1/72 Breguet "Baguette" 13 scratchbuilt from breadclips

[Brian da Basher]

In June of 1915, Paris was bombed by marauding Albatros C-1s of the Imperial German Air Service, which made the French Service Aéronautique seek an aircraft that would be capable of retaliating. Enter an obscure engineer named Nathan LePain who had recently joined the Société Anonyme des Ateliers d'Aviation Louis Breguet. Messr. LePain's previous claim to fame had been designing the famous Renault T5 truck, which was bought in great quatities by French bakeries to be used as bread trucks. Messr. LePain  turned his talents to aircraft upon joiniung Breguet and employed a steel tube/plywood covered frame in his Breguet 13 single-seat fighter/bomber, which was soon christened the Baguette. This aircraft, able to carry a 300 k.g. bombload and armed with a single 7.9 m.m. synchronized gun was just what the Service Aéronautique needed to hit back at the Germans and the new long-range aircraft was ordered into production. By April of 1916, two squadrons of "Baguettes" were in service. Squadron 409, "Fourches du Diable" or "the Devil's Pitchforks" commanded by the wine swilling, cheese munching Adjudant Geoffrey du l'Fontaine took off in the dawn hours of April 4th and headed across enemy lines. Within ninety minutes, they had reached the outskirts of the German city of Köln and suceeded in bombing the regional Imperial Army Headquarters and a large rail hub. Not only that, but the pilots of the "Devil's Pitchforks" also were able to defend themselves against attacks from Imperial Air Service Eindekkers on the return trip, downing 10 of the enemy while only losing one of their own. Thus began what became known as "Bready April" in which Breguet Baguettes bombed numerous targets far behind German lines. Adjudant du l'Fontaine led many of these missions and was awarded the Croix d'Guerre and eventually rose to command the Service Aéronautique's bomber units. His former aircraft, No. 228, is on display at Le musée de Vol outside Varennes, across the street from La Boulangerie Maruicen where one can get a delicious, hot fresh baguette.

Brian da Basher

[Brian da Basher]

Just in case you were wondering what happened to all those breadclips, here's the end result. I added a half of a P-51 exhaust from my spares and also a couple of stray bombs too as well as cutting a winsdscreen from clear plastic, but otherwise, I was able to keep to the original parts I had earmarked for this project. The entire model was brush-painted by hand with acrylics. Cheap craft-store Tan was used over all, and the cowling was painted in Model Masters Dark Earth. I used Model Masters Rust for the struts and prop and cheap craft store brown was used for the prop's laminate stripe. Craft-store gunmetal was used on the gun, exhausts and radiator grill, and I dry-brushed Model Masters Aluminum over the grill. The bombs were painted with Testor's Olive Drab and the tires with Model Masters Gunship Gray. The rudder stripes were painted freehand with more cheap craft-store paints. The decals came from my decal stash and the rigging wire was from the ever-generous Mr Howling Mouse (thanks, Baz!). The entire project took me a week and I discovered that scratch-building a model from plastic bread-bag clips is a lot easier than it seems and great fun! I hope you like my model and my little backstory. It's better if you enjoy it with a nice slice of buttered bread.

Brian da Basher

[Jeffry Fontaine]

You left out the "Wine Swilling," "Cheese Munching" part of the description.  

[Brian da Basher]

Thanks for reminding me. It's fixed now.

Brian da Basher

[traceyrb]

Wow, Honey!!!!!!  You amaze me more and more! 

It's beautiful and the back story is fantastic!!!     You're so creative...You should write a book.    

Love ya!    Talk to you later.

[proditor]

Out of breadclips?!?!?   

That's simply amazing.   

[John Howling Mouse]

This is sick, I tellya.  Just sick!  It's not right at all.  How can anyone pick up a bunch of bread clips and end up with something this good, this believable, this original???

Sick.

Sick.

Sick.

It's positively unnatural.  You must be in league with some sort of sick styrene demigod to pull off something like this.

[Weaver]

I see it with my eyes, but my brain still won't accept it....... much respect, Sir! 

[tanktastic43]

Genius. 'nuff said. 

[Sisko]

Fantastic!!!!!!!

This is truly in the spirit of the junkbox build 10 outta 10

[kitbasher]

Top notch, Sir Brian.  And the name is spot on, too!
(was the 'Baguette' prone to dutch rolls, perchance?)

[Ed S]

A work of art BdB.  You cooked up a good one this time.

Ed