instruction decal placement page for AM SBD-3

Be careful with the Midway Dauntless.  SBD-2s flew from Midway Island.  I believe all the carrier aircraft (Yorktown, Enterprise and Hornet) were SBD-3s, modified after Coral Sea in early May of 1942 with dual .30 cal guns and fairly large national insignia with no red ball in the center and no red and white stripes on the rudder.  It looks like you have the correct AM release to do one.  Based on photos of actual aircraft at Midway most of them had insignia that translate into 1 and 1/8 inches diameter for 1/48 scale rather than the 1 inch on all the decal sheets.  I have only been able to find this size in one aftermarket sheet, for an early P-47 (cant remember the sheet mfr.)  The insignia were carried in six positions.  Of course at this time the markings were a sort of mish-mash, with nothing being actually "standard".  I have the AM SBD-3 from Coral Sea, but like I said things changed between then and Midway and the placement guide is probably not accurate for the larger insignia.

This link has some photos that might help:

http://hsfeatures.com/features04/sbd3jv_1.htm

Note that I believe the national insignia are too small on this example.

Hopefully someone else can post the placement guide for your kit.

Two of the world's greatest questions:

Why can you not get after-market 1/48 SBD-3 markings for Midway, one of the most important battles in world history?

and;

Why can you not get a 1/700 or 1/350 OOB CV6 Enterprise, the greatest ship in US Naval history, from the same battle?

It has to be a conspiracy.

Anyway, Good luck.

Someone posted a link a while back that had archived the old am website. I used it and it was still rather functional.  I cant remember the link, so not much help, but maybe someone has it ( havent figured out how to search forums with the ipad yet).  

I tried to find the link with the instruction pdfs with no luck...I was hoping someone might have pulled down the pdfs that were out on the site...and wouldn't mind getting me a copy.  I guess I can take the hasegawa instructions and use them to muddle through  and the previous person was correct it's actually a SBD that was on the Yorktown at the battle of Midway rather than one of the planes actually stationed at Midway.

Did you get a pdf copy of the instructions? If not, let me know and I can look for them using the Wayback Machine for you.  Failing that, I can scan and create a pdf for you :-)  Happy Modeling, Ric

I did in fact another gentleman on here waskind enough to email the pdfs to me.  I am always impressed by people's willingness to help out fellow modelers.  Now if I can do justice to this combination of a hasagawa sbd-3 and the AM decals

Found the link again.... A little late for your project, but might come in handy for someone else.

http://web.archive.org/web/20080621232048/http://www.accurate-miniatures.com/support.shtml