Nothing says 20th century warfare like miles of barbed wire and signs ominously warning “Achtung minen!”:

A roadblock made from Czech hedghogs
Minefield markers
German infantry dug in behind the wire
That’s German for “Oi! Mines!”

All this stuff is 28mm scale, and goes nicely with my dug in troops. I’ve got some emplacements for heavy weapons, and I want to do some log bunkers for MGs as well. I’m not looking to put mega concrete bunkers and lines of WW1-style trenches on the table, it’s all about the kind of hasty defences that the infantry throw up themselves whenever they stop advancing.

Wire

I’ve built 4 feet of triple concertina wire in 6″ sections. I put some of this stuff up when I was in uniform, and if the air force can put this up then anyone can.  It’s  also a lot quicker and easier to model than some of the more complicated obstacles. Four feet of it should be enough, it would span a 6×4′ table which should make an attacking force stop for a brew.

 

A better lit shot of the wire sections
I’ve made 4 feet of wire and enough markers for two minefields

The bases are cardboard and gritty sharp sand, with some of the stones picked out in grey. The posts are matchsticks. The wire is galvanised but I dumped all the coils of wire in distilled vinegar overnight and it ate the zinc off them enough for them to rust up nicely. I just glued them onto the bases and gave them a very light highlight in silver. Easy peasy.

If I’m feeling keen I might go back and make some more bits like a knife rest or a section that’s been crushed and/or blown, but this ought to do for now.

Mines

piano minefield
I reckon the easiest way to represent minefields is to just make the signposts (after all, the mines themselves are invisible…). This means you can make the minefield any size you like, and it works on any terrain so you can mine roads, forests, etc.

The signs are just cardboard on a matchstick. I downloaded a sign from the internet, printed it out and stuck it on, then painted the rest of it to match the colour.

Roadblock

Czech hedgehogs, gotta love ’em. I built these guys out of plasticard and some plastic angle. I made all three in under an hour.

Cut three lengths of angle and two squares of plasticard per hedgehog. Cut the squares into octagons with a corner missing.
Nip a little notch into the ends of the angle pieces.
Glue the flat bits onto the angles
The glue another angle onto it, slightly off-centre.
Add the third angle strip and you’re done. Adding triangles of flat plasticard to the ends of the angle strips is optional, it’s quite fiddly.

I just undercoated them, painted them with Vallejo Dark Rust and highlighted them a bit. To be honest a couple of them are a bit wonky, but they look ok and can be used as either scatter terrain or a functional roadblock in CoC.