A10 , done

[darthspud]

Phew, never thought i'd get this one done. It's been on the partial build stash for over a year, but some bad weather and focus and here we go.
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Short back story,

Their Lordships of the Admiralty finally realised that to be a real force the Royal Marines needed some serious  in house/organic fire power. With the abject failure to navalise the Harrier, defence cuts, and for it to carry a decent CAS/ground attack load they were forced to look elsewhere.
The A10, was in the process in the late 80's of being decommissioned by the USAF. With the demise of the Warsaw Pact the A10's based in U.K. were simply purchased 'as is' from a U.K. storage area at the last USAF base in England (RAF Upper Riffington) and handed over to BAe at Warton for light navalisation.
This took the form of a heavy duty arrestor hook, reinforced nose undercarriage.
Their Lordships went further and formed a small cadre of R.M. pilots within 764 Sqn, a nod to the Close Air Support the squadron had given during the Korean War era. 764 was run up at RNAS Yeovilton and remained as a shore based unit until the Third Gulf War in 2021, thereafter they were relocated on board HMS Duke of Edinburgh (a converted LPG super tanker) along with various other organic R.M. Air units.


This is the kit
 
a 1983 kit, lots of flash and some warped bits.
Thanks to H for the Arrestor hook, wrong scale , but it works well here.

[Go4fun]

Troops on the ground should NOT call "Danger close. Just drop EVERYTHING on these guys"! 

[Captain Canada]

Nice ! I love the idea of carrier borne A-10s. And she looks good in those colours as well ! Love the bomb load...too right, get out of the way !

[darthspud]

Bombload is a mix of various Hasegawa sets. Set 1,2,5 &7
Wanted to put some standard 250lb iron bombs on the two mer's on the fuselage, but figured if it's a  navalised a/c it'll need fuel. For the role I envisaged there are 2 x BFO LGB's 2x sml LGB's, cluster bomb, extended fuse 250lb for bunkerbusting, 4 x 250lbs for dumbiron bombing and two EWpods for targetting and jamming.

[NARSES2]

Fleet Air Arm desert pink, nice 

[darthspud]

Royal Marine Air Service please,
kipmats optional

[NARSES2]

Royal Marine Air Service please,
kipmats optional

Sorry sir 

[McColm]

Does look good

[Tophe]

a pink A-10???

[KiwiZac]

Lovely job! Few machines exude "I promise you pain" as much as a laden A-10!

One criticism/question: does it have folding wings? I imagine it would take up a fair bit of space on a carrier!

[Spey_Phantom]

looks great 

[zenrat]

Heh heh heh.  Bonza 

[darthspud]

I did think of putting a wing fold in, but due to the loadout thought it inadvisable.
If i do another i'd put the fold between the two outer pylons, and the outer one would then be a fixed unit not a pylon mounted interchangeable pod/weapon.