Most of my 15mm wargaming terrain building I do is generic enough to be used throughout Western Europe during World War II. Even with a large collection of buildings at my disposal, there are a few iconic WWII landmarks that have long stood out in my imagination as projects I should tackle at some point. One of those is Pegasus Bridge at Bénouville, France.

The bridge was made famous by a brief but important battle in the early morning hours of D-Day on June 6, 1944. Glider units from the British 6th Airborne Division landed near two bridges just past midnight and quickly secured the Caen Canal crossings with minimal casualties. The quick nighttime action ensured movement and counterattack by German forces would be significantly limited in the coming days and weeks after the Allied landings in Normandy.

Building Pegasus Bridge would turn out to be a number of firsts for me. The model I picked up from Najewitz Modellbau in Germany is laser-cut, a model material I had not worked with before. The nature of the model and its situation crossing the Caen Canal would also necessitate I create surrounding terrain. In all, the project allowed me to try out a bunch of new things on a signature set piece which wound up being much more of a project than I originally envisioned.

Building the Bridge

The Pegasus Bridge model shipped in plastic bag folded into a flat, short cardboard box which had definitely shown some wear and tear during its journey from Germany to Brooklyn. Some pieces of the model had come loose from the MDF sheets during transit, but everything was there and unbroken. The rest of the model was easily punched or carefully cut out using a fresh blade in a hobby knife. With all the parts cut out, I sorted them on a tray to get a handle on the task of things before me. The model does not ship with assembly instructions, but they are available for download once registered to the Najewitz Modellbau website. The instructions are pretty spare, relying on simple wordless graphics and some imagination to put all the pieces together. I found referring to historic and contemporary images of the bridge online was just as helpful as the actual manufacturer instructions. Since there were no images online of the bridge being constructed, I decided to offer up a visual step-by-step for others looking to add this model to their terrain collection.

I started by laying out the parts into subsections, including the little control house which sits adjacent to the bridge and the two large sections which are found at the top of the bridge. I dry fit all the pieces to test them at first and then used carpenters wood glue to put the pieces together. Getting the stairs to the control house together was a little finicky. The curved roof on the small structure at the top of the bridge was achieved by scoring the flat roof and carefully bending it to the shape of the arched roof line.

Next, I tackled all the trusses and supporting elements of the main bridge structure. This is where the fine lasercut detail really started to pop as I glued pieces together to resemble the plates and seams of the metal work on the bridge. After each section dried, I glued them to the main deck. The fine railings which run all around the bridge again were a challenge to figure out which went where, but some careful test fitting before gluing everything in the correct place.

To finish the bridge, I glued the small gatehouse to an extra piece of square basing, attached it to the main bridge and cut some of the railings to fit around the building. The separate piece of the road approach on the other end was glued to the main bridge using a thin piece of cardboard glued to the underside to create a flexible hinge-like connection. The model doesn’t come with crossing guards, so I used extra pieces of the kit’s wood to cut some simple shapes. The cross guards were simply painted white with red stripes. The entire structure got a grey sprayed base coat and was then dry brushed in an off white paint to produce a worn look to the entire bridge.

Building the Terrain

As I was constructing the bridge I quickly realized it was going to need to be elevated off the table to accommodate the graded approach and a span over the canal. I went to the trusty standby of foam sheets in order to create sections of terrain on either side of the canal to create roads to the bridge and banks of the canal.

Using a ruler and marker, I outlined the areas to be cut away and sculpted. After making the rough cuts, I smoothed the edges out using wood filler and then sanding everything to a relative smooth shape. The foundation under each side of the bridge would also feature stone sections which I gently carved by using a pencil to create rows of masonry. Everything got an undercoat of brown spray paint followed by a coat of watered-down white glue and mixed flocking. The stone foundations received several coats of gray and off white dry brushed paint to create a realistic. The roads were likewise dry brushed in various shades of browns. Small chunks of foliage were glued here and there around the stone sections to add a little detail.

Pegasus Bridge

With all the painting and construction done, everything got a dull coat spray to seal the model and terrain. I decided to keep the bridge and two terrain section separate and unglued from each other to ease transport and storage. Laid out on the table, the bridge spans the canal with approaches on either side. The only thing left to do is get the model on the table, and the heroic early morning raid on Pegasus Bridge will be ready to be replayed on the tabletop soon.