Battle of Midway Aircraft Group Build

QUOTE: Originally posted by pmm736 I think I'd like to try one of the Accurate Miniatures kits (either the Midway Dauntless or Vindicator) from what I can tell - with my limited aircraft experience, they look like nice kits. Has anyone had experience with them? Any word on when the Vindicator is due out? I see someone's already doing a Dauntless, so if the wait time isn't too long, I'll try the Vindicator.

Pete, I've only built the SBD series from Accurate Mini's... and have heard similar things about the other kits... the kit offers exquisite detail for an OOB build, in fact I really don't recommend anything other than an Ultracast seat if they are available for the Dauntless. Really easy to mate the seams with little or no gaps even at the wing roots. I really recommend it for anyone but total beginners. moderate to decently skilled modelers would be able to get it together no prob. Interesting thing about the kit, it offers markings for ALL 16 Dauntlesses on the island during the battle. So even if someone else is modeling it you could still do one. In fact you can model it many different ways to make yours unique. No flaps/brakes, landing flaps only, full dive brakes open. Canopy open, only pilots hood open (with a small bit of cutting) canopy closed etc.. etc.. etc.. so you could personalize it. Hmmm I didn't sound too partial tot he SBD did I????

Another recommendation for a good kit is the Tamiya F4F Wildcat... good detail, goes together with no gaps in the one I built... nice looking kit indeed! A little something on the interior would work good if you are so inclined, otherwise once you close it up you can't see a thing if you like OOB stuff more.

Good luck!

Jay - another idea would be to make an A6M2 Model 21 and display it side by side with the Devastator.... the Devastators main natural enemy... But I like the Kate idea thing too... might be neat to do an F4F side by side with the Zero and the Kate and Devestator on a different part of the table or shelf...

hmmm I feel a new GB forming.. "Predator and Prey" ... would be kinda neat.. maybe in 2007 we could start it!

---edit---

forgot to respond to your A6M2 thing.. Tamiya makes one in 1/48 as does Hasegawa, I have the Tamiya one in my stash but haven't built it. I've heard other people say its good tough. If you are into interior detail you might wanna go aftermarket on this as it looks a bit sparse from what I see on the sprues...

Tom, Thanks for the quickie reviews. I think I'll try the Dauntless. I've always been partial to that plane. Plus it's nice to have all the leg work as far as markings, etc. done for you. Not that I'm averse to doing the necessary research and get the right ones, but who has the time? One other question. What colors would I need for the proper paint job. I normally use Model Master enamels. Thanks, Pete

exterior all you would need are MM Navy Blue Gray and MM Light Gray,

interior needs zinc chromate, some sort of interior tan for the control stick boots, aluminum or steel for various bits...

other than that is is all just primary colors for modeling aircraft.. flat black, yellow for the propeller tips etc. red for some switches and levers in the cockpit.

If you read the directions it should be fairly straight forward. And you've got 2 or 3 of us in here that have built multiple AM SBD's so if you come on a tough spot feel free to ask before you glue! There's one or two places it took several dry fits to figure out what they meant in the pictures haha...

Good luck!

Tom Don't forget to add the TBF's of VT-8 to your list of aircraft. They were brand new and had just arrived on midway island.

Regarding the scheme's, Your are correct in saying that the red dots on the insignias still showed after being painted over. They often showed up as light pink dots. Some decal companies even think to show this on their decals. The squadron codes were also painted over to prevent the japs getting too much info on the aircraft.

Wow-- first to respond and I don't even get on the list

OK-- I will be building Dick Best's Dauntless....I am not sure yet if he flew the -2 or the -3....I am in the midst of Tillman's "The Dauntless Dive Bomber of WWII" so I will read through the Midway chapter and figure it out. Since the end date is open, I will also be building an Avenger-- in Ballard's book on the search for Yorktown, they had some vets on board while they were doing the search. One, Harry Ferrier, was a tunnel gunner in the only Avenger that made it back...I will try to recreate the crash scene from the picture in the National geographic book on the Yorktown search.

btw... here is a painting of Marauders on the attack at Midway-- I believe it was Keyworth who originally sent me this although I have no idea where from....I will leave it up for a couple days for anyone who wants to check it out...

Ack!!!!!!!! My first day as GB leader and I screw up! Sorry Jeeves hahaha... Oh well, I thought I was being efficient and putting it all in notepad as I read the posts... hmmm I smell a coup forming... armed takeover is sure to come! as a deposed leader I can flee to South America I guess...


Sounds good! I need to check out that book on the SBD, where did you order it?

Well I am pondering doing one of the SBD-2's from VMSB-241 as well. I guess we need to pick our plane numbers so we don't overlap. hmm.. I bet we have enough SBD lovers to model the entire 16 aircraft detachment on the island!!!

I am saving my F4F model for the North Africa build (British Martlet Mk.III flying out of Egypt) so dont know what else I will build...

QUOTE: Originally posted by pingtang Tom Regarding the scheme's, Your are correct in saying that the red dots on the insignias still showed after being painted over. They often showed up as light pink dots. Some decal companies even think to show this on their decals. The squadron codes were also painted over to prevent the japs getting too much info on the aircraft.

Daniel - the AM Dauntless kit gets 10 points on all of these areas... the decals show the pinkish dots, they recommend using a shade lighter paint over where the squadron number would go (also it was the former USN squadron number on the plane so they had to paint it over in this case) and the rudder decals reflect a darker and lighter layer of paint beneath the blue/gray. because of the red white previously on there it looked more lighter blue, almost gray darker color... a lot of work went into making that kit and in the research!

I'll start doing some research today to find a scheme to do my SBD-3 in. I might look at doing one from the Yorktown or Enterprise.

Tom I agree with you on those AM kits. They are the best researched kits I have ever built. Even the A-36 Apache I built last year showed those sort of details (the insignia's had darker blue outlines because the real aircraft had their red outlines painted over. And because the rest of the insignia was faded, the new paint was darker). I'm always impressed by the amount of research tahat goes into their kits.

OK Boys i've just ordered the Accurate minatures Grumman Avenger but it won't be here for another 3 weeks, gotta wait for it to come from the States.....
As Daniel mentioned only 6 Avengers saw action at Midway and 5 were lost so i'll be building the sole survivor which was crewed by Earnest, Farrier and Manning.....

Jules, I ran across a site with an account from one of the surviors today... I;ll see if I can find it and post the link...

OK-- I can be a bit more specific since I found the materials that were sent to me by one of the armorers (sp?) that served on the Enterprise during the battle. I will be modeling an Enterprise SBD-3 from VB-6-- Squadron Commander Richard H. Best's aircraft-- 6-B-1 BuNo 4687.

Tom-- I was fortunate to get a nice chunk of $ for Christmas so I bought up a few AM Dauntless kits-- so I'll be able now to model all variants....

J.S.... I see you are interested in the Avenger-- if you can find it, the Robert D. Ballard book "Return to Midway" has some great images of that specific Avenger. While I have decided not to build it for this GB, I still plan on doing one of every USN plane that served in the Battle and will eventually build this one.

Here are a couple good links:

http://www.lodinet.com/rruss/midway/
http://www.microworks.net/pacific/battles/midway.htm

More on the Marauders:
http://www.redraiders22bg.com/stories/b_26_midway.html

And for you J.S.
http://www.olympicflightmuseum.com/images/tbf1midway.jpg

Tom-- I bought the book a couple years ago at Barnes and Noble--I am in my third read through of it The ISBN is 0-87021-569-8 and the author is Barrett Tillman. If you like the SBD (and I know you do)- it is one of the best reads out there-- between it and the Detail and Scale book, they are my bibles!

Jeeves thanks for the link I do have that Robert Ballard Midway book and the National Geographic documentary on Midway as well, i noticed the pic in your sig is in the same book, another good Ballard book is the Lost Fleet Of Guadalcanal and the Search for the Bismark......

Yup-- it is one of my favorite Dauntless prints-- done by Stan Stokes...it's called- "Midway- The Turning Point". My wife was good enough to buy me one of the actual prints for Christmas- still need to get it framed.

Bump

Tom, O.K., I ordered the AM Midway SBD2 today, along with the paints you recommended. I took a guess that the light gray you mentioned was MM #2038(there were two light grays listed), if not I can always get the other one. Should have it in a couple of weeks and will attempt to fit it in amongst the multitude of other builds I have compulsively joined.

OK- a little OT here, but not really. I plan on using my AM SBD-3 for this Midway build...and so I am thinking of using my AM SBD-2 to do up a Coral Sea Dauntless from the Yorktown. What I am wondering-- I imagine the Coral Sea markings for the SBD-3 are inaccurate for a dash 2...so does anyone know of any sites that would have some good references of Coral Sea SBD-2s? Or even something on the Yorktown Dauntlesses....I found a great site on the Enterprise with some great stuff on all the various squadrons...but have been unable to find something similar for the Yorktown CV-5....

Here is the big E site-- http://www.cv6.org/company/airgroups.htm

Pete, the color I used was 1732, a bit darker than the color you got... you could either darken it just a tad with black, or if you really felt like it order the other color. The 2038 is a semi gloss but that's ok because you will dull coat it anyway so no biggie if you want to try to match the shade, the actual color is on www.squadron.com, do a search under paints and thinners, manufacturer Testors of USA, just type in gray int he search box and the first page will have 1732, the next will have 2038 so you can compare... the actual paint dries a bit lighter than the swatch on squadron shows so if you decide to darken dont go that dark.


Good luck!

ok I decided since we only have one possible for a Japanese plane I will build the Tamiya A6M2 Model 21 in my stash. I will have to research units as I have both the kit decals and a Super Scale set of Zero decals mostly from the groups that were over Pearl Harbor Dec 7th.. but as these were the same carriers then it should still be ok... will have to look into it.

Tom, you can take away the question mark from my name and put me down as a definite starter with a Tamiya 1/48 F4F-4 Wildcat from VF-3 flying off the Yorktown.

Thanks
Darren

QUOTE: Originally posted by tho9900 Pete, the color I used was 1732, a bit darker than the color you got... you could either darken it just a tad with black, or if you really felt like it order the other color. The 2038 is a semi gloss but that's ok because you will dull coat it anyway so no biggie if you want to try to match the shade, the actual color is on www.squadron.com, do a search under paints and thinners, manufacturer Testors of USA, just type in gray int he search box and the first page will have 1732, the next will have 2038 so you can compare... the actual paint dries a bit lighter than the swatch on squadron shows so if you decide to darken dont go that dark. Good luck!

That figures, Oh well. No biggie. Great Models doesn't have the Zinc Chromate in stock anyway, so I needed to make a trip to the LHS regardless.

you ought to try www.squadron.com Pete... they dont have the huge selection greatmodels does, but if it shows up on their site it is in stock and out to you in about a week... prices vary back and before between them and greatmodels... but I use them both and just compare the savings before I decide which one I use... I buy all my MM paints from them and it's always like 3 or 4 days until delivery...

QUOTE: Originally posted by darson Tom, you can take away the question mark from my name and put me down as a definite starter with a Tamiya 1/48 F4F-4 Wildcat from VF-3 flying off the Yorktown.

Great Darren! I think you will enjy the kit... I do recommend at the least the Ultracast seat and probably the ultracast prop as well... otherwise the exterior is just fine. In fact I think you'll like the way the landing gear go together... looks good with all the rods and supports and such. If you need more decals I still have the set from mine!

I've used them in the past and I actually did check there to see the paint colors. I just happened to have an order pending with GM, so I added this stuff on to save the shipping. I should have known though, because the light gray I ordered was on sale, and that never happens!!
OK, went back and ordered the right gray (and asked them to take the other one off- they're pretty good that way)as well as the Ultracast seat (they had 2 - I ordered the one they said was for early war - I assume this was the right one).

QUOTE: OK- a little OT here, but not really. I plan on using my AM SBD-3 for this Midway build...and so I am thinking of using my AM SBD-2 to do up a Coral Sea Dauntless from the Yorktown. What I am wondering-- I imagine the Coral Sea markings for the SBD-3 are inaccurate for a dash 2...so does anyone know of any sites that would have some good references of Coral Sea SBD-2s? Or even something on the Yorktown Dauntlesses....I found a great site on the Enterprise with some great stuff on all the various squadrons...but have been unable to find something similar for the Yorktown CV-5.... Here is the big E site-- http://www.cv6.org/company/airgroups.htm

Here's a Coral sea SBD-2 for you. All of the aircraft used the red and white rudder stripes with red insignia dots. All you need is to change the fuselage codes to match those on an SBD-2.

Pete - yeah.... that would be it.. that seat will make a big difference as when you close the fuselage... all the BEAUTIFUL detail you put into it will be gone forever... however, that seat sticks out like you wouldnt believe!! but I really encourage you to do it all up on the interior and take a pic before you put it inside... it really feels good knowing how much went into that interior. My recommendation is take it slow with the cockpit area... the rest goes fast enough... actually anticlimactic would be a good word... I think the cockpit is the high point on the model as far as skills....

Thanks Daniel- now if I can only figure out which SBD was flown by John Powers of the Yorktown I will be golden...he wanted to be sure of getting a "hit" on the carrier Shokaku on May 7th and dropped his bomb from a dangerously low altitude-- ended up crashing into the sea but got a vital hit. He was awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously...seems a worthy subject to model...but for now-- on to the Midway Dauntless

I am planning out ahead of time which schemes to do for my stash of Dauntlesses

Jeeves - the SBD I just got with the 50% off sale at Hobbly Lobby is going to be a RNZAF one... seems the Kiwis didn't mind nose art as bad as the USN and USMC did... have a great pic of a stomach running with a bottle of wine in one hand and a martini glass in the other... really feel the need to model this one after doing the Martlet... some of the AC look good in other countries markings.. and kind of unexpected too!!!