Re: Spinners' Strike Fighters Thread

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Supermarine Spitfire VB - No.577 Squadron, RAF Fighter Command, 1944

During the Spring of 1940 there were signs that the Phoney War was coming to an end and the British Government could sense that Germany was preparing to invade Norway in order to protect their supplies of iron ore. Believing that floatplane versions of the Hurricane and Spitfire might be of use in operating from the Norwegian fjords the Air Ministry suggested that conversions of both types should be made using existing conversion kit floats originally made for the Blackburn Roc. Before this project had time to gain any real momentum Denmark and Norway had capitiulated although the latter had fought heroically alongside allied forces and especially in northern Norway.

For the next two years the Air Ministry continued to explore the potential of using floatplane fighter aircraft and even approached a less than enthusiastic Curtiss to enquire about a floatplane version of the Kittyhawk to which Curtiss replied that it was certainly possible but would delay production of urgently needed Kittyhawks. Pushed on by the Air Ministry, Supermarine continued to work on a floatplane version of the Spitfire using Folland Aircraft to convert Spitfire VB EP751 with generally good results although there were some issues with leaking floats caused by buckling and deflection of the front of the floats during take-off and landing. The trials encouraged the Air Ministry to order more conversions and by the late Summer of 1942 there were no less than four Spitfire VB floatplane conversions undergoing trials.

Unexpectedly, in late September 1943 three Spitfire VB floatplanes were sent to No.52 Maintenance Unit for packing and despatch by ship to the Middle East arriving in Alexandria, Egypt in late October 1943. In a bold plan, and supported by Royal Navy submarines and high speed launches, the Spitfire VB floatplanes were intended to operate against the Junkers Ju 52 transports flying supplies from Greece to Crete. But the logistics of the plan were a bit too ambitious and especially on the hard-pressed submarine service so all three Spitfire VB floatplanes were scrapped in situ.

Whilst the Air Ministry perservered with the idea of a Spitfire floatplane fighter little was done until January 1944 when 60 Spitfire VB floatplane conversions were ordered as the start of a deception plan associated with 'Operation Bodyguard' whose key objective was to mislead the German High Command as to the timing and location of the Allied invasion of north-western Europe. 'Operation Fortitude South' aimed to convince them that the allied invasion would be via the Pas-de-Calais whilst 'Operation Fortitude North' was designed to mislead the Germans into expecting an allied invasion of Norway. As part of the deception plan, the RAF announced the formation of six new floatplane fighter squadrons across north-east Scotland and the Orkneys with No.577 Squadron being the first to form at Dounreay in April 1944. In reality, and typical of all six floatplane squadrons, just six Spitfire VB floatplanes were operated by No.577 Squadron but supplemented by several inflatables anchored alongside the slipways. All six Spitfire floatplane squadrons were disbanded in August 1944 having made a small but interesting contribution to the allied war effort.







There has been a Spitfire floatplane available for many years now but a revised version was issued recently by the DAT boys so here it is dressed in a non-standard EDSG but with standard RAF markings albeit with a slightly wide sky fuselage band due to my own limitations and laziness!

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Inspired by Vostoc7's What-If kit boxes   

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Supermarine Spitfire IXc - 880 Naval Air Squadron, Royal Navy, 1945







The DAT boys have followed up their floatplane Spitfire VB with a VB (Trop) and also a LF.IXC seen here in 880 NAS markings. The real Spitfire IX floatplane (MJ892) was actually a 'B' wing and, apart from the floats, was modified to have an almost triangular vertical tail (not very Spitfire-ish) so I much prefer the fin shape shown here. Reading up on the floatplane Spitfires, the Air Ministry was still asking Supermarine for floatplane conversion proposals for the F.Mk21   

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Supermarine Seafire Mk.IIC - 724 Squadron, Royal Australian Navy, 1955




Not much input by me on these - just a couple of decals and adapting the skin to fit the Seafire IIc. 724 Squadron was originally a Royal Navy unit but recommissioned as an Australian squadron in 1955 based at HMAS Albatross in New South Wales and carrtying out fixed-wing conversion training. Perhaps these elderly Seafires were used as station hacks or to test "the best of the best".

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Supermarine Spitfire FP.IA - XZ Flight, Aeronáutica Militar, 1945







The unofficial 'FP' designation for this Spitfire floatplane is more for me to organise the dozens of Spitfires (59 and counting plus 12 Seafires) in my install. Not much input again from me but I did move it from Aviação Naval Portuguesa service into the Aeronáutica Militar and then had the good luck to spot that there was already a skin and decals for a real world Portuguese IA so I just had to tint the underside of the floats to match the skin. By the way, doesn't the struts on this interpretation look so much better than the real Spitfire floatplane? It makes it look more S.6B-ish!

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Curtiss F13C-2 Spitfire - VF-9, US Navy, 1944







This is another skin from the recent Spitfire floatplane anthology adapted to fit a Spitfire/Seafire - this time a Seafire Mk.IIC with the Vokes filter and I've removed the outer cannon stubs. In an earlier 'what if' I used Curtiss as the licence manufacturer for the P-37B Spitfire (Post #2257) so they were a natural choice to make the F13C-2 Spitfire (preferring to keep the already legendary Spitfire name). The real F13C was a rather portly and pedestrian Curtiss fighter that failed to get a production order. I really should have used a later designation but wanted to avoid the whole F14, F15, F16 range of numbers... even without the 'dash'.

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Supermarine S.9B - RAF High Speed Flight, 1939









The proposed Spitfire Mk.I floatplane had these elegant struts (as opposed to the slab-sided float supports featured on the Mk.V and Mk.IX conversions) that give it just a hint of the S.6B. The recent Spitfire floatplane package is stuffed full of 'what if' skins including a silver skin for a Mk.II that's the basis of this 1939 Schneider Trophy winner! The wings just needed the red dope squares painted over and I really should have painted over the shell ejection ports as well but edited the screenshot showing the undersides. I had hoped to do the upper fuselage in silver but, given limited time, it just proved too complicated as the fuselage is spread over so many meshes so I went for an all blue fuselage with some basic lines and rivet detail and I also painted the rudder with vertical red, white and blue stripes just like the S.6B. I knocked up a simple template for the floats and just made a couple of racing numbers and two types of serial number (the S.6B didn't actually have the fuselage serial number).

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Supermarine S.9B - RAF High Speed Flight, 1939











A revised skin showing a silver uppersurface. I wanted the tail section to remain in blue so tried to sweep the demarcation line upwards to a point but hadn't allowed for the mapping going across four segments (imagine peeling a banana) and the nose section was also quite challenging. But, overall, it's quite passable and I think it would be even better with RAF Type A roundels.

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Supermarine Spitfire F.MkXII - No.6 Squadron, Royal Dhimari Air Force, 1946

With the end of World War 2 the Kingdom of Dhimar received surplus military equipment from the Western Allies to continue the fight against the Empire of Paran who also began to receive equipment either directly from the Soviet Union or paid for by them. War-weary Spitfire F.MkXII's were gratefully received by the Royal Dhimari Air Force and were used mainly in fighter sweeps across the Valley of Kerman near the Dhimari-Parani border.







The DAT group have released two versions of the XII - one with a fixed tailwheel and one with a retractable tailwheel (below). I've given the earlier version to the Dhimari's but left them with their RAF serials instead of my usual DHxxx serial numbers. Note the Parani Avia S-199!

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Supermarine Spitfire F.MkXII - No.249 Squadron, RAF Middle East Command, 1944



Unfortunately this one hasn't gone too well with an unsightly demarcation line that just tested by patience a bit so will get parked up. RAF Spitfires based on Malta had the most diverse colour schemes so I thought this decidedly non-standard scheme would be OK for a Spitfire XII. I went for a real world Malta squadron (No.249 Sqd) although by this time they were based in Italy and then Yugoslavia. The spinner and code letters use the same yellow as the outer ring on the Type C1 fuselage roundels and look quite good with this skin.

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I do like making these profile pages!

The top one is actually a real world Spitfire XII user and I think it's in the Airfix 1/48 scale boxing.

I'll probably have to explain the Portuguese one as having non-standard national insignia perhaps applied 'in theatre' during an emergency United Nations deployment to the Dhimar-Paran area.

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Supermarine Spitfire F.Mk.XII - 'UN Flight', Aeronáutica Militar, 1949

In June 1949 an appeal was made by the United Nations (UN) for military support in the ongoing UN peacekeeping mission in the Kernan Valley district on the border between Dhimar and Paran. In response, the Portuguese government sent a combined Aeronáutica Militar force using men and machines drawn from Tancos Air Base and Ota Air Base to form a new squadron designated as the 'UN Flight'.

Initially formed at Tancos Air Base in July 1949, the UN Flight were equipped with eight Supermarine Spitfire Mk.XII fighter aircraft and deployed to Dhimar later in the same month becoming the first combat aircraft to operate on behalf of the UN. All eight Spitfires received UN identifying markings on their fuselage and wore large Cruz de Cristo roundels in all six position with their two-digit Aeronáutica Militar serial numbers carried on the fin and fuselage. Used mainly in the ground-attack and reconnaissance roles the Spitfires occasionally encountered Parani fighter aircraft including Avia-built Fw-190D's but combat was avoided by both sides with the Parani aircraft being escorted away from the Kernan Valley area.

The Autumn Truce of 1949 saw the deployment come to an end and the UN Flight returned to Tancos Air Base in November 1949 remaining in service until March 1955.













I've adapted a Portuguese Spitfire VB skin to fit the Spitfire XII which basically involves getting some paint on the new items (like the cylinder head bulge) and also any re-mapped items. The skin I was using also had roundels on one upper wing and one lower wing so I copied the roundels, reversed them and carefully placed then into position on the other wings carefully matching up the lines and rivet details. I added a white spinner and then hit upon the UN deployment story so added the white fuselage band and UN markings. I quite like this one!

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Grumman F8F Bearcat - Night Attack Flight, Skadron 7, Indonesian Air Force, 1958




For this Indonesian Bearcat I tinted the F8F's blue skin into a dirty, sooty black and then made some 'night' AURI insignia as if they were locally done in the field by partially overpainting the white bits. I think it works but I did get the scale of the black squiggles wrong when comparing the 'roundels' to the finflashes.

Sadly, there'll be no updates for about a week as we've got the builders in and I've got some remedial decorating after that.

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Messerschmitt Bf-109W-5 - IV./JG 77, Luftwaffe, 1940








I'm waiting for plaster to dry out so I thought I'd quickly make a nicer skin for the Bf-109 float plane but as the plain grey was a bit boring I carefully spliced in the classic yellow nose of a BoB era skin. I am hopeless on WW2 Luftwaffe markings so just roll with it.

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Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation CA-15 Kangaroo - No.3 Squadron, Territorial Air Force, RNZAF, 1953

During 1949 the four Territorial Air Force squadrons of the Royal New Zealand Air Force were re-equipped with 50 CA-15 fighters purchased from Australia as part of an expanded trans-Tasman trade agreement. No.3 Squadron were unique in becoming the only New Zealand component of the British Commonwealth forces urgently deployed to the Timor Sea area in 1951 in an attempt to prevent the expansionist plans of the new Republic of Indonesia.















The DAT boys have released an all-inclusive 'Timor Sea' install (essentially a modification of the 'Strike Fighters' game/sim) featuring a hypothetical conflict between Indonesia and Australia forces in the Timor Sea region during the period from 1950 until 1975. This, in itself, makes it a 'what if' but it goes further in featuring a 'what if' aircraft in the shape of this CA-15 Kangaroo which I've placed into service with the RNZAF... well, it would have been rude not to.

Our building work went well but I need to get back to my decorating so things will be quiet for a few days.