"Death of a Tiger" diorama Part 2, Siege of Budapest 1944

This is Part 2 of my build diorama, this is the 'story' episode.
“Death of a Tiger” storyline
My diorama is set right at the start of the Budapest offensive which began in the Autumn of 1944 and ended on the 13th February 1945, when the Nazi occupation force was finally defeated.
In my purely fictional scene, four SS troopers have looted several buildings, jumped into their Horch 4x4 vehicle, and headed to the River Danube to make their escape with priceless paintings, gold and other valuables.
Ambushed and shot up by a group of Red Army scouts, their wounded driver crashed the vehicle into a fountain. Three of them lay dead or dying having tried to shoot it out with the Soviets.
One of the four escaped and made it down to a row boat and began to load it with all the stolen loot he could carry. He didn’t hear a Soviet tank crewman sneak up behind him, seeking revenge for the loss of his crew and his T34 tank. The tanker dispatches him with his knife, and is now relieving him of his MP40 machine gun.
Meanwhile, a German Tiger tank, along with a squad of Wehrmacht soldiers approaches, and the tank commander urges half of them forward to investigate the scene, while he halts the 60 ton beast.
The other half of the squad are about to enter the offices of the German headquarters in Budapest in a search for survivors, but more importantly, to try to retrieve important Nazi documents.
Unknown to them, the building is now fully occupied by Soviet troops, who are looking for any documents that they can find. They are currently questioning one frightened officer, while on another floor, his less cooperative colleague is being restrained.
Even now, some of the Red Army assault troops, armed with machine guns, are lying in wait in the entrance to the building.
The besieging Soviet forces are part of Marshall Rodion Malinovsky's 2nd Ukrainian Front. They are out for blood…1 in 8 Ukrainians died during the war, totaling 5 million, with another 10 million displaced. They have no intention of taking prisoners.
On the 3rd floor, one of them is about to fire a captured German panzerfaust anti tank weapon, intending to deliver a fatal blow to the Tiger tank below him, by targeting its relatively thin upper armor.
Another soldier is about to throw a grenade out of a second floor window towards the unsuspecting Germans below.
Hiding around the corner of the building are a group of heavily armed Soviet scouts about to give the Panzer Grenadiers of the German 8th Army, a nasty surprise.
Having waded along the shallow bank of the river, a mixed squad of Red Army scouts and regular soldiers, one armed with a flame thrower, are about to attack from the opposite side of the road.
The perfect ambush is about to be sprung, and the axis troops don’t stand a chance.
Vehicle kits from Tamiya, figures from Masterbox, Stalingrad, Zvezda, Alpine Minatures, Rado Minatures, and a few others.
Music:
- Intro by Black
- Resident Evil Afterlife (soundtrack)