Battle of the Atlantic Feb. 1 to Aug 1, 2006

After doing some research I became intested in American use of the Beaufighter during the war, so was hoping to do a Beaufighter in U.S. scheme.  Unfortunately, it turns out that they were used by several Nightfighter squadrons stationed in the Meditteranean, and therefore weren't used by us in the Atlantic.  Anyway, I really like the gray/green camo, so I'll stick with the way I was originally going to paint it. 

The more I learn about the Beaufighter, the more I love it.  I've also become very interested in their missions.  Those are some brave men flying long, dangerous missions.  I need to find some good books that tell their stories, anyone have any recommendations? 

I'm going to have to get another one and make it up in the camo used at Malta, looks really good!   Are there any decent 1/32 kits available of the Beaufighter to anyones knowledge?

I believe that Revell do a 1/32 Beaufighter Mk.Ic.  I have no idea what the quality is like but that would be one massive kit.

Cheers

darson wrote:

I believe that Revell do a 1/32 Beaufighter Mk.Ic.  I have no idea what the quality is like but that would be one massive kit. Cheers

It would be huge, but man, it would be gorgeous!  I've been really turned off by Revell kits though, I always wind up with ones that have raised panel lines, so I stopped buying them.

Only 2 more days to go!  Can't wait to get started on my Beaufighter!

I received my decals last week to customize my Lanc to my uncles aircraft so I'm ready to go HURRY Wednesday.

Cheers

Bear

superbear wrote:

I received my decals last week to customize my Lanc to my uncles aircraft so I'm ready to go HURRY Wednesday.

Marc, I would be interested in knowing what decals you ordered.  Did you order a sheet of squadron codes?  If so I would like to know which ones and where you got them from for when I get around to building my Lanc.

TIC TOC

The countdown is on!!!

Dave Here is the list of decals I ordered (all from Squadron)

    RAF Letters large Superscale Intl, MS720052

    RAF Serial Numbers & Letters, Tally Ho KPH272004

    Lancaster Nose Art, Zolts ABZ72015

At the squadron web site do a search by manufacturer & lookup the pn's.  I did a part number check and it kept telling me no such number etc yet when I looked up the mfg and scroled down to the number it was there, go figure.

  Now I just have to find out if my uncle flew in an MK I or MK III 429 Sqn used both.  I love the research part.

Cheers

Bear

Dave based on my research (Brian Walkers RCAF serial # site & Greg Kopchuk's 429 Sqn site) 429 Sqn operated MK I & III the MK X's I believe were used by 408 Sqn.  I'll have a look and see who used MK X's.

Cheers

Bear

Well I don't know about you Northern hemisphere guys but my calendar say Feb 1st, so it's time to crack open the Beaufighter

Cheers

darson wrote:

Well I don't know about you Northern hemisphere guys but my calendar say Feb 1st, so it's time to crack open the Beaufighter Cheers

Started a little work on the Strinbag today.  Going to take a while, the interior covers the first 7 steps of the instructions .

Regards,  Rick

Don't know the answer to that one Chris.

Snipped some sprue and then did some research last night on the "O" class destroyers.  The Tamiya kit makes two ships but dspite the fact that it includes the later style 4 inch high angle guns it only has the parts to make the 4 early ships with the 4.7 inch guns.  This is because the later 4 ships of the class removed the single 4 inch AA gun midship and added another bank of torpedo tubes and the Tamiya kit doesn't provide the extra torpedo tubes.  I'm sure I could get them from WEM or somewhere else but I think I'll stick to the earlier 4 ships.  I'll probably do Onslow and Oribi which took part in the Barents sea battle with the German battleship Lutzow, the Admiral Hipper and a number of Z class detroyers.  Six destroyers managed to damage the Hipper and sink a destroyer without loss to themselves or the convoy.  I also thought this would be an easy quick build (this is a Tamiya kit after all) but after researching the paint schemes the single tone scheme in the Tamiya instructions is totally bogus.  The ships all had very complex disruptive patterns and they are going to be a to paint.  Oh well... what would a hobby be without a challenge now and then!

No work yet.  I'll probably start this weekend.  I still have some research to do so I'll start work on assemblys that are common to both models and take it from there.

Cheers

Bear

Panzerwulff, I also found a reference to the K gun here: http://www.warbirdsresourcegroup.org/NARG/catalina.html

It looks like the RAF and probably the RCAF had them with twin guns in the blisters.  Do you have the Squadron/Signal book on the PBY Catalina? Do you know if there are any good pics in there?

This is the pic I found the other day. You can see the drums, but beacuse it is on two levels, I know it  is not a PBY, maybe a Sunderland?

<<EDIT>> yes the pic is from a Sunderland, I found an aircraft website with a very similar pic showing the interior and the caption said it was a view from the tail looking forward.  Sorry to get your hopes up.  I wonder if Dave has seen pics like this before he closed up his sunderland...

Jay, I have not seen that particular picture before but it is from a mk. I and not the mk. III that is the Airfix kit.  The mk.III has a turret rather than the two waist gun positions as shown on this photo.  Anyway, I decided not to dive into scratch building on the Sunderland other than what I already showed you with the floors and bulkheads because frankly I've never done much scratch building before and the Sunderland just seemed way too involved.  (ie: I'm too lazy )

JAY here are a couple of good pics of the Vickers K-gun i thought you might need them for your Canso

I'm searching for a british SAS jeep as they used the K-guns as well if not i will convert the brownings on the catalina

Thanks Panzerwulff.  If you hadn't mentioned it, I would have just gone ahead and built it with the brownings.  I asked at the LHS a while back if there were 1:72 k-guns available in aftermarket, he didn't think so.  Oh well, looks like I'll have to scratch some stuff after all.

What are you going to be doing about the cp?  It is very sparse but at the same time you won't be seeing much through the little windows once you put the canopy on.

Work has begun on the Beaufighter, I hope to have some pictures to post of the cockpit in a couple of days.

Panzerwulff (Chris), if you're really into the detailing have you seen this resource page?  www.pbyrescue.com/ cutaway/cutawaythumbs.htm

Wow, if I had the inclination to try and add all that to my model! (I don't though...)