75th Anniversary of 1944 Group Build (World at War)

Almost ready

Some slight weathering was applied

Bottom: Dust/dirt stains behind the wheel wells and horizontal stabilizers . These rough frontline airfields must have been dusty.... Also a couple of small oil leaks

Top: Exhaust fumes stains, cannons/machine guns stains, a little paint chipping and dirt where the crew steps while walking up to the cockpit 

Machine guns on wings and tailgunner's position, gunsight and canopy remaining glass were attached

A final inspection will be made tomorrow before it's released for it's next mission.

Looks great, Zvezda.  

37mm cannons and RS-82 rockets were attached on the plane today.

Had to rush to work, so upper surface pics will be shot at night.

Something I don't think I'd have nerve even to try!  Nice going!

Tonight I invested a little time on the guns.

I didn't want the notorious 37mm cannons of the Shturmovik to be represented by the simple plastic stubs provided by ITA (all of Wehrmacht would be laughing at this GB).

Not having the proper diameter of brass or steel tubing, I decided to drill out the tip of the kit cannons. The result is not perfect, but I hope it will work.

Next I have to figure something out about the machine guns...

I wish you all to be safe and well.

The blue looks good--so does everything else!  Nice work!

In the limited time available due to work, I only managed to make some minor corrections on the camo, install undercarriage and bombs and paint the propeller and hub. The blue was probably ligher but I like it this way so no correction here.

Very effective, Zvezda!  Subtle, but distinctive!  

Once the last gloss coat was dry, I applied some camo weathering with the airbrush.

Very thinned black, light green, grey and white acrylics were sprayed on various panels and panel lines, leading edges, etc.

Best regards & stay safe

Nice work, Steve.  I've always liked the way the Navy colors look.

Check, I got back on the North Carolina and spent several hours adding the spinter shields, ammo boxes and capstans on the deck. Just a few more items to add to the stern then start on the 02 deck 

Excellent recovery!  I hate it when--near the last--the decals cause trouble.  

I was a little over-optimistic about the thick decals.

When the top - after decals - layer of gloss varnish was sprayed, the '24' numerals were simply blown off (literally blown off and gone flying) from both sides of the vertical fin!

One was lost to infinity and one survives to this moment and it's so thick I am afraid it will outlive all of mankind!

After this mishap, some paint corrections were applied to the vertical fin as well as a new gloss coat.

Then I decided to give the machine a different personality. A nice slogan was added to the fin (donation of the 'Red October' Kolchoz), a VVS guards badge (to supplement the Baltic fleet badge at the front), the numerical '10' to the fuselage and as a bonus, 3 enemy aircraft kills depicted under the windscreen (Shturmoviks had surprisingly a lot of - overconfident - Luftwaffe machines shot down in front of their guns or by their tail gunners)

Finally, I took the time to hollow out the exhaust nozzles with a drill bit and a hobby knife

Extremely attractive, Zvezda.  The colors and markings are very attractive and appealing.  

A little update on the Shturmovik

The few provided decals were placed, after a thin coat of Tamiya clear gloss.

Decals were rather thick but robust so no problem encountered.

I wish all the best for all of you.

Those are nice colors, Zvezda, plus a good looking camouflage pattern.  You recovered very well from the paint problem!

I haven't heard of this paint brand before, but being Russian, they're probably not available in the USA.

Little Sturmovik was painted eventually. I experimented with Russian AKAN paints for the first time.

I thinned with the manufacturer's thinner and it was a disaster (heavy clogging after a few seconds, spatter and generally NOT GOOD). Eventually a mix of 70% Gunze acrylic thinner + 30% Isoprop Alcohol made them work quite decently.

On the positive side, the color shades are almost perfect, comparing to what I wanted to achieve while looking at my references, plus they dry very quickly.

This is a typical camo scheme (NKAP#2) for a wooden fuselage 'arrow' in the time and space I have in mind (Baltics, late autumn 1944)

Eric, magnificent ship and very realistic sea base. I also consider aluminum foil a perfect choice, it creates a natural anarchy in texture, that no other material can achieve. I plan to use it on a 1/72 Schnellboot diorama.

Btw Rayon is totally inappropriate for vaping, but looks great for waves.

Thanks, Eric.  I selected one that I thought displayed that dramatic bow wave to best advantage, as well as doing justice to the ship.  Great photography!

Thanks again for your contribution to the GB.  I appreciate your participation.

Outstanding work, Eric.  I particularly like the photo that matches the photo of the real thing.  Very impressive.  Great water work on the "high seas," too; very realistic and dramatic!  She looks set to launch the planes.

Do you have a preference for the finish photo?  

Thanks for taking part in this GB.  Always a pleasure to see your artistry.

1944 GB Finis

1/700 Tamiya USS Bogue: Paints Golden High Flow: Weathering Gamblin oils, Iwata Com.Art.

Base: 1/2" crude styrene: aluminum foil; craft paints, rayon strands, Golden Gloss Medium

!boguesea by Eric Bergerud, on Flickr

!strbdft! by Eric Bergerud, on Flickr

Bogue3 by Eric Bergerud, on Flickr

!portr2 by Eric Bergerud, on Flickr

USS Bogue had one of the most extraordinary records of any warship of any nation in WWII. It was the kind record only a rich country like the US could have achieved. In mid-1943 the RN (with serious help from the Canadian Navy and the USN) had defeated the U-Boats in the North Atlantic. In June 1943 Doenitz withdrew them because the big convoys were growing suicidal to attack. Doenitz, hoping for new boats, decided to pursue what he called "replacement tonnage" strategy. In other words, if you sunk allied ships anywhere, it would put stress on allied merchant shipping. (It didn't - Doentiz never seemed to quite realize the killing blow the US Liberty Ship program had dealt the statistics of the U-Boat War. By the end of the war, the Germans sank 14 million tons of allied shipping - sounds a lot - but it was less than 5% of the tonnage available to the allies in 1945. Doenitz needed modern diesel submarines - but they weren't available, and couldn't have been. So the whole campaign was actually futile from the start. Didn't look so good in London in 1941 though.) The Germans hoped if they stayed out of the major convoys that they'd meet much less opposition, so going after "replacement tonnage" could be done without crushing casualties. It was in mid-1943 that the USN was launching enough escorts and small aircraft carriers to allow the Americans to create "hunter killer" groups of perhaps four DE's, one DD and a CVE. The exact make-up varied. Such groups had been tried by the RN much earlier without CVEs and had been a serious waste of resources. With standard escorts solid in the convoys and radar equipped aircraft flying off the CVEs the story was very different after late 1943. These groups pursued U-boats anywhere in the Atlantic.

Bogue was a glorified Liberty Ship - weighing in at about 10,000 tons ant 500 ft long. 20 aircraft, give or take a couple, would have been the normal air wing. All Atlantic CVEs relied on the TBM Avengers for about 12 planes. There were also 8-10 FM2 fighters (greatly improved Wildcats). SBD's were also employed on other CVEs. The TBMs had radar, bombs, depth charges and rockets. The FM2s had 50 caliber MGs and bombs. If you could hit a sub it didn't take much to sink it. Bogue's group sunk its first U-Boat in May 1943. By the time it went to the Pacific after VE Day, Bogue's planes and/or escorts sank 12 U-Boats and an I-Boat. Bogue was one of several US CVEs in the Atlantic - several Bogues went to the RN. (Interestingly the RN used their CVE's to keep the convoy lanes cleared and didn't often go far afield. So their groups killed fewer U-boats - on the other hand, crossing the North Atlantic by January 1944 was - almost - safe.)

Ultimately the US built 122 CVEs - most were Guadalcanal class ships that were built as dedicated CVEs. Most of the 45 Bogues were larger and more robust than the original. The CVEs were the air arm of the second of the USN's three navies. (We did pour it on the Japanese during WWII.) The first navy was the combat arm based around the fast carriers, fast battleships and a blizzard of destroyers. The second navy was dedicated to land and support invasion forces - and it could be whopping big if the operation was large. These were the old and slow battleships, CVEs, DEs, and a good dose of heavy cruisers and destroyers. (A USN "heavy" cruiser had bigger guns than the "light" cruisers - they were about the same size. The light cruisers were increasingly built as anti-aircraft vessels, so they joined the fast carrier groups. The heavy cruisers and their 8" guns often bombarded islands.)There was a third navy too - scores of oilers, transports and supply ships of all kinds operating perhaps 200 miles from the center of operations ready to resupply the other two navies with everything. Some CVEs served there for aircraft replacement. The supply ships and artificial harbors at places like Manus allowed the USN to operate at sea for unheard of lengths of time after early 1944. Naval ops in 1942 were really like a series of extended raids. After the battles off Saipan in June 1944 the USN had actual and total naval superiority in the Pacific. Today's USA couldn't possibly do that kind thing without a decade to prepare.

Back to my 8" Bogue. In past posts I've described the build. What I did here was to build some planes and make a sea base. Trumpeter makes 1/700 aircraft and sells them cheap - the Tamiya's kit came with Hellcats and badly formed Avengers. The Trumpeter planes were molded in clear plastic, so, if you look really close, you can see clear canopies. Little planes and very little parts - I did deal with too many fiddly things in this build.

Interest in sea bases has grown greatly in the past few years among ship modelers and a good one today is really impressive. Check out the splendid tutorials on YouTube done by Chris Floodberg who is one of the best ship modelers on planet earth. This is my third neo-Floodberg base, but I did things a little differently. If you subscribe to FineScale track down the April 2016 edition and check Floodberg's cover article. If you're willing to follow the bouncing ball, you'll get a great base. I cut some corners. I used 1/2" standard white styrofoam and lit a camper butane lighter underneath it and carefully created undulations across both the sea but also the divergent waves coming from the ship. Crude white styrofoam leaves a very rough surface so I gave it a good sanding. I covered it with aluminum foil - Floodberg recommends paper towel - but looking at it, I like the crinkly effect. You have to trace out a place for the ship. I also glued the foam to PVC board to straighten it out. Then I painted the thing with good craft paints. I airbrushed some lighter colors along the ship to emulate the different colors caused by churning water. For waves I used rayon threads - it's much better than cotton. (I don't know what vaping is really, but vapers do use long strings or rayon which is available on eBay - one batch will last a lifetime. You glue the rayon strands in with gloss medium. When happy, give the thing several coats of a good quality Gloss Medium - I used Golden, although I'm sure Liquitex would work okay.

This has been a good Group Build. Hope to see some of you in the 1945 edition. More Bogue pics below.

Eric

!pt-ft by Eric Bergerud, on Flickr

!reardet by Eric Bergerud, on Flickr

!strbd by Eric Bergerud, on Flickr

!strbd-r!! by Eric Bergerud, on Flickr

!top by Eric Bergerud, on Flickr

!bowdet by Eric Bergerud, on Flickr

!port!! by Eric Bergerud, on Flickr

Good-looking work, Zvezda.  Some fancy masking of the cockpit!  

Some more pics of the assembly and sanding.

Parts of the canopy and the cockpit were masked off.

Kit's almost ready to begin with painting.

The various small parts were also assembled and prepared for paint.

Only bad thing is that I am so Sloowww...

Eric very impressive indeed. I like the weathered look.

Very impressive and realistic, Eric.  She looks like she's been at sea for a while.  

I hear you about hand and eyes.  Every additional year makes things a little harder.  Not ready to give up yet; hope you won't either.

I was interested in your take on Navy Blue and Deck Blue.  I usually use Colorcoats, and have them from both WEM and Sovereign.  Comparing them, the old WEM Deck Blue seemed greyer and less blue than Sovereign's take.  When I used them on USS Iowa, they seemed closer than they used to; could hardly tell them apart.

Then again, it might be the aging eyes!    

Bogue is almost in port.

The kit itself is done. I was asking myself before this build whether this would be my last ship? My hand/eye isn't getting better and ships mean very small parts, PE and rigging. Things actually worked out okay - I didn't use all of the mini PE but the radars/masts above the bridge actually went together pretty well. And the rigging - there isn't much on a carrier - worked out ok. (I checked out Bogue builds on the very expert Model Warship site and several weren't rigged at all.) So I'd say I could build another ship - except for one hitch. I've never dropped a whole model in my life. I dropped Bogue twice - and it did damage the bridge PE. I was able to kind of fix it - and it still looks far better than the very klutzy plastic radars/masts that come with the kit. But the PE on the bridge is a little akimbo - you can bet I'll hide that with the camera. The trouble with good PE is that it is, by definition pretty fragile. Trying to realign bent PE in place (removing it would not have been a good idea at all) is never perfect. We'll live with it.

I described the colors I mixed for the ship. Navy Blue and Deck Blue are actually pretty close - but Deck Blue should be just a tad darker and a slightly different hue. I did make my colors a little more distinct than I should, but I didn't want them to look the same. (Should add that I gave the kit some filters including two coats of napthol red and platho blue mixed - which created a lovely purple. Also as noted earlier, all of the colors on this ship are actually purple blue - but I sure didn't want to over do that. The filters gave a subtle push in the right direction and I'm pleased with the basic colors.) Both were very heavily weathered - as the photo record clearly shows is accurate. But they're weathered differently. I used a lot of oils everywhere (reinforced sometimes with my Iwata Com.Art). I wanted to give a blotchy effect which I think is 100% accurate for a busy WWII warship. The salt wages war against the vessel and there's a lot of painting going on here and there more or less all the time. But the ship would only get a "factory paint job" if in for a visit to the drydock. The blackbasing with the primer was a good start. I also did a lot of fading here and there along with streaking (also most evident in photos). A dot of white oil worked into a small area gives a nice blotchy fade that sits next to a darker bit.

Starbd by Eric Bergerud, on Flickr

The deck got a heavy weather. I've seen color photos of carrier decks where the Deck Blue paint clearly shows wood peeking out. So the deck got a proper salt fade for ultra blotch. I also gave it several blotches of oil fading and a lot of wood colored chipping along with umber/black wash. I'd like to have a little more wood visible, but this is okay.

deckdet by Eric Bergerud, on Flickr

lft-ft by Eric Bergerud, on Flickr

And just for kicks the Bogue build encouraged me to make a couple of repairs to an Accurate Miniatures TBF that I did a few years back. Terrific kit, although all AM models have a sting in the tail somewhere. As you can see, I painted it in Atlantic colors - and that got me interested in Bogue and her pals in the lethal hunter/killer groups unleashed against the U-Boats in late 43.

BogueTBF by Eric Bergerud, on Flickr

Not done yet though. I have to put together some aircraft. (I could leave them off, I've seen many photos with clear decks - I'd guess the planes were on the hangar deck.) More to the point I need to construct a small water base. Doing a water base is a hard core 8th grade art project, and I enjoy those.

Eric

You've sure put in a lot of work, Zvezda; but it looks like it's going well.  Nice job constructing it!

Excellent, AA.  Weathering adds the final touch.  Very realistic appearance.

I cropped the photo a little, to bring it up closer and show off the deatail.  Finish photo is up for viewing on the front page.

Thanks for being part of the GB.  It was a pleasure having you join in.  

Some quick update on the build.

Basically I assembled the wings and after a lot of test fitting, I attached them to the fuselage. Same sequence was repeated for the engine cowling. From there, I started a marathon of sanding, filling of gaps with melted sprue and sanding again. Seams are checked with markers at various intervals.

Landing gear wells interior details were added from Eduard's PE set and then the landing gear housings were attached. Voila, some new gaps to fill.

All required rescribing will be done after filling/sanding and the final shaping of the kit's geometry are completed. 

And sanding, eee.... I mean the build goes on.