New idea for a WHIFF, any thoughts?

[upnorth]

I just picked up the very hard to find Ace 1/72 Grumman AF-2S Guardian "Killer" from the consignment section of my LHS.

The esoteric nature of the Guardian appeals greatly to me, but the overall gloss sea blue of USN aircraft does not. So a thought hit me:

It's my understanding that the Guardian stayed in front line USN service until about 1955 and soldiered on in the reserves until about 1957, this puts it in the time frame for Germany's post war remilitarization.

So, let's say that, for some yet to be thought up reason, the Fairey Gannet was not made available to Germany. As a result, Germany turns to America for it's ASW needs. The S-2 Tracker, which will ultimately become the ASW backbone of the Bundesmarine through the 60s is still a few years off.

My premise is that the Bundesmarine gets surplus USN Guardians from about the mid 50s to the early 60s where they transition to the Tracker.

I would be using the Bundesmarine markings from Revell's Gannet kit for this. I've also picked up a Quickboost engine and Aeroclub prop to replace the rather lacking items in the kit.

As the Guardian is a pretty esoteric bird in it's own right, I see no reason to Whiff beyond a different paint scheme and markings along with a bit of back story.

I don't know a lot about the post war remilitarization of Germany or the politics in play at the time. Hopefully some of you who may know more about it could give me some insight into the plausibility of my proposed scenario.

Thanks in advance.

[Chris707]

No expert on the politics side, but I'd see no reason why Guardians would not have been a reasonable choice - there were nearly 400 of them built, and even given attrition there were probably enough of them to supply. IIRC though, the Germans actually had Atlantiques in the 60s vs Trackers as Gannett replacements. Although that opens up the possibility of WHIFF German S2F :-)

Chris
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P-3 in action review

[JayBee]

As the Guardian is a pretty esoteric bird in it's own right, I see no reason to Whiff beyond a different paint scheme and markings along with a bit of back story.

BOO! HISS! Come on Upnorth, you have got to do at least a little something to change the physical appearance.
The North Sea area can get rather cold, so maybe the engine might benefit from a little less through flow of cooling air, FIT A BIG SPINNER to the prop. Or give it some interesting external weaponry. Or how about making it an early turbo-prop.
OR how about doing ALL OF THOSE! 

But most importantly,


HAVE FUN

JimB

[upnorth]

No expert on the politics side, but I'd see no reason why Guardians would not have been a reasonable choice - there were nearly 400 of them built, and even given attrition there were probably enough of them to supply. IIRC though, the Germans actually had Atlantiques in the 60s vs Trackers as Gannett replacements. Although that opens up the possibility of WHIFF German S2F :-)

Chris

It also opens up the possibility of Germany bypassing the Atlantic altogether. Being the multinational project that it was, certainly it had scope to fail utterly or have at least one partner nation pull out.

So we could see Guardian give way to Tracker in the early 60s and Tracker give way to Orion in about the mid 70s in Bundesmarine service and the Atlantic not be a factor at all.

A story is brewing methinks....

[sideshowbob9]

As a big fan of the AF Guardian, Bundesmarine sounds good to me 

[Weaver]

Sounds like a solid idea to me! 

[upnorth]

Thanks guys, I guess it's a go then. No time line as I'm bussy as hell with work and likely will be until June. (Busiest teaching schedule I've ever had and one bug or another knocking colleagues out gives me plenty of substitiution opportunities. Can't say no to the money!)

Will start on it at the soonest possibility.

JayBee:
I might shoot for some sort of unusual weapons options. However,  I think the nose can stay as is. Other radial engined ASW types that did service in Baltic Europe like the Avenger, Tracker and Neptune didn't have any mods to their cowlings. I don't want to lose the lines of the Guardian.

More importantly I don't want to screw her up totally. God knows when I'll see another Ace Guardian kit.

[JayBee]

God knows when I'll see another Ace Guardian kit.

Never a truer word spoken.

jimB