DENVER — A storage shed in Lakewood is not the ideal spot to keep pieces of history.
“No, we can’t very well use it locked up like this," said Paul Howald, unlocking the shed.
Piece by piece, he hauled out miniature homes, their architecture inspired by that of Normandy, France, that would stand alongside a battlefield replica — if they had a home outside the locked storage shed.
“Well, there’s probably 15 years of construction time, 45 buildings in here, a few over there,” he said, gesturing to the filled sheds across the warehouse lot.
The stored pieces are part of Howald’s nonprofit, the Front Range Armored Group, which was established in the Denver metro area in 1999.
The longtime nonprofit — made up of veterans, model tank enthusiasts and more— puts on "battle days" around once a month.
"We wanted to have outdoor battles that could replicate miniature World War II battles," Howald said.
An entire battlefield is set up at 1/16th scale, and people from across Colorado — and from out of state, at times — show up with their assembled remote control tanks to battle.
However, a permanent battlefield is something the nonprofit has lacked for the past several years, and Howald worries for the future of the organization without one.
Not just a hobby
Tucked away in a workshop, Howald and Pryor sit under a light assembling a model tank just a few days before a battle while surrounded by their collection of history.
The shelves around the table are filled with years’ worth of model tanks and planes hanging from the ceiling.
For Pryor, the joy of assembling these tanks is therapeutic.
“It’s almost like meditating in a sense," Pryor said. "It’s quiet: you got a game or something on in the background, and you can kind of just disappear and focus on what you’re doing and in the end, the results — it’s gratifying! It really is.”
Pryor said that the pastime has also helped his son, who is a police officer. Putting the tanks together has acted as an escape from the high-stress job.
“Everybody loves to create something, and this is very fulfilling,” Pryor said.
“I enjoy creating stuff — I love researching World War II and then creating a masterpiece as close to looking like the original," Howald said. “The beauty of it is we can get the public to have hands-on experience with us."
The search for a new home
Originally, the group leased out a parcel of land from Littleton Public Schools’ bus depot where they put together a full-scale, outdoor battlefield set. It had trees, roads, villages, farms, tunnels and an abandoned airfield with planes, trains and RC tanks — complete with realistic gunfire sound effects — to incorporate into battle.
“It really made what we did fun,” said D’Wayne Pryor, another member of the group.
Boy Scout troops, church groups and more have come out in the past to watch the battles. The group has participated in Veterans Day gatherings at elementary schools for the past seven years, where children can see the models close up and in action.
They encourage students to ask questions about WWII history, and the gatherings provide opportunities for parents and grandparents, many of whom are veterans, to share the experience with their kids.
On average, Pryor estimates around a third of the organization's members are veterans.
“All of them have an appreciation for the miniature version of what they might have known when they served,” Howald said. “It’s very important to us that veterans are recognized and given the respect that they deserve."
Howald and Pryor aren’t veterans themselves, but they have family members who served in the military. There’s an emphasis, on preserving the history of what’s known as “the greatest generation” through this pastime, they say.
“I think teaching the history — the interpretive history of World War II — is most important to me," Howald said.
The nonprofit gained notoriety in recent years, and membership has been consistent, Howald said.
But Littleton Public Schools informed the group in 2019 that the district needed the space once again to accommodate their growing transportation needs. Now, the group doesn't have a permanent home.
“We believed early on that in order to hold membership, you had to have a place to run things … a battlefield, essentially," Howald said.
Working without a permanent home has impacted the number of events the nonprofit can participate in because they have to keep their props and materials in storage.
They hope to find a large, indoor space where they can not only permanently display the tanks but also include a museum for more than 800 volumes of research materials on tank assembly and World War II.
"So we can exhibit the old, the medium, the new," Howald said. “What we are looking for now is an indoor facility that is large enough to have one or two battlefields."
The hope is for an all-in-one spot for history buffs, students, veterans and those that enjoy the battle days.
Luckily, a church in Aurora has been allowing the group to use an event space for the battle days.
While the group is thankful for the opportunity, Howald said that the loss of a permanent home has impacted both membership and the scope of their events.
“The setup is very minimal, so it has impacted the enthusiasm or the willingness to come and spend the time … it’s not very realistic," Howald said. “We need the bigger setup to put up the original battlefield that we have, which is extensive, so that there is more realism for both the public and for the members to participate."
Right now, the battlefield setup consists of essentially whatever Howald can fit in his van and bring to the church.
"It’s still fun, but it definitely has impacted membership and participation," Pryor said. “It just doesn’t have the draw as showing up in this immense landscape that we had before."
“We need that permanent home to have something to show the public," he said. “It’s not the same playing on a flat carpet as it is playing on a field that’s dirt and with a 6-feet drop from [one] end to the other."
If you know of a space where the Front Range Armored Group could make their dream a reality, you can contact the group here.
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