Re: Spinners' Strike Fighters Thread

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Fiat G.55 Centauro - 1st Fighter Regiment, Parani Army Air Force, 1946

In early 1946, Fiat restarted production of the G.55 Centauro by utilising 20 partially complete airframes remaining at it's Turin factory and a similar number of Fiat RA.1050 R.C.58 Tifone engines (a licence-built Daimler-Benz DB 605 rated at 1,475h.p.). Initially, Fiat expected that the new G.55's would be sold to the Regia Aeronautica (this was still before the establishment of the Aeronautica Militare) but with the country being desperate for foreign currency all 20  G.55's were sold to Paran where they were operated to good effect by the Parani Army Air Force who received their first examples in May 1946.








Whereas the original 'Strike Fighters' covered a fictional Middle-East conflict between the neighbouring states of Dhimar and Paran starting from about 1950, I like to take this conflict back to 1940 and use the wide range of WW2 aircraft that are available. For Paran, I've designed a different insignia for the Parani Army Air Force simply by placing the star inside a black circle (making it easy to cover original insignia) and also giving them distinctive red, white and black rudder bands. I hadn't realised that the G.55/G.59 was produced in the post-war years (exported to Argentina, Egypt and Syria) and also used the Rolls-Royce Merlin (in the G.59).

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Grumman Tomcat FGR.2 - No.229 Operational Conversion Unit, Royal Air Force, 1991







This is the F-14D 'Super Tomcat' a recent beta release by the DAT Group. I know the Tomcat was 'maintenance heavy' but it was retired way too early and nearly 17 years has passed since the US Navy retired theirs.

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Douglas A-24 Banshee - 7 GShAP, Soviet Air Force, 1942













For this 'what if' Soviet Douglas A-24 Banshee (the legendary Dauntless) I thought I'd try a 'distressed' winter camo by using a white distressed texture layer (found on the internet) over a green base colour and with any essential parts cut out and pasted back in as the uppermost layer. It's quick and dirty... but it works! I've also created a similarly distressed red star.

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Supermarine Spitfire IXc - 12 IAP, Soviet Air Force, 1943












Only a very mild 'what if' as the Soviet Union did, of course, operate the Spitfire but I've never seen one in winter clothes and I just fancied making one! I've used the stock Third Wire IXc and added a distressed white layer which shows the underlying green uppersurfaces and blue undersides. Edit: Added a red arrow/flash to Red 3.

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In this profile page there are two real and two generic Soviet Spitfires. Number 1 and 3 are the real ones and both are available in kit form by KP (top - in 1/72 scale) and ICM (in 1/48 scale). I like the pointy fin & rudder on the Spitfire!

Juan Lario Sanchez was a pilot in the Spanish Civil War (7 victories) and emigrated to the Soviet Union in 1939 and was already in service with the Soviet Air Force in June 1941. Sanchez ended WW2 with 27 more victories and eventually returned to his homeland in 1957. I'd love to read his autobiography "Habla un aviador del la República" but AFAIK it was only printed in Spanish.

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Dornier Do-17K - 1st Bomber Regiment, Parani Army Air Force, 1941

In June 1936, the Yugoslavian government ordered 36 Do 17E bombers from Germany and following protracted negotiations they eventually succeeded in obtaining a production licence to build the majority of these as the Do 17K variant powered by the French Gnome-Rhône Mistral Major engine. After production for the Royal Yugoslav Air Force was completed in April 1939 the Yugoslavian government were approached by Paran who wanted a new modern bomber aircraft for the rapidly expanding Parani Army Air Force and the sale of 24 Do 17K's was agreed.

Entering service with the 1st Bomber Regiment of the Parani Army Air Force in early 1941 the Do 17K's were first used in anger in a successful attack on the Al'Mahrag Docks in northern Dhimar on September 21st, 1941. With only a handful of P-36's defending northern Dhimar, the Do 17K's of the 1st Bomber Regiment roamed virtually unchallenged over northern Dhimar until the arrival of the Republic P-43 Lancers in the Spring of 1942.





For the WW2 and very early post-war period I'll put anything into Parani service and this time it's the 'Flying Pencil' - something I've never built in plastic. Anyway, this was a Croatian skin that I've overpainted with my Parani WW2 roundel and added rudder stripes. It's given me an idea for a Japanese Do 17...

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Yak-15 'Pero' - Soviet Air Force, 1946

The daring theft of a pre-production Jumo 004B axial flow turbojet engine from the Messerschmitt test facility at Leipeim airfield by Soviet spies in June 1943 enabled the Soviet Union to quickly catch-up with this new technology and before the year was out a team at 26 GAZ, headed by Klimov, were producing copies of the Jumo 004B as the RD-10 for a variety of planned Soviet tactical aircraft including a new single-seat jet fighter designed by the Yakovlev OKB. To save time, Yakovlev based the new design on their successful Yak-3 piston-engined fighter with the RD-10 jet engine mounted underneath the forward fuselage with the jet exhaust exiting underneath the centre fuselage protected by a steel heatshield. The wings and tail were largely unchanged and a useful armanent of two 23mm Nudelman-Suranov NS-23 cannon was added to the new nose section. Designated as the Yak-15 the new aircraft made a successful first flight in April 1944.

However, the successful repelling of the Allied invasion by German forces in June 1944 allowed Germany to bolster their eastern front and slow down the Soviet advance to a crawl and especially during the harsh winter of 1944-45. This delay allowed Germany to deploy more and more advanced weapons and whilst the Me-262's remained largely in the west the radical Blohm & Voss P.170 three-engined 'Schnellbomber' was particularly effective on the eastern front. In February, 1945 the Yak-15 entered service with the 437th Fighter Aviation Regiment at Vodogon in the Novgorod Oblast and finally gave the Soviet Air Force the ability to intercept the P.170 nuisance raiders.









I thought I'd try my DIY winter camo on the dinky little Yak-15 'Feather' and did the distressed white layer (actually the silver skin with a 40% white layer to tint it) over a green skin and tried my scruffy red stars and a batch of scuffed-up two-digit yellow code numbers but these are barely noticeable when on the aircraft. The Blohm & Voss P 170 is bonkers isn't it?

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Kawasaki Ki-52 'Hilary' - 110th Sentai, Imperial Japanese Army, 1942


IJA Do-17K.02




I quite like the Do 17 and having never built a kit of it I hadn't realised that it's quite a 'looker'. Anyway, this is a Croatian green and grey skin with overpainted roundels and I've added the real world markings of the 110th Sentai and some generic nose numbers.

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Blackburn Bramley Mk.I - No.10 Squadron, RAF Bomber Command, 1937

Air Ministry Specification B.9/32 issued in 1932 called for a twin-engined day bomber with high performance and unlike many contemporary Air Ministry Specifications there was no restriction on aircraft empty weight. Vickers, Handley Page and Blackburn all responded and all three companies designed distictly different aircraft ranging in weight from the Vickers Type 271 (Wellington) at 18,000lbs empty weight, through to the Handley Page HP.52 (Hampden) at 12,500lbs empty weight and down to the Blackburn B-6 at just 10,000lbs empty weight. Air Ministry officials were critical of the Blackburn design for being deficient in range and payload but conceded that the design had potential and therefore issued Air Ministry Specification B.27/33 for a twin-engined light bomber to cover a production order for 100 Blackburn B-6 aircraft later christened as the Blackburn Bramley.

The development of the Blackburn Bramley moved smoothly during 1934 with no technical issues and on July 14th,1935 the prototype Bramley (K4012) made it's first flight almost a full year ahead of the Vickers Wellington and Handley Page Hampden. Flight-testing was helped by the Bramley being powered by the trouble-free Bristol Perseus nine-cylinder, single-row radial engine. Initially rated at a modest 580 h.p. the Perseus was quickly uprated as improvements were introduced and by 1936 production engines were delivering 810 h.p. which was adequate for the lightly armoured Bramley. Entering service with No.10 Squadron of RAF Bomber Command in May 1937 the Bramley Mk.I's initially wore the same NIVO green as the Handley Page Heyford's they had replaced but later switched to the dark earth and green camo with black undersides as used on Bomber Command's other new aircraft.

By the time of the Munich Crisis in September 1939 four squadrons of Bomber Command were operating the Bramley but by the start of World War 2 the Bramley had passed from front-line service in the UK but would return to service with the RAF in the Middle-East at the end of 1940.













This is the Kawasaki Ki-48 'Lily' with a pretty rough quick and dirty NIVO green skin made by me from the mainly white specular layer. However, the fact that this 3D model has a specular layer allows me to put some shine on the copper on the front of the radial engine cowling. Back in the day, I can remember making the Frog/Novo Whitley and the Airfix Battle and giving them an overall coat of Airfix M3 green and Type B roundels. Happy days!

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Blackburn Bramley Mk.IA - No.106 Squadron, RAF Bomber Command, 1939








I tried a new technique on this to produce this 1939-1940 era Bomber Command skin firmly based on a real world Hampden (from April 1940) three-view found on the interweb and, like you, I find the absence of finflashes quite jarring. I won't go into the details of how I made this skin so quickly but it gives me another option to make skins without doing them from scratch. The demarcation line for the black undersides is a bit wonky on this but it really does have an overall Hampden look about it and I quite like this British 'Lily' that has loads of potential.

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Supermarine Spitfire Mk.I - 113th Squadron, Polish Air Force, 1939









There's a couple of problem areas to touch up but I really like this one. This is the early production Mk.I with the two-bladed Watts propeller and flat canopy - I can remember the Hasegawa kit had options for that. I could have sworn that Poland were one of the many countries that wanted to purchase the Spitfire but they are not on the 'preferred list' of 13 countries listed by the Foreign Office in November 1938.

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Firmly based on a real world PZL P.11C profile which has the thin blue band on the starboard upper wing and 'lo-viz' checkerboards on the lower wings.

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Supermarine Spitfire Mk.I - 113th Squadron, Polish Air Force, 1939

In July 1938 a group of Polish Air Force officers arrived at the Supermarine works for a technical presentation on the Spitfire Type 300 and to watch a series of demonstration flights of the Spitfire flown by Supermarine's chief test pilot Mutt Summers. The Poles left suitably impressed and presented their thoughts directly to a small Parliamentary committee headed by Ignacy Mościcki (the President of the Republic of Poland). With the indigenous PZL.50 Jastrząb fighter still under construction and months away from flying, Mościcki forced through an order for 32 Spitfire Type 300 fighters for delivery during the Spring of 1939. This order was approved by the Air Ministry and a contract between the two governments was finalised on November 18th, 1938.

Starting in May 1939, initial deliveries were made to the 113th Fighter Squadron of the Polish Air Force based near Warsaw and by early August the squadron were fully equipped with 16 Spitfire Mk.I's all with the early flat cockpit canopy and two-bladed Watts propellor. At dawn on September 1st, 1939 the squadron were immediately into action defending Warsaw from Luftwaffe Ju-86 bombers and Bf-109 escort fighters and over the next few days the squadron claimed 15 victories for the loss of 3 Spitfires.







At some point in the future, I'll do a Polish Hurricane and perhaps something American too.

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Fiat G.55 Centauro - 101 Squadron, Israeli Air Force, 1948








I've been planning this one for a few weeks now and I contacted the original 'skinner' over at the DAT site to ask for a skin in the exact same shade of green as the IDF's Avia S-199's. It's a cracker isn't it? All I had to do was add the insignia, rudder stripes and knock-up three-digit numbers but I might reverse the positioning of the fuselage roundel and three-digit number. Perhaps Avia sold some to the Irish Air Corps?