 233: Painted chevaux-de-frise.
The material for the spikes depends on the scale of your chevaux-de-frise. Cocktail sticks or toothpicks work well for most scales, but if you are intending to make very small scale examples you’re likely to have to use wire instead. I suggest piano wire because it doesn’t bend.
Cut your spikes to length and push them through the drilled holes. Chevaux-de-frise could be all wood, all metal or a mixture of both with a wooden beam and metal spikes, so how you paint yours is up to you. I’d standardise on a black undercoat, and then drybrush with grey for wood, gunmetal for metal (Figure 233), and I doubt very much that any rivet counter will point out that ‘in such-and-such a year they would have been made in whatever.’ If they do … politely direct them towards the door.
PROJECT 20: An Artillery Defensive Position
Stronger defensive works for longer sieges were created from earth mounds that might be topped with gabions, fascines or sandbags. Inside this defensive area, wooden planks were laid to provide a floor on which cannon and artillerymen could stand (Figure 234).
MATERIALS
• High density foam
• Balsa, thick card
Figure 234: A pair of artillery positions.
Figure 235: It helps to set out your cannons and crew before deciding on the size of your earthworks.
Figure 236: A plan of a suggested artillery position.
Determining the size of your earthwork really depends on the size and number of cannons you intend to place within it, as well as the number of crew. I find it’s visually helpful to set these elements out onto a piece of card (Figure 235).
My plan suggests a possible layout for a defensive position, but you can adjust the shape, size and proportions to accommodate the number of cannons and crew (Figure 236). Once you have determined the overall dimensions for your defensive position, cut out the shape from high density foam and mark out the top of the earthworks to provide a guide to cutting the angled front and sides (Figure 237).
Carefully cut the angled front and sides as well as the aperture for the cannon (Figure 238). A hot wire cutter makes this process easier and less messy, but take care to use it in a well-ventilated area.
The card on which you planned the interior of your earthworks comes in useful now and becomes the floor onto which you can add the planking made from balsa strips (Figure 239). Glue the floor in place and cut planks from balsa to line the inner walls and the aperture for the cannon barrel (Figure 240). Cut some thin strips of balsa for the uprights that help to hold the horizontal planks in position, and glue them in place (Figure 241).
Figure 237: The rough cut artillery earthworks.
Figure 239: The inner planked area.
Figure 241: The vertical supporting pieces in place.
At this point, you might feel the need to run a light coat of filler over the outer slopes of the earthwork. The best way to obtain a smooth finish is to lightly wet a coffee stirrer or a lolly stick and use it to smooth the filler, but these types of defences were often not built to particularly high standards, so you can leave the surface irregular if you prefer. Once the filler has completely dried, the next stage is texturing the earthworks by applying PVA glue to the earth areas and sprinkling on fine sand. It can enhance the overall effect if you glue some small pieces of gravel or pebbles around the base of the earthwork too.
The earthworks would have been constructed from material found nearby, so your model should be painted to match your terrain. My suggestion is to paint the earthworks a dark brown with a drybrush of lighter brown. There would have probably been some grass in amongst the material used, so I applied small patches of static grass randomly on the earth, but this should be done sparingly unless the defensive position has been in place for long enough for larger areas of grass to have become established.
As for the wood, you’ve got several choices. It can be weathered and aged timber, or freshly cut. If the former I apply a black undercoat followed by a grey drybrush (Figure 242); if the latter, I generally paint the wood with a very thinned light cream: I use Dulux Golden Umber 3. You could also use wood stain or varnish, but be warned that wood stain is transparent so any marks on the balsa will show through the stain.
Figure 242: The painted earthworks.
PROJECT 21: A Late Antiquity Hill Fort
Whilst browsing through two of my Osprey Fortress books (Roman Legionary Fortresses 27BC–AD378 and British Forts in the Age of Arthur), I realised that with a little artistic licence it would be possible to create the gatehouse, rampart and palisade of a fort that could be used across a period of more than five hundred years, because generally the design of the fortifications themselves didn’t alter very much. It was the buildings inside that placed the fort historically, whilst the materials used in the fort’s construction positioned it geographically.
When the Roman army was on campaign, their forts tended to be temporary structures, but once it became an army of occupation they became more permanent. Roman forts were usually built on flat or prepared areas of ground, and were generally rectangular or square in shape, because if there were any obstructions in the way the Romans flattened them.
By contrast, many British defences were hill forts, the outer walls of which followed the shape of the hilltop. From a modelmaking viewpoint, and at the risk of stating the obvious, the only difference between a fort and a hill fort is that the latter was, well … on a hill. My reason for sharing this piece of mind-shattering information is that if you decide to build your fort separate from terrain, you will have the option of using it both as a hill fort and as a fort positioned on the flat (Figure 243). As you will probably already have worked out, I always try to get value for money from anything I build, so the wider the period over which I can reasonably use a model, the more I like it.
Figure 243: Waiting for the enemy to appear at the hill fort.
I have loosely based this model around the reconstructions of South Cadbury in Somerset, but with a certain amount of artistic license where this made the design and construction easier. South Cadbury was a hill fort, so the ramparts conformed to the shape of the hill and I have built my ramparts to follow a similarly varied shape. If you want to build a Roman fort, just make straight ramparts with right angled corners.
I didn’t want to construct the entire fort because it would have occupied too much space on my wargame table, so instead I built a section of rampart with a gatehouse to run across one end; by following the same techniques, you could make the fort as large as you wished. To further enhance this particular model you can find how to make a Saxon Great Hall and some generic village buildings in Chapter Eighteen.
MATERIALS
• Balsa
• High density foam
• Cocktail sticks
• Stone effect textured wallpaper
It is clear from my reference sources that the stone facing of the ramparts was created using dressed stone, which was relatively regular in shape. You can create this effect by etching the pattern into the high density foam or by coating the ramparts with DAS Pronto air-drying, but as I wasn’t attempting to construct a precise replica of South Cadbury as envisaged by archaeologists, I took the easy option and used some textured wallpaper.
CONSTRUCTION
The first step is to determine the size of the ramparts and gatehouse. I find that the best method is to relate its dimensions to the size of a figure; for example, the ramparts need to be high enough to force infantry to use ladders to climb over, and the palisade along the top needs to be high enough to provide shelter for defenders (albeit with strategically placed gaps through which they can fling spears or shoot arrows). As for the gatehouse it must be at least as high as the top of the palisade. The floors must be far enough apart so that a based figure can stand inside without banging their head, and the gateway needs to be high enough and wide enough for a small wagon to pass through (Figure 244).
Since the construction of this model is relatively complicated, I have separated it into two distinct areas:
• The ramparts topped with palisade
• The gatehouse
Ramparts and Palisade
I decided that my fort would have the general look of a hill fort with ramparts that were angled to each other as if following the line of a hilltop.
The first step was to create my rampart sections. The best method is to build them in blocks without worrying about the rear slope, so that you can concentrate on the angles at which they meet each other. When you’re planning these sections, give some thought to where you intend to store the fort when not in use. I’d even go so far to suggest that you buy your storage boxes first and then cut the rampart sections so that they will fit the box! Once you’re happy with the ramparts in their basic form, make a template so that the ends of each section will match up (Figure 245).
Use your template to mark out the profile on the end faces of each section, and then cut the angled rear slope of each section using either a saw or a hot wire cutter. The latter makes less mess, but can use up batteries very quickly, so if you have a lot of cutting and shaping to do make sure you have some spare batteries.
If you decide to fix several of your wall sections together, my method is to spread No More Nails or similar instant grab adhesive onto both ends of adjacent wall sections, and then slide them together whilst they are resting on a flat surface. It helps to hold the sections together if you push cocktail sticks through adjacent sections (Figure 246). Once the glued sections have dried thoroughly, trim off any exposed stick ends, making sure that there is nothing protruding above the surface level.
The ramparts were made from a mix of local stone and earth with the front faced with larger stones, and this is the effect that I wanted to create with my model. It is possible to etch the stonework into the front surface of the high density foam or you can coat the front surface of the ramparts with air-drying clay or Milliput, and engrave the pattern of the stonework into the surface before it dries, but I decided to take the easy option and used textured wallpaper instead (Figure 247).
In the real world, the ramparts were constructed by first building a wooden framework that was then filled with stones and compacted earth. The front uprights were notched to take the horizontal beams, and also extended upwards to support the horizontal planks that protected the troops defending the battlements. The schematic (Figure 248) shows how the horizontal beams notch into the front uprights.
You’re going to need quite a few of these uprights. Exactly how many will depend on the configuration of the crenellations along the upper edge of the battlements. As a guide, I used the height of a based foot figure as the approximate distance between the crenellations.
Figure 247: Textured wallpaper glued into position.
Cut out your uprights (Figure 249); based upon my experiences, make more than you need because it’s quite easy to break them. Carefully mark out the locations for these notched uprights and glue them into position, until you have completed the section (Figure 250).
Figure 249: The notched rampart uprights.
Figure 251: The front of wall with horizontal beam ends.
The framework that formed the basis of the rampart featured horizontal beams (Figure 251). To suggest these, cut short lengths of square section balsa and glue them into the notches on the uprights. With the uprights glued in position, the next step is to add the wooden walkway using strips of thin balsa sheet (Figure 252).
The uprights need to be thickened up; cut lengths of square section balsa matching the width of the uprights and glue them behind the uprights and to the walkway (Figure 253). To complete the impression of the wooden underframe, make a series of holes in the upper surface of the rampart in line with the uprights and glue short lengths of balsa into them (Figure 254).
Next you need to create the crenellations from lengths of balsa, glued to the uprights with the joins between each section staggered with the one above (Figure 255). Start with the lowest row resting on the beam ends that extend at right angles from the front wall, adding additional rows until you have completed the battlements. For added strength I inserted short lengths of square section balsa between the uprights on the inside of the battlements (Figure 256). With all the main woodwork completed, the next stage is to simulate the earth of the rampart; this is done by painting the rampart with PVA glue and then sprinkling on fine sand (Figure 257).
Figure 252: The walkway.
Figure 254: The walkway rear supports.
Figure 256: Inner battlement strengtheners.
Gatehouse
The gatehouse consists of four uprights joined together by horizontal beams. I set the top surface of the lower horizontal beams to match the top of my ramparts, so that the planked inner floor of the gatehouse would align with the top of the rampart without the need to construct steps (Figure 258).
Figure 258: The floor levels relative to ramparts.
Cut out the four uprights. Start by working with one side of vertical beams. To make a strong joint, I use a halving joint (Figure 259). Carefully mark out the uprights and horizontals and cut the halving joint. The halving joint secures the front horizontal beams, but the gatehouse has a pair of assemblies that need to be joined. To add and strengthen the positioning of the short side horizontals I insert a pin through the uprights. Using a pin drill, drill a small hole through the back of the halving joint (Figure 260). Repeat this process on the other joints.
Glue the first short horizontal beam in place, and carefully push a pin through the drilled hole in the back of the joint to hold it in place and strengthen the joint (Figures 261–262). I use Lego bricks to ensure an accurate right angled joint. Make sure that the pin is pushed fully into the joint so that the head is below the surface of the balsa, otherwise the front horizontal beams won’t seat properly into the halving joint (Figure 263). Repeat the procedure with the next horizontal. Pin and glue the other upright in place to complete the first assembly. Set this assembly aside to dry and repeat the process to make the other assembly (Figure 264).
Figure 259: The halving joints.
Figure 261: Pinning and gluing the first horizontal beam.
Figure 263: The completed first assembly.
The next stage is to fix the two side assemblies together by gluing the long horizontals in position (Figure 265). Glue the second long horizontal beam in place (Figure 266), and then glue the remaining horizontal beams in place and stand the assembly up using a frame made from Lego to ensure a good right angle (Figure 267).
It’s important that the tower framework sits squarely, so I weighted the assembly down to prevent it twisting while the glue dried overnight (Figure 268). I used a telephoto camera lens to provide the weight and a CD case to spread it evenly. Apologies to anyone not a fan of country music; feel free to substitute a music CD of your choice!
The gatehouse is clad with balsa planks (Figure 269). Start by cladding the sides first. Cut square section lengths of balsa for the door uprights and glue them in position (Figure 270). Next cut the verticals to form the sides of the windows on the front face of the gatehouse and glue them in place (Figure 271). Continue cladding the gatehouse (Figure 272). It’s much easier to clad up to the approximate location of the window aperture rather than fixing the window horizontal beams in place and then having to precisely cut strips of balsa cladding to fit.
Figure 266: Gluing the second long horizontal beam into place.
Figure 268: Weighting down the tower.
Figure 270: Adding the door uprights.
Figure 272: Adding further cladding.
Clad around the window apertures (Figure 273), and continue cladding the sides of the gatehouse, and add the horizontal beams above and below both window apertures, and above the door openings. Clad the outside of the building – but not the back – and then cut strips of balsa to make the lower floor and glue them into place (Figures 274–275).
I haven’t clad the rear face of the gatehouse because I wanted access to the inside of the tower in order to place figures inside. I made the rear panel removable, by making a rectangular frame that would fit inside the space created by the lower floor, the uprights and the upper horizontal beam (Figure 276). Add the horizontal cladding making sure that it overlaps the edges of the frame to help hold it in position (Figure 277).
The gatehouse has two floors. The lower floor provides access between the rampart sections. The upper floor has a hatch in it through which a ladder allows access between the lower and upper floors (Figure 278).
Create a hatch aperture and floor support and glue it in position. Add the upper floor using balsa planks working around the hatch opening (Figure 279).
You could carry on cladding the gatehouse with horizontal cladding, but as already mentioned, I decided to go for a more interesting option of wattle panels. First I created a series of frames to fit between the uprights (Figures 280–281). The next stage was to drill holes through the horizontal beams to create the framing for the wattle panels. I used jewellery makers’ brass head pins because they are fairly rigid but also easy to cut with clippers. The pins are narrower than cocktail sticks, which meant that I could get more of them into the frame to make a more intricate panel.
Figure 273: The cladding around the windows.
Figure 274: View showing the rear of the front panel.
Figure 275: The floor added.
Figure 276: The frame for the rear wall.
Figure 277: The rear wall with cladding added.
Figure 278: The upper hatch and floor supports.
Figure 279: The upper floor added.
Figure 280: Frames for the wattle panels.
Figure 281: The vertical beams added.
Thin strips of card are threaded between the wire uprights to simulate the wattle effect (Figure 282); this technique is covered in Chapter Eleven. It can strengthen the wattle if you lightly brush PVA glue over it before you trim off any excess wattle. Each wattle panel was then glued into position and an additional strip of balsa was glued on the upper horizontal surfaces to hide the pin holes (Figure 283).
I decided to integrate a stone floor into the base of the gatehouse to prevent the volume of traffic passing through the gateway from churning up the ground. Cut a piece of balsa sheet that matches the footprint of the four gatehouse uprights, and then glue four edging pieces sized so that the gatehouse uprights will fit around them. Next cut and glue a piece of textured wallpaper to fit inside (Figure 284). The gatehouse uprights are then glued into the spaces in the corners (Figure 285).
The gatehouse needs two pairs of double doors for the outer and inner gatehouse access, and also two side doors to provide access to the ramparts from the gatehouse. I have two methods of making doors: I either cut a piece of balsa sheet to the size of the aperture and score lines on it using an old ballpoint pen to simulate the planks, or glue individual planks to a piece of balsa sheet (Figure 286). Bracing pieces were then glued to the rear of edge door (Figure 287).
Figure 282: The woven panels waiting to be trimmed.
Figure 284: The gateway floor.
Figure 286: The door components.
Figure 288: The ladders.
The model needs several ladders: one in the gatehouse for access from the lower floor to the upper floor, and others to enable the defenders to get up onto the ramparts if they are not close to the gatehouse. Construction of the ladders is simply a case of cutting the ladder sides and then gluing the rungs in place (Figure 288).
PAINTING
I wanted the timber of my hill fort to look weathered so I painted it black, drybrushed it with a mid grey and finished off with a very light drybrush of pale grey. You need to be gentle with your drybrushing because balsa wood is relatively fragile.
The exposed earth that makes up the sloping rear of the bank should match the general look of your terrain, which in my case means that I painted PVA glue over the surface and then sprinkled on patches of fine sand (Figure 289). Once dry, I drybrushed the earth with dark brown followed by a pale cream. Finally I applied patches of static grass. Just how much you add, depends on the intended age of the hill fort; a newly created fort would have had scattered areas of grass that were turned over during the construction, but the older the fort, the more grass there would be, particularly on the flat upper surfaces.
Figure 289: A rear view of the fortifications showing the timber and earth rampart.
Figure 291: Age of Arthur terrain. (Crawley Wargames Club)
Ideally the stonework would be locally sourced. After all, if you’ve decided to build a fort on top of a hill you don’t especially want to be dragging stone from tens of miles away unless it’s unavoidable. My technique is to undercoat my stonework with black, highlight it with grey but then mix in a little of the local terrain colour and pick out a few random stones (Figure 290).
The techniques and materials demonstrated in the construction of this model are just one way of creating a generic Romano-British fort. Several years ago I was commissioned by Crawley Wargames Club to build a similar fort for their Age of Arthur demonstration game (Figure 291). While following a similar overall design, this model made extensive use of barbeque skewers to clad the tower and to create the palisade instead of balsa planking to create a totally different appearance.
REFERENCES
The period during which, and after, the last Roman forces left Britain is no longer considered to be as ‘dark’ as it was once thought, and there is an increasing amount of information available on which to base your modelmaking. I found the following publications particularly useful.
Alcock, L., By South Cadbury, is that Camelot… (Thames & Hudson, 1972)
Konstam, A., British Forts in the Age of Arthur (Osprey, 2008)