Hawker Typhoon Mk.Ib, RAF, December 1945

[pyro-manic]

After the fall of Malta in 1941, supplies to the British forces in north Africa had been severely disrupted, and the Royal Navy was forced to withdraw from the Mediterranean through the Suez canal after attacks on ships in Alexandria harbour resulted in the loss of HMS Valiant and several smaller ships. Italian frogmen had planted mines on Valiant and her sister-ship Queen Elizabeth, and the detonations resulted in the explosion of Valiant's forward magazines, destroying her completely and damaging many nearby vessels. The loss of the navy's presence meant that the Eighth Army suffered supply shortages, and allowed Axis troops and supplies to cross the Mediterranean unmolested. Rommel used this advantage to great effect, his Afrika Korps rampaging across north Africa and pushing the British back into eastern Egypt, right to the banks of the Nile. This, coupled with the Axis thrust down through the Caucasus, put enormous pressure on the British and Free French presence in the Middle East. It was not until late 1944 that the Axis onslaught petered out, the heavy attacks from RAF Bomber Command and the US Eighth Air Force disrupting industrial production in Germany itself enough to effect supplies and spares to frontline forces. The counter-attack was launched in July 1945, with the new Comet and Centurion tanks tearing into Rommel's Panzers with heavy air support from the RAF's Middle East Air Force. The machine represented here is Hawker Typhoon Ib of 208 Squadron RAF, based at RAF Heliopolis. The Hawker Typhoon was an extremely effective fighter-bomber - long ranged, very fast and able to carry a heavy payload of rockets or bombs in addition to four 20mm cannon, the Typhoons of the Middle East Air Force wreaked havoc among the Afrika Korps' Panzer formations, being credited with the destruction of nearly 200 tanks, as well as many more soft-skinned vehicles.

OK, pretty straightforward build here. Academy 1:72 Typhoon, built as standard with a few very small modifications (cockpit cooling vents, centreline drop tank), but with a cool colour scheme not usually seen on Tiffies. And it's not the one you're thinking.

[pyro-manic]

OK, update time! Not a huge amount to see, but I've painted the cockpit, and I'm now ready to close up the fuselage and start modding. I'm not a fan of painting cockpits - in 1:72 you see very little of a prop fighter's innards - but this Academy kit has such a nice cockpit that I gave it a quick paint-up just for practice. Base layer of green, off-black wash, and a drybrush of bone and a little silver to dirty it up a bit. Instrument panel is black, again with bone and silver drybrushing to pick out the dials.

Next up, I'm going to glue the fuse and wings together, and add cockpit cooling vents and a centreline pylon for the drop tank. Then it's paint time! Might use the airbrish for this one as well...

[Cliffy B]

Looking good!  Nice job on the cockpit    Wonder what the camo will be....do I sense a desert scheme with some duck egg blue in the works?

[pyro-manic]

It's a desert scheme.

[Cliffy B]

It's a desert scheme.

Oh dear...   

[Doc Yo]

 I'm intrigued. Of course, the way my mind works, I start thinking of all the deserts that aren't all that sand-
colored...Mars, the moon, the sea floor off Louisiana...

Cockpit looks good-looking forward to the rest of it.

[pyro-manic]

Well, there's a desert scheme the RAF is well known for, and I'm not doing that one. I will say no more...