Reenactment paintball trench

[Carteremmm]

I dug this trench a couple years back but I just started to add walls and sandbags to mak it look realistic. I took inspiration from the movie ”1917” and various war photographs from WW1 to Vietnam. Just thought it would be cool to show you guys and if you had any suggestions I’d be very grateful to hear them!

[HARRY THE MOLE]

Not bad... but if it is supposed to be representative of a WW1 trench it needs to be much deeper, this is more in keeping with a communication - or support trench. A front line trench would be so deep that you would not be able to see over the top without standing on the fire step. Hessian sandbags would be more in keeping too. But very nice all the same.

Cheers,
Steve

[Carteremmm]

Believe me I would of dug it deeper if I could, I did it all with a shovel by myself, I’m planning on making it a bit bigger. Beige sandbags would of looked more accurate to the First World War but I just decided to buy green. It’s kind of just a generalized trench line.

[MAP]

Wood pallets for the floor and A LOT more mud

Maybe a little bunker?

Looks great BTW

[Martin C]

Looks like it would make for a challenging game of paintball. Good job!

[Carteremmm]

Thank you guys and I’m going to add another bunker or two down the trench, I just need to get some more sand bags but when I’ve made more progress I’ll post pics! I’ve tried a pallet floor before and they’re very weak wood but I might make duckboards somehow.

[earlymb]

You can also make the side boards from cut branches or weave from willow branches, and keep the sandbags for the upper half:

[toot]

it would look a lot better if you could use real hemp/ gunny sack sand bags instead of the plastic fiberglass ones that are there.jmho.

[Carteremmm]

Theres mainly birch trees where I live so doing the weave thing might be difficult, I want to try it though thanks for the suggestion! But yeah I agree, those were just the cheapest ones I could find and the paint washes off from them cloth would get dyed a little.

[LoyalHistorian]

Very cool! I always wanted to dig a faux trench, too. I used to beg my parents when I was a kid...never got them to agree. Wouldn't work well in my area though anyway...we're pretty much at sea level and our water table is too high. You go down even a foot or two and it's already leaking water.

I agree with a lot of the other responses. Deeper if you can get it there eventually, then add a fire-step. Duckboards for the bottom. A little dug-out or bunker would be awesome. Doug-outs don't have to be elaborate...a lot of enlisted guys would just make little holes/slits into the side of a trench for extra cover. Some would get in trouble for doing this because it could jeopardize the integrity of the structure. You could also make a fake box periscope...they were made out of thin birch, if I remember right. Then, for little details, I always found the stories of rat killing parties interesting. Hang a line of fake rats by their tails on a line. Did you know a single rat could produce over 800 offspring in a year?! It was a huge problem.








Either way it's really neat! And I admit that I'm a little envious, haha!