Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Looking really good mate.

The markings all look incredible, you're just freehanding them all, yeah? Any tips on how you do them so well?

I am looking at building up some WW2 squadrons for playing Sturmovik Commander (WW2 port of Aeronautica Imperialis). Tossing up between 1/200 and 1/300 (9mm or 6mm) scale. If you were starting from scratch again which do you think you'd go with? Seems like there's a bigger range for lower price in 6mm, though these guys do quite a large range of 9mm aircraft, I don't know what their shipping prices and reliability are like....

http://www.angelfire.com/nj4/armamentsinminiature/aircraftinminiature/9mm/resin09mm.htm

Thanks for the comments folks, it keeps me motivated to do more. I'm pretty proud of those last few too.

AllSeeingSkink, I've spoilered my wall of text response below...

Thanks for the detailed explanation!

Unfortunately I'm in Australia so both 1/200 and 1/300 is going to be shipped overseas

Wow! I hadn't seen Scotia Grendel's 1/300 range until now, somehow managed to miss it (probably because they call it "collectair" rather than listing it as "1/300"). It's both really cheap and a huge range. I might buy a few groups from them just to see how I like it and if I decide it's too small just swap over to 1/200.

Plus they have a Hawker Tempest V in 1/300 which is one of my favourite planes that's lacking from the 1/200 ranges

The beautiful, fast and deadly North American Aviation P-51 Mustang.

Often considered the finest piston driven single engine fighter ever produced. After an engine swap and the addition of greater fuel capacity the P-51 fulfilled a vital role as a long range, high altitude bomber escort.


I had to paint at least one of my P-51s as one of the Red Tails of the 332nd fighter group. I remember watching the old Tuskegee Airmen movie (the one with Laurence Fishburne) as a kid and finding it a really compelling story. Still haven't seen the new one (though I've read mixed reviews).

Benjamin O. Davis Jr. Led the 99th Pursuit squadron of the "Red Tails" flying sixty missions in P-39, Curtiss P-40, P-47 Thunderbolts and P-51 Mustang fighters. His life and career has been celebrated with countless public recognitions of his achievements in overcoming adversity and signalling an ongoing change for racial equality. He died a Four Star General in 2002.
Clarence E "Bud" Anderson -"Old Crow" - a triple ace promoted to Major by age 22. Often considered one of the finest pilots in the force he went on be a test pilot for the airforce. At the grand old age of 95 he still retains his pilots license and gives lectures on experience.


These are the aircraft of Ray S Wetmore - "Daddy's girl" (green nose) And John C Meyer- "Petie 2nd" (blue nose)
Both men were high scoring P-51 aces in WW2 who went on to fly the F-86 Sabre jet fighter after the war.
Major Wetmore was a quadruple ace during WW2 and the youngest Major at 21 on VE Day. Major Wetmore was killed in a freak accident when his F-86 crashed in Feb 1951.
Meyer went on to become a jet ace in the Korean war. He retired in 1974, as commander-in-chief of the Strategic Air Command.


Another plane often hailed as one of the best fighter aircraft of the USAAF is the Vought F-4U Corsair. Seen here in tricolour night camouflage with a radar dome mounted on the starboard wing.


The US Navy had mixed success with the F4U which had difficulty with carrier landings. Following the introduction of the Grumman Hellcat the Navy used some of its Corsairs as radar equipped night fighters.


And lastly for now it's probably the most significant and controversial aircraft of the entire war. The Boeing B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay. Which of course dropped the first atomic bomb, "Little Boy" targeted on Hiroshima.


The Boeing B-29 Superfortress was the product of one of the biggest, most expensive, most state of the art research and development projects of the USAAF at the time. Introduced in May 1944 it was a high altitude strategic bomber capable of flight at altitudes up to 31,850 feet (9,710 m) at speeds of up to 350 mph. Higher and faster than most Japanese fighters were capable of.


In the 1980's debate persisted about the correct historical context for the display Enola Gay, and a 50th anniversary exhibit in 1995 sparked controversy. It has now been fully restored and on display since 2003.


Size-wise its the largest aircraft in my collection so far. This is a comparison against my three other allied four-engine heavy bombers and the largest German bomber in my collection the He111. Looking at these bombers in comparison you can see about a decade worth of development in bomber design and modernisation unfolding.

Very cool. You inspired me to put in about a $100 order for 1/300 aircraft but I don't think I'll be able to reproduce your incredibly detailed markings!

The P51's look great, I'd be torn whether to paint them all as individual iconic aircraft as you have done or painting them as a single unified squadron. Should get yourself some razorback Stangs too!

Is the scaling on the bombers correct? I never realised the He111 was so huge. In terms of plan area it's not a hell of a lot smaller than the B17.

I've been seeing your models in the gallery and they never fail to impress!

Thanks for sharing them

Thanks Kid_K, I've appreciated your comments and votes.

@AllSeeingSkink (again) Yeah I highly recommend Scotia Grendel. Their stuff is really very good and the range is extensive. (Honestly, I'm not on their payroll, though i should be. finder's fee, or commission) I have another batch of their Soviet and French aircraft on the go but there's always more on the list to be had.
And yes, I think Davis's P51 should've been a razorback. But I'd gone for Razor-bolts already so I went for bubble-stangs.

What squads are you looking at putting together? I hope we'll see some local Ausie fliers. I found when gaming with a painted squadron it got very hard to track individuals in a swirling dogfight. That's why I started doing famous fliers in the first place, easier to differentiate.

Scaling-wise, close enough for rock'n'roll i guess. I might've expected the B-29 to be just a little bigger and the He111 maybe a bit smaller though it was pretty big for a twin engine plane.

As far as painting tips goes I'll tell you what I'm doing.
First off you'll need to do your research. Find out who was flying and when. Look up photos or illustrated examples of their planes for reference.
I'm priming in black and usually I'll base-coat upper and underside colours then hit it with an ink wash and then drybrush a light highlight coat the same colour as the base coat. Then I'll add any camo pattern secondary colours. Stripes, anti-glare panels etc. same again, base, ink, highlight if they're big areas like on RAF or Luftwaffe patterns. Then I'll do roundels and letters, then finally any kill markings or nose art.
For brighter colours like yellows and reds I'm finding a base coat of white followed by a colour ink wash helps make the markings stand out. Generally on things this small brighter colours really help.

I've got four flying Tigers Tomahawks here that I'm thinking of doing a painting tutorial with. They'll be a bit standalone in my collection so it'll be something a bit different to do with them.

I think what impresses me is just how well you do the markings.... how circular your circles look, how detailed your stars look, how neat the text is. You must have a good eye and steady hands!

I guess I'll see when I get my hands on the ones I've ordered if I can reproduce anything close to that. I'm more used to painting larger aircraft, 1/72 to 1/32 scale with 1/48 being my favourite, so I never have to freehand anything, it's all decals and careful masking.

At the moment I've ordered 4 Hawker Tempests and 4 P38's because I just love them and some 190's to fight against them (love the 190's too!). Then 4 F4F's and 4 A6M's to get a bit of early Pacific theatre happening. Then on top of that 6 Mk1 Spits, 6 Hurricanes, 12 Me 109's, 4 He 111's and 4 Ju87B's for some Battle of Britain fun.

No Aussie planes unfortunately, Australia has never really made great planes, we had the CAC Boomerang which was slow even when compared with a Zero Maybe if I do another order I'll grab a few Boomerangs to duel with the Japs.

Yeah man, the Boomerang was an important plane for its time. Filled a real need intercepting Japanese bombers before anything better was available.
I'd love to see some more RAAF love going on here. One of my Lancs has a RAAF squadron code I think, but one from European Theatre.. But I'd like to see some Pacific theatre no-red-roundels on the go, maybe on Beaufighters or Catalinas, something very typically RAAF.

My love for WW2 planes comes from a couple of kits my dad had when I was a kid. A P-38 and a Catalina. Not sure what scale they were but that Catalina was maybe a foot long! Beautiful kits, even unpainted as they were. I once built an airfix Bf-109, think my dad was disappointed I didn't pick a Spitfire.

Anyway, thanks for the compliments, I'll try and keep up the standard.

I don't know a huge amount about the Boomerang but my understanding was its importance was largely overstated (probably due to national pride and it being the only fighter we produced ). The Boomerang didn't show up until mid 1943, by which time we were getting shipments of P40's from the yanks and I think MkV Spitfires were also here and MkVIII's on their way. Of 250 Boomerangs built I don't think any actually shot down an enemy plane, I believe the best they can claim is having caused a flight of unescorted bombers to be diverted Though still it's an iconic plane and I believe it was used to good effect in ground attack. Also it was delivered to less vital airfields so that the better fighters which were short in number could be diverted to higher risk airfields. I will grab some if I do another order because it is an iconic plane and all WW2 planes are awesome IMO. That is assuming I get through the 50 or so planes I bought this time, haha.

Though you have made me facepalm, I should have got some Aussie Spits! Doh! Could have gotten some MkIX's and pretended they were MkVIII's and done a 457th Grey Nurse Squadron. Although they are just spits and spits are so common, it's a bit of a unique paint scheme for them.

Ah well, next time.

Yeah, I grew up building model planes and fantasising about aircraft, it lead me to studying engineering (though oddly enough I have barely worked on aircraft since I got my degree, only a few UAV's). I stopped building planes when I was about 12 and got back in to it when I was about 28, lol. WW2 planes have always held a special place for me, the mixture of elegance with aerodynamic lines and sheer brutality with massive piston engines and batteries of machine guns and cannons jammed in to them.

I had started a plog of my slightly larger scale aircraft but haven't updated it in about 18 months...

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/691077.page

Obviously because of the scale difference they aren't comparable to your work, all the planes I work on are big enough for me to mask the markings which is not something I'll be able to do at 1/300.

Alright tiny plane lovers. Something a bit different this time. I've got here four 1:300 scale Curtis P-40 Tomahawks from Scotia Grendel and I thought It'd be fun to do a kind of painting tutorial with them. (which I've spoilered if you're not into that sort of thing)


More importantly- this is the aircraft of Charles Older- A Marine Corps Reserve Pilot who resigned to join the American Volunteer Group, the Flying Tigers to fight the Japanese before America officially joined the war.
By the end of the war he was a Lieutenant Colonel and a triple ace. He would go on to fly B-26 Invaders in Korea following which his career in law saw him the Judge in the trial of Charles Manson in 1971.

Looking good as always! Thanks for the walk through on how you do it as well.

My order from Scotia Grendel came in today. So far I've cleaned up my 24 Battle of Britain fighters (a mix of Hurricanes, Spits and 109's) but only painted a single Hurricane so far. An unforeseen challenge is that I've spent years gathering colours for WW2 aircraft but almost all of them are airbrush paints that are ill suited to painting these little guys. So now it seems I have to find some new paints.

Nice and obscure!

(of course I recognized the Republic of China markings from captured equipment I saw at the PRC military museum (and or the Taiwanese/RoC flag) but I'm special)

What a superb thread.
Love the little history tidbits too

I'm going good guns these days painting up a lot of Soviet lovelies for you all. But in the meantime I'll show you a couple of German Jets I got done.

The Messerschmitt Me 262 was the world's first operational jet fighter and at the time of its introduction in April 1944 was the fastest most heavily armed fighter in the sky. Arriving too late in the war to have any significant impact on the outcome it was none the less an important pioneer in early jet technologies.


On the left is the Me-262 of Heinrich Bär. 'Red 13'
Heinz Bär was credited with 220 aerial victories, including 16 while flying the Me 262. He was also known for his ill discipline and lack of respect for authority. Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring had a particular dislike of him and three times denied him the highest award, the 'Diamonds' to his Knight's Cross.

Then on the right its another of Franz Stigler's rides. Franz Stigler, you'll recall was that B-17 escorting fella. (Well, he escorted one B-17 out of Germany, he was known to have shot down another 11 heavy bombers) "White 3" was his personal jet, flown by him directly from the production line at Leipheim to join Galland's JV44. Adolph Galland was known to pull rank and borrow it on occasion as 'White 3' was considered something of a "hot" ride.

Sorry the mythology about German jets is a sore spot for me.

The Messerschmitt Me 262 was the world's first operational jet fighter and at the time of its introduction in April 1944 was the fastest most heavily armed fighter in the sky. Arriving too late in the war to have any significant impact on the outcome it was none the less an important pioneer in early jet technologies.

It was also insanely expensive and hard to build and maintain while losing a 2 front war AND killing a good portion of their own population. I remember studies showing how many 100s of conventional fighters the Germans could have built for the cost of their jet program but they really really believed just one more wonder weapon could turn things around...

Basically they were trying to leapfrog to the weapons of the 50s or even the 60s while their opponents just doubled down on the technology of the 40s and won.

The real irony is that the allies also made super weapons like mass production, radar and atomics. Only theirs worked.

Oh and as always gorgeous models!

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Sorry the mythology about German jets is a sore spot for me.

The Messerschmitt Me 262 was the world's first operational jet fighter and at the time of its introduction in April 1944 was the fastest most heavily armed fighter in the sky. Arriving too late in the war to have any significant impact on the outcome it was none the less an important pioneer in early jet technologies.

It was also insanely expensive and hard to build and maintain while losing a 2 front war AND killing a good portion of their own population. I remember studies showing how many 100s of conventional fighters the Germans could have built for the cost of their jet program but they really really believed just one more wonder weapon could turn things around...

Basically they were trying to leapfrog to the weapons of the 50s or even the 60s while their opponents just doubled down on the technology of the 40s and won.

The real irony is that the allies also made super weapons like mass production, radar and atomics. Only theirs worked.

Oh and as always gorgeous models!

I don't think any of that stuff takes away from the Me262 being a good aircraft for what it was, and it could have been available earlier when it actually could have made a significant impact to the allied bombing campaign if things had of panned out differently.

All countries were developing jets, the Germans were just a bit ahead and pushing them in to service while the allies were holding them back. Don't forget the Gloster Meteor was operational about the same time as the Me262, it just wasn't pushed in to front line service because it didn't need to be, the allies had air superiority by the time it entered service whereas the 262 was trying to claw it back. Near the end of the war the 'muricans were sending their P80 jets in but the war ended before they saw service.

First and foremost Germany lost because they didn't have the resources to support fighting the British, the Yanks and most importantly the Soviets. Like every other country they had to push technology forward or risk being left in the dust, it was at times mismanaged and money got pumped in to dead end projects, but then the same is true of every country that tries to push technology. At the start of the war a fighter that could fly 340mph was considered fast, by the end of the war prop fighters were pushing toward 450mph which was becoming a limitation as prop efficiency fell off a cliff at those speeds, to not push the development of jets would have been insane.

Not to mention the Germans WERE pumping huge resources in to existing technologies. Don't forget the 109 was the most heavily produced fighter with around 35,000 built, and the Fw190 at 20k, pretty hefty numbers right there and not a bad effort for a country that was being actively bombed, the Brits only got out 23k Spits and 15k Hurricanes with a few thousand other fighters (Tiffies and Tempests) and the Americans in their safety across the Atlantic pumped out ~16k Thunderbolts, ~16k Mustangs, ~14k P40's and ~10k Lightnings to go along with their 30k bombers (B17's and 24's). I'm not sure how many La's and Yaks the Sovients produced but I'm sure it was a lot, Germany just didn't have the industry to win that air war against 3 massive forces. A few 100 or even a few 1000 more 109's instead of investing in 262's wasn't going to change anything (if such an investment was even possible, the 190 originally used a radial engine largely because Germany couldn't produce enough inline engines to meet the demand for existing aircraft designs).



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 theCrowe wrote:
I'm going good guns these days painting up a lot of Soviet lovelies for you all. But in the meantime I'll show you a couple of German Jets I got done.

The Messerschmitt Me 262 was the world's first operational jet fighter and at the time of its introduction in April 1944 was the fastest most heavily armed fighter in the sky. Arriving too late in the war to have any significant impact on the outcome it was none the less an important pioneer in early jet technologies.


On the left is the Me-262 of Heinrich Bär. 'Red 13'
Heinz Bär was credited with 220 aerial victories, including 16 while flying the Me 262. He was also known for his ill discipline and lack of respect for authority. Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring had a particular dislike of him and three times denied him the highest award, the 'Diamonds' to his Knight's Cross.

Then on the right its another of Franz Stigler's rides. Franz Stigler, you'll recall was that B-17 escorting fella. (Well, he escorted one B-17 out of Germany, he was known to have shot down another 11 heavy bombers) "White 3" was his personal jet, flown by him directly from the production line at Leipheim to join Galland's JV44. Adolph Galland was known to pull rank and borrow it on occasion as 'White 3' was considered something of a "hot" ride.

Very cool. You've earned my respect with your Balkenkreuz as I've been failing dismally at painting them on my 109's. I can manage to paint 1 not too badly, but then painting the matching one on the other wing, urgh, driving me insane, think I'm gonna have to put an order in to Dom's Decals and get some Balkenkreuz decals.

The difference of course is that Germans chose to start a war with (deep breath) France, Poland, the Netherlands, England, the USSR, the United States and their own people.

Valid points both of you. There's certainly more to a historical aircraft than just the airframe. Context is key. Thanks for your input guys.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I don't think any of that stuff takes away from the Me262 being a good aircraft for what it was, and it could have been available earlier when it actually could have made a significant impact to the allied bombing campaign if things had of panned out differently.

All too true. The design mission changed numerous times at Hitler's order, which required it to go back to the drawing board again and again. If they had stuck to the original mission, it would have slowed down the Allies (but not really stopped them).

Still a beautiful craft in the end, and the painting of them is incredible.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
First and foremost Germany lost because they didn't have the resources to support fighting the British, the Yanks and most importantly the Soviets. Like every other country they had to push technology forward or risk being left in the dust, it was at times mismanaged and money got pumped in to dead end projects, but then the same is true of every country that tries to push technology. At the start of the war a fighter that could fly 340mph was considered fast, by the end of the war prop fighters were pushing toward 450mph which was becoming a limitation as prop efficiency fell off a cliff at those speeds, to not push the development of jets would have been insane.

Not to mention the Germans WERE pumping huge resources in to existing technologies. Don't forget the 109 was the most heavily produced fighter with around 35,000 built, and the Fw190 at 20k, pretty hefty numbers right there and not a bad effort for a country that was being actively bombed, the Brits only got out 23k Spits and 15k Hurricanes with a few thousand other fighters (Tiffies and Tempests) and the Americans in their safety across the Atlantic pumped out ~16k Thunderbolts, ~16k Mustangs, ~14k P40's and ~10k Lightnings to go along with their 30k bombers (B17's and 24's). I'm not sure how many La's and Yaks the Sovients produced but I'm sure it was a lot, Germany just didn't have the industry to win that air war against 3 massive forces. A few 100 or even a few 1000 more 109's instead of investing in 262's wasn't going to change anything (if such an investment was even possible, the 190 originally used a radial engine largely because Germany couldn't produce enough inline engines to meet the demand for existing aircraft designs).

Once the US was in play, Germany was done. The US out-produced EVERYONE on both sides of the war, combined, and supplied much of the Russian and British equipment. The Russians did have the bodies, and their winter, to beat the fight out of the Germans (and boy did that work!), but I wonder how far the Russians would have made it without the American support.

I haven't looked in great detail at the numbers but my understanding was the US out produced everyone with regards to aircraft (particularly heavy bombers and to a lesser extent fighters) and the Russians out produced everyone with regards to tanks and attack aircraft (with the Sturmovik, they made 36k of the bastards along with a decent chunk of Pe-2's).

The Germans were no slouches in terms of production, they managed to pump out a total of 55k fighters in spite of being bombed to hell and running low on resources. I don't think that's much less than the USA produced in terms of land based fighters (but the US was also pumping out large numbers of heavy bombers and carrier based aircraft for the pacific).

Who knows whether Russia would have been able to keep it up enough to beat the Germans, I'm going to guess yes, between the British and the Russians Germany was largely halted, Kursk was the last offensive they staged on the Eastern Front and the Eastern Front losses both in terms of men and machines was just massive, from memory I think the Russians were putting out about 5 tanks for every 1 German tank. I don't think Germany was doing bad vs Russia in terms of aircraft production, but the German aircraft were split between eastern and western fronts. Of course the US was supplying Britain with stuff as well, I'm not well informed enough to know what magnitude that was compared to total production. It was the British who commissioned the P-51 but in the past I've argued the Spitfire COULD have been developed into a long range fighter but the British weren't interested in it for whatever reason.

Loving the debate folks. All very welcome to carry on. Gives my Soviet factories all the longer to turn out a respectable (if not exactly representative) number of painted aircraft.

I didn't see a B-24 - have you painted one of those?

No Xenomancers, sorry. I was eyeing up a Libby the other day. Fancy a couple of them and a couple of Marauders too. Some day....

I'm currently engaged in churning out my Russians, and still staring at lots of French bare metal and just ordered a bunch more British. So they'll have to wait till after that lot is done.

Soviet Saturday

Welcome back folks. Glad to finally have my collection of Soviet fliers painted and ready to show. I've got the usual mix of common and notable aircraft with a few odd stories along the way. So hold on to your ushanka it's Soviet Saturday.

Not surprisingly I'll kick this off with the ubiquitous Ilyushin Il-2 "Shturmovik" which comrade Stalin once famously stated was "as essential to the Red Army as air and bread."

Such high praise from Uncle Joe is hardly surprising when for every 90 tanks the Germans fielded the massed Ilyusha flights of the red army could claim as many as 270 in a matter of hours.

Apparently it doesn't matter if your plane is over-heavy and woefully inaccurate so long as you can build in excess of 42,000 of them and grossly exaggerate their effectiveness in your post-battle reports.


Another monster of mass production was the Yakovlev Yak, the various models of which (1, 7, 9 & 3) numbered some 37,000 produced.

One of the smallest and most agile fighters of the war the Yak1 was able to hold its own against invading Bf-109's and Fw-190's providing vital cover to allow Soviet attack aircraft like the Il-2 to operate.


The Soviets weren't the only airforce that had women pilots but they were the only one to allow their women pilots to operate as front line combatants. This is the Yak-1 of Lydia Litvyak. Known as 'the White Lily of Stalingrad' in the Soviet press. She had flown 66 combat missions and had 12 victories to her credit before she was shot down in the Battle of Kursk.


First lieutenant Mikhail Baranov, leader of the 183rd Fighter Regiment was a prominent and inspiring ace who became a national hero; his skill and service earning him the Title of Hero of the Soviet Union and the Order of Lenin before his death in a test-flight accident. He painted the legend "Death to Fascists" on his plane. Hey Woody Guthrie, Mikhail Baranov called, he wants his guitar back.


And the last (but by no means least) of my Yak-1 aces is Aleksey Alelyukhin whose years of service from 1938-1985 made him one of Russia's most highly decorated Major Generals. Twice awarded the order of Lenin and Twice named a Hero of the Soviet Union he flew this Yak-1 in 1942 as commander of the 1st Squadron of the 9th Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment.



Next up in the Soviet hall of fame its a biggie. The Petlyakov Pe-8 was the only four-engine heavy bomber produced by the soviets during the war.

Limited numbers saw use in propaganda bombings and high visibility political trips. There was simply little need for more long ranged heavy bombers when the enemy was right on your doorstep banging your door down but it always looks good to have a bigger plane with a heavier bomb load than the other guy.


What the USSR did need was a fast and versatile light bomber which it found in the Petlyakov Pe-2.

It proved a deadly accurate dive bomber and capable ground attack aircraft with production figures in excess of 11,000 that saw variants produced as reconnaissance platforms, fighter-bombers, light bombers and night fighters making it one of the most ubiquitous and successful twin-engine combat planes of the war.


In addition to the Soviet Air Force the USSR maintained an Anti-Air Defence Force as a separate military branch. It operated in 13 strategic Zones. Their forces consisted of Anti-aircraft guns, searchlights, troops and intercept fighters like the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-3 seen here in a white winter scheme.

The MiG-3 had a troubled and difficult career. It was a fighter designed for high altitude operations but much of the fighting on the eastern front took place at lower altitudes where its performance suffered badly.

This is the MiG-3 flown by Capt Ivan Zabolotny in defence of the Moscow region, February 1942 which bore the slogan 'For Stalin!' He's another of these hard-nut fighter pilots (like 'the Swede') that was known to ram the enemy when he'd run out of bullets.


Now for something completely weird. The Zveno project conducted in the 1930's was a composite-aircraft experiment consisting of a "Mothership" bomber with smaller fighters mounted either on top or under each wing. It was primarily concerned with defensive formations which proved largely unsuccessful but in August 1941 an offensive formation, the Zveno-SPB, comprising a TB-3 with two I-16 fighter bombers attached was used with some success against ground targets in Romania.

Each of the I-16 fighter bombers carried a pair of 250kg high explosive bombs. (normally an I-16 can only take off with a maximum bomb load of 100kg) and were equipped with a drop fuel tank for the return flight. Inbound they would be fuelled by the TB-3. Using the TB-3 increased the operational range of the I-16 by up to 80%.


Both the TB-3 and the I-16 were older 1930's aircraft which couldn't really stand up to the more modern fighters of the Luftwaffe and the Zveno was especially vulnerable while the three aircraft were combined in the air due to reduced manoeuvrability. Success relied heavily on the element of surprise and the enemy's lack of appropriate air defences being so far out of range of more conventional fighter bombers.

The programme operated five such composites at its peak but was denied any expansion due to significant Soviet Airforce losses elsewhere at the time. In all the Zveno-SPB flew at least 30 combat missions.


And just for good measure, or perhaps propaganda purposes, here's a group shot of my massed Soviet aircraft.

Be inspired fearless comrades! Loathful fascist invaders beware!

Again, gorgeous work!

Agreed. Love the little history lessons as well, especially the CCCP stuff as I know nothing about them what so ever.

Awe man them paintjobs are lush,loving the new soviet planes colors.

Thanks guys. Glad you're enjoying the journey. I'm learning lots about all these planes as I go along too.

I've added a complete list of my whole collection to the top of page one just to give an idea of what's here already. The list will keep growing so you'll see what I'm working on as I update it.
Working on some French planes right now. Lots of nice camo patterns.

Still working away on my French aircraft but in the meantime I'll show you a couple of odd ones I've been working on.

An early French fighter of the 1930's the Dewoitine d.510 that first saw combat with the Chinese Air Force fighting Imperial Japan.

On the 4th November 1939 Captain Shen Tse-Liu flying this D510 over the Lanchou area managed to destroy a Japanese G3M in a head on assault.

As the D.510s came around to attack from behind defensive fire from the Japanese bomber formation damaged Shen's engine forcing him down. He was injured in the crash but soon flew again.

But what's a Japanese G3M? I hear you cry! It's one of these.

The Mitsubishi G3M was a contemporary of the old D.510 being first flown in the Second Sino-Japanese war of from 1937. By the time Pearl Harbour was hit the G3M (allied reporting name "Nell") was considered a bit long in the tooth but was none the less a common sight over the Pacific theatre.

They saw use as long range medium bombers and torpedo bombers until eventually being withdrawn to serve as glider tugs, aircrew and paratroop trainers, and transports for high-ranking officers and VIPs.

Other Sino-Japanese news of the day is that Flying Tiger ace Charles Older now has a fully painted wingman.

P-40 Tomahawk #47 flown by R.T. Smith of the Third Pursuit Squadron — Hell’s Angels. Smith once buzzed Lord Louis Mountbatten, Supreme Allied Commander, South-East Asia who was giving a pep talk from his jeep on the airfield. The extremely low pass of Smith's P-51 going at over 450mph almost took his hat off.

They no doubt chased down their fair share of G3Ms in their time.


My other two P-40's have been finished in a different scheme altogether.

These are two Curtis P-40 Tomahawks of 112 Squadron who were one of the first units to field the type in July 1941. The P-40 didn't perform well at high altitudes but much of the action in the North African theatre happened closer to the ground so it was still able to tangle with the best the Germans and Italians had to offer.

The 112th adopted the "shark's mouth" motif for their P-40s and it soon became a P-40 standard, famously also adopted by the Flying Tigers in Burma. Although it was first used by some Bf-110 pilots earlier in the war.

That's all for now. As always thanks for visiting the tiny planes gallery.