100 Hour War Scenario 2 - Zepeda misses out again!

I mentioned in Scenario 1 that one Honduran Corsair had a cannon malfunction and had to abort, inadvertently triggering the dogfight. That was Captain Zapeda. A few hours later he and his comrades were back in action, this time against a pair of Salvadoran Corsairs. And just like on the morning sortie, his guns jammed on testing again............

Major Soto pressed on and in the dogfight that followed claimed two more kills both against Corsairs. At some point a pair of Salvadoran F51s appeared. So this is the setup for Scenario 2. I've messed around a bit with history to get it more playable.

The Salvadoran Corsairs begin about two thirds of the way up the table, with the trio of Hondurans behind them. How far is important given I wanted to give the Salvadorans a chance. The Corsairs used by Honduras don't have Great Dive due to their having quad 20mm cannons and the rule restrictions on only 2 Traits, so to put them just out of engagement range there needs to be at least 22" between them. I left Zepeda in the mix but with no guns - he can still help in what can rapidly turn into a 4v2 even if he cant shoot as the opposition don't know this!  The F51s enter after they pass a raw Pilot Skill test at the end of each turn, adding one die for each turn they fail (or tbh when I thought it was a good idea to get them on to keep the players engaged). They don't use High Cover btw - there is no suggestion of any real coordination going on. Everyone dices for initial Advantage when they start, just as part of the explanation process for new \ first time players)

And that was it. We played three times and it seemed to work.

Corsair on Corsair action. Hondurans in blue, El Salvador in green

I'm going off to polish this one as I think it's a good demo. It's also interesting to see the unusual match up. 

side-note - Zepeda's cannons. After these two actions there was some investigation as to why his cannons failed twice when the others didn't. The result was in some ways emblematic of the war in general. Honduras had bought a batch of 20mm ammunition from the UK, presumably on a discount. Why is this a problem? Well the Corsairs used US M3 20mm cannon, which is in theory a copy of the Hispano 20mm used by the British. Problem is the US version had been "re-engineered" (and wasn't quite as good as the Hispano because of these changes but that's another story) and as a result the UK ammunition was about 1mm thicker than the US version. On older worn out guns this made no difference as the wear and tear coincidentally meant the UK rounds mostly worked. It appears Zepeda's guns were still in reasonable condition so jammed when trying to fire the British ammo. This was apparently resolved by the field expedient of clamping 20mm High Explosive Incendiary \ Armour Piercing into a lathe and grinding them down til they fit. Flying is dangerous but the guys who got that job certainly must have had massive "cojones" :-)      

100 Hour War part 4 - Decals and done

Paint done, now for decals!

At this point I should mention the Blue Falcon Hobbies decal Patreon. Steve Toth sends out decals to members once a month and in sheer coincidence last month he did a sheet of Honduran and Salvadoran markings for the 100 Hour War. These were (obviously) perfect for this project and were one of the reasons I thought it would be possible, though I was wincing at the Honduran wing tip and rudder markings.

It only took and hour - part of the speed I realised was the fact I was only painting pairs or threes, and also (to my shame) I was only concentrating on the the things you would see on the table, so left the undersides plain. 

And here they are - all painted and ready for action!

F51 Cavalier Mustangs 

Salvadoran Corsairs

Honduran Corsairs

 

100 Hour War- rule tweaks and scenario 1

 So what was I going to do with the models?

I do have a tendency to try and shoehorn games to fit "official" scenarios. I blame Andy Chambers. The problem here is the historical dogfights of the 100 Hour War were quite a bit smaller than a normal BRS game, so the scenarios wouldn't work. Nor would the "Boom Chit" mechanism, where the squadron breaks when it has more Boom chits than planes. 

So here is what I came up with. I'm not restricted by table size and as all the planes are Speed 9 I have a full 6x4 table to deal with. So far so good. 

Boom Chits wont work as advertised as this is a participation game and I may well have pilots playing single planes rather than Squadrons, so in this case Boom Chits are going to be accumulated on individual planes, and if the total exceeds the Pilot Skill, that plane must immediately disengage. The second change to normal BRS is to allow TWO trait cards per plane not just one - again in case we have players with a single plane so that they all get a reasonable flavour of how Traits work. 

Scenario 1 is the first dogfight. This occurred when three Honduran Corsairs were on a ground attack mission. Just before engaging they tested their guns, and one had an embarrassing total fail on all four 20mm. He was ordered to disengage, and turned for home alone. Shortly afterwards he was spotted by a pair of Salvadorian F51s who dived in. He managed to survive long enough to summon the other pair of his flight, and in the following dogfight one F51 was downed. Putting this into a BRS game was pretty straightforward - the unarmed Corsair starts half way down the table with the pair of F51s 18 inches behind him. He can't shoot and only has the Robust Trait, but as the opposition don't know he is toothless he can do everything other than shoot - including Outmanoeuvre . At the end of each turn he makes a pilot skill check and if successful his supports arrive. Simple. The F51s are both Pilot Skill 2 - this represents the Salvadorian pilots seeming have lacked faith in their Mustangs which they only recently had taken delivery of, apparently preferring their "old faithful" Corsairs. The Hondurans have a Skill 4 (Major Soto) and two Skill 3s, one of which is the guy with jammed guns. 

We played this twice on the games day. The first game the Hondurans arrived in time to save their flight mate and shot down a F51. Incidentally this is pretty much happened historically. The second time something went wrong and an F51 shot down the Honduran Flight Leader! This was something of a surprise to say the least. 

100 Hour War - Part 3 Much and unexpected progress

So after printing the models I decided to put the base coats on, and immediately ran into a problem. I got base coats on the F51s and the Salvadoran Corsairs, and decided the later looked wrong. As it was quite late I decided to pack in for the night - three more hours done. I "resolved" to start the Corsairs again first thing, spraying them a green from one of the rattle cans - that seemed like a plan.

I woke early and needed to get the models from the painting station in the loft to take them to the yard for the rattle can treatment, which would be dry when I got in from work. Except when I got to the loft and looked at them again, I thought, bugger that. This was a quick project and maybe they were close enough. I sat down and got on with the darker green mottle pattern, and it went on quickly and easily. While that was drying I put the dark blue on the Honduran Corsairs, then got some details on all three sets, canopies, engines etc. This all went remarkably smooth and quickly. By the time I had to go to work they were ready for the panel lines.

After a disheartening day at work (shock) I hit the panel lines, tidied everything up and varnished them ready for decals. Two hours down. 81 hours to go........ this was looking easy. Famous last words :-)

 

  

 

100 Hours War Part 2 - 16 hours down 84 to go

So a quick update.

Having decided to commit to trying to complete the whole thing in 100 hours I've made a start. I've spent two hours on some basic research (!) to get the idea what was needed, followed up with another two hours nailing the scenario plans down. I was greatly assisted by Rob Hymer who when I mentioned it, loaned me his copy of THE book on the conflict, which is now OOP. Cheers Rob!

Next step was to get the models printed. I was OK with the Corsairs - Planeprinter has several versions and although none are spot on, there's two that will do. The vanilla P51Ds are again quite easy, Planeprinter has them. The fly in the ointment is the Mustang IIs. For the uninitiated these are P51s that were modernised and configured for Counter Insurgency (COIN) operations. For this they have a slightly higher tail, bigger canopy and wingtip fuel tanks, plus some hardpoints. I reached out to Roger Gerrish who is a Gent and good at the technical stuff and after some discussion he rushed off and added some droptanks to the wings of the P51 stl - its not perfect, and I know he's the sort of bloke who would rather do the job properly, but with the wing tanks they look fine and only rivet counters will know the difference. I suspect he will finish a "proper" model in the near future.

In theory all ten models I will need (6 F4U and 2 each of P51 and F51) will print on one run. Sadly the first attempt failed and I've had to mess around running it again. That's another ten hours gone.

    

100 Hour Challenge

I'm doing a BRS Participation \ Demo game next Saturday 20th July at Pendraken Miniatures in Middlesbrough.

That's the theory anyway. I had intended to do a "Bog Standard" demo with the Midway starter set, but as I was surfing youtube I was struck by a series of coincidences that made me change my mind and try something different. 

To some nations football is important. As an Englishman I'm quite embarrassed that England (men) have won the square root of Bugger All in my lifetime. OK not quite, I was six months old in 1966 but you get the idea. The English supporters anthem "Three Lions on your Shirt" included the line "30 years of hurt, never stopped me dreaming" and that was released in 1996 for the European Championships where we almost made it. They usually release the bloody song every championship but have to change the line. Its probably "58 years of hurt" now. As England are playing in the European Finals tomorrow, football is on my mind.

July 20th 1969 marked the end of the "100 Hour War" between El Salvador and Honduras. It's also known as the "Football War" or "Soccer War" as it started after a series of rather hostile World Cup qualifying matches between the two Nations. Neither side are happy with the football associated name for the conflict as it was about rather more than a footie match and prefer the 100 Hour War - so I'm going with that.

The other interesting fact was that the war involved the last dogfights between piston engine fighters. It really marked the end of the prop fighter era.

So that's the plan - do a BRS Demo \ Participation game based on the 100 Hour War, and to make it spicy, try and do the whole project in under 100 hours. 

"Azul" Squadron for Blood Red Skies - part 2 - Nobody Expects ......................

Making it happen

Err did I mention no one did a G6? PlanePrinter does a G14 as an .stl file, and Warlord do a physical model. To most laymen, like myself, the main visual difference between a G6 and G14 is the revised canopy. PlanePrinter also do a 109F4 with the old style canopy, so I reached out to Roger Gerrish who likes to dabble in this sort of thing, to see if he could graft an old canopy from the F onto the G - and he did (Cheers m8!) and I printed half a dozen. I'm going to paint them as 4th Squadron in winter whitewash colours from the winter of 1943.

The problem is (as explained in part 1) that these basically look like any other Luftwaffe unit. Ah well.

Stage 1 - print the models. Not a problem. I recently purchased a Saturn 2 and it happily chucked out six "Gerrish Special" 109Gs

Stage 2 paint. This is going to be interesting. Spray them white as an undercoat. I wanted to keep them a bit light here as I was hoping to get some way of dealing with the whitewash effect. Underside - blue grey from a Hataka Blue range then paint the yellow spinner and bands - three thin coats of Citadel "Flash Git" yellow to hopefully build up some depth. Canopies - my usual two tone blue, then frames in white. Then whitewash. This is the bothersome bit. I grabbed some Citadel Apothecary White Contrast paint and sort of reverse engineered the whitewash by painting it over all the various panel lines. I was very relaxed about this , allowing the contrast to spill over quite a way from the panel lines. I also used the same Contrast paint on any large areas of white to represent areas where the whitewash was fading and the base colours showing through. After a bit of practice I think this looks ok.

Last painting step will be to tidy up, panel line underneath (I hate that) and add details like exhausts.

Decals. There are no commercially available decals for the Azul (I've petitioned Blue Falcon Hobbies) but as I said by the time 4th Squadron got their Gs they're using standard Luftwaffe markings so I am using decals from the spares box - a mixture of Balkankreuz fron the Warlord generic set and spare numbers from Warlords 190A decal sheet.

White 4

4th Blue Squadron

So there we go. I'm quite interested in getting these on the table as I think the Great Dive \ Great Climb combo is a potent mix. 

Cheers!

 

 

Double Dutch - project for 2024

I've backed a Kickstarter for the KNIL in 28mm. The company is May 1940 Miniatures who make a nice range of Dutch figures for err.... May 1940. They've decided to expand into the troops defending the Dutch East Indies and as Two Fat Lardies are promising a new book centred on the Far East for Chain of Command it seemed like a good idea. The KS wont deliver until summer 2024 so plenty of time to get the rest sorted out. I already have a Dutch force for Chain of Command from May 1940 Miniatures and theyre good quality so I think the new range will be fine. All good.

Except I also did a matching force for Blood Red Skies when I did my 1940 CoC force, so I suppose that means I should do the same for the KNIL. Problem is that means the Brewster Buffalo will be making an appearance. Sigh. Ok it doesn't "need" to be the Brewster 339. Technically the KNIL flew several interesting fighter types such as the Hawk 75 and the CW21 Demon. The former is probably too good, the latter just downright weird but quite interesting. Planeprinter does both so not actually a chore.

Hawk 75s

CW 21

Bombers are going to be easy - they use an export version of the Martin B10, ok it's not exactly a "Tier One" bomber, and it looks a bit strange, though actually by the standards of the time it's not actually bad. OK it is, but beggars cant be choosers. PlanePrinter does two versions of the B10 so it should just be a case of printing three out. 

And that should be the end of my KNIL problems............. except decals. The ongoing issues with my previous decal supplier Miscellaneous Miniatures cause a certain amount of trepidation as p&p from the States is now something in the region of $20 up from something like $5 . Luckily some generic Dutch orange triangles are available from i-94 and Pendraken stock those, so no great problem.

So there's the project - will update on how I get on as and when

Cheers!

Summer Scramble 3 week painting challenge day 8 "Pierdoly"

The Squadron drying in the summer sunshine

 ........which my Polish friend Pawel says means something like annoying embuggerations, but he has a sharp sense of humour so he could just be winding me up.

So where to start?

When I printed the models I just loaded the file on the printer and pressed "print". What I forgot was that some of the early PlanePrinter models had a slightly undersized mounting triangle slot. I usually run the file through Blender and double check, but this time I didn't. When I tried to put them on the stands so I can paint them, err they don't fit. Bugger! Now I must admit this sometimes happens if you don't carefully wash the slot thoroughly before curing, which of course I forgot to do (bugger), so it may also be that.

There are two or three options to fix this. Firstly I could restart, check the file and print again. Don't fancy that plus its a waste of otherwise fine models. Secondly I could try and carve the slots open with a knife. I didn't fancy that either as it could easily result in a damaged model and therefore another print. Luckily there is a third option - the Hawk Widget. Old timers will know all about these, and in fact I did a blog post about them here . I drilled the slot out to take a widget and I'm ready to move on.

At this point I also realised that there is no pilots in there. This isn't a deal breaker as I can pop a blob of greenstuff in there I suppose. A more elegant solution would have been to speak to the talented Roger Gerrish and get him remix the file to add a pilot - he has done this a few times in the past and the result is good, however that would mean getting Roger to do his stuff, then reprint, which I want to avoid so greenstuff it will be. 

Remember I thought the colour was a bit green? This bugged me so I decided to tone it down a bit, overpainting with Vallejo brown violet. I was a bit happier about this, and painted the undersides light blue \ grey. I painted the engine block silver and whacked some more Nuln Oil in there, and painted the tyres in grey. The last colour was a bit of a reach. The Pzl P11 has a Bristol Mercury engine. This has a metallic cover on the front cowl. On the only surviving P11 this is a dull green but I've seen these on other planes in various metallic colours so I went with a bronze colour just to give the model something other than the rather drab brown \ green that is currently dominating. Lastly I painted the windshield in blue. 

So end of Day 8 I've ran into a few unexpected speed bumps and minor problems but I think I've either solved them or have a plan to sort them.

Next, decals.    

3 Week Painting Challenge Day 3 & 4 - models & decals

So having picked up this particular gauntlet I needed to get a start. Luckily the P11 is available from the PlanePrinter Patreon scheme so I can 3d print them. Only problem is the printer has been lying pretty much dormant over spring as I tend to suffer print fails in low temperatures. 

With some trepidation I ran some quick tests and all seemed well 

My Photon Ultra has a small print bed so I can comfortably fit only five models on it, though in the end I settled for only four so I could run it twice and get all the planes I would need. I chanted the rituals, and ran the printer. My incantations seemed to be correct and I now have eight usable models.  

First four just off the printer and ready for a bit of clean up

So clean up then undercoat and hopefully get some progress on paint.

At this point I had a bit of a setback. I had hoped to get some decals for these guys from Miscellaneous Miniatures in the US of A. They've always been my first port of call for decals and they usually are fast and very reasonably priced. However they've had a reorganisation and have changed postal service - which sadly meant that the $5 decal sheet was going to cost rather more than that to ship to me in the UK - full disclosure, I was thinking of bulk ordering twelve sheets, so $60, but the postage was quoted as $63 which was not really viable :-(

Step forward Pendraken Miniatures. I had to visit the shop to do some checks for the event anyway, so I drove through and picked up some Polish decals from the I-94 Enterprises range that they carry. The I94E range is a bit of a curates egg for me. They're not specifically designed for 1:200 scale - in fact they seem to be in any scale but 1:200, but they have a very wide range and there's usually something in there that will do. Sadly they don't do individual unit markings and numbers like Misc Minis, but beggars cant be choosers.    

The range can be viewed here https://www.pendraken.co.uk/i-94 and I suspect until the "decal drought" can be fixed theyre going to be getting a lot of business from UK based players.

So still on track - paint next

Seems like a good idea - 3 week painting challenge for Blood Red Skies Part 1 (theory)

I'm running a Blood Red Skies event at Pendraken Miniatures on 25th June themed around the Blitzkrieg period. I have plenty of painted Squadron options available, but it seems like a good excuse to paint something new. 

I always wanted to do a Polish Squadron. Technically I already have a Polish Squadron but that's late war in RAF service (Spitfire IXs). One option would be the Caudron C714 which the Poles in exile flew for a short while in 1940 with the French, but that is probably the worse fighter plane in BRS (really) and although there may be some appearing in the future, not now.

That leaves the redoubtable PZL P11. It was the standard fighter of the Polish Airforce in 1939, and a bit odd. If you have not seen it , it is a high wing monoplane with an open cockpit and gull wings (cranked, like an inverted Stuka) with a fixed undercarriage.

Though it looks a bit strange, and admittedly it was a bit of a dead end design wise, the Poles had thought quite a bit about it when they designed it and it has some "interesting" features - such as the guns (four of them) being harmonised (focussed) in pairs at different points. I don't know why they did that, but err they did. Some of the other features are more easily explained. That gull wing was designed to improve visibility both forward and down, and the fixed undercarriage gave it an excellent rough strip capability.

Enough of the historical musings. If I am going to use these for Summer Scramble I will need to get eight ready in three weeks - eight because the PZL is quite cheap due to it being slow and not exactly hard hitting. Not too hard a challenge (?) 

We shall see - wish me luck!

 

“What-a-mistaka-to-maka” as Capitano Alberto Bertorelli from Allo Allo may say. Thinking about Italians for Blood Red Skies

My Blood Red Skies collection is a bit eclectic. I have RAF, RAAF, Fleet Air Arm, IJN, IJA, Soviets, Luftwaffe, Finns, Dutch and even a few US Squadrons. 

I have been waiting around for Warlord to release Italians for well over a year, actually closer to two years. We’ve seen the model masters, I’ve even seen the box art, but the actual production models – nope. I have no idea why this is. Warlord have in the same time period released a totally revamped Italian range for Bolt Action, and Italian ships for Victory at Sea. Surely it makes sense to release the Blood Red Skies Italians at the same time to tie it all in???

Apparently not

So waiting patiently. Except I think I’ve had enough of that. If Warlord are happy to sit on models and not support the game then I think I’m justified in looking and spending my hobby £££ elsewhere. Here is my plan.

As always, I like to collect matched fighter and bomber Squadrons, and probably early, mid and late war options. So what do I go for?

Early -with some trepidation I think either a biplane Squadron of CR42s or FIAT G50s and some FIAT Br20s may be an idea. These have the advantage of being deployed against the RAF during the Battle of Britain by the Corpo Aereo Italiano (CAI). The trepidation about the CR42s is my previous experience with biplanes is they’re fiddly to paint and (IMHO) they’re not that good in game

Mid War – Macchi 200 or 202s and Ju87s are nice options and would theme well as Malta or Western Desert.

Late War – one of the Serie 5 types, not sure it matters which as they’re all excellent C205, G55 or Re 2005 like I say they’re all bloody great, and Sm79s as bombers – ok this last is a bit mixed as the Sm79 fought all the way through but there were no really late war bomber planes available. I’d like a Re2001 in there, and just for giggles a Breda 65, which has to be one of the worse warplanes in history, but that would probably be a bit too far.

So where are these models coming from? Six Squadrons or thirty models in total. I’d like to support Warlord by buying their products, but if they don’t offer them and have sat on them for literally years with no suggestion they’re ever going to release them and don’t seem interested I’ll 3d print them, or get them from Armaments in Miniature. If Warlord ever get around to releasing their models, well sadly that boat will have sailed.

Any thoughts?

Guadalcanal Diary Part Four - Spotty Zeros

A slightly blurry pic of the A6M3s - 

The first quartet of Planeprinter A6M3 Zeros were in plain grey and painted up quickly enough. Tamiya paint and panel liner, plus the usual canopy. 

The second set of A6M3s I decided to try and copy the hastily applied camouflage they were sometimes seen in. Basically the ground crew were given a tin of green paint and a yard brush and told to get stuck in.  I thought the best way to try and replicate the washed out \ faded look was with either a sponge or cotton bud (Q Tip to our Cousins) over the same Tamiya grey - I went with the cotton bud. I'm not 100% happy with the result but it looks OK to me from "table distance".

Decals are from MiscMinis as usual. They include tail stripes but the pics I found didn't always have them and as the decals are designed to fit Armaments in Miniature models I decided to swerve them - both models are a nominal 1:200 but that doesn't mean they're exactly the same and wrapping decals around the fuselage is not a lot of fun.

Quick history bit.

The A6M3 was an attempt to improve on the superlative A6M2 that was sweeping all before it. the Imperial Japanese Navy may well have been suffering from "Victory Disease" but even they were noticing the Zero had some problems, particularly in a dive where controls rapidly became heavy. They asked Mitsubishi to work on an improved version to address this, and got the A6M3 with a new engine, more ammo for the 20mms and clipped wings which resulted in a (slightly) faster plane with better dive characteristics. It was a case of "be careful what you wish for" because the new Zero was not well received. The new engine was longer than the old one, so to get it in to the already tight A6M fuselage meant some changes, in this case losing some fuel capacity and therefore range. The changes also messed about with the centre of gravity a bit, leading to slightly less impressive handling. These changes hit at exactly the wrong time. The IJN was committing to the Guadalcanal campaign and was using A6M2s to escort G4M1 Bombers from Rabaul to the target at Henderson Field and the ships around Guadalcanal. This was a gruelling trip for the fighters, sometimes five hours each way, but the phenomenal range of the A6M2 made it possible, even though the pilots must have been tired even before they reached the target area. The new A6M3 just didn't have the range of the A6M2 so could not  escort the bombers all the way. To counter this, and make the trip less gruelling the Japanese establishing bases closer to the island such as at Buin on Bougainville Island. Operating from here, the A6M3s could cover the cover the bombers, and it would also provide a useful staging post for damaged aircraft on the return trip. Sadly this was also within range of the Cactus Airforce operating from Henderson Field, and the bases were regularly pounded both during construction and operations, leading to high attrition rates for the fighters based there. The IJN was forced to commit scarce fighter strength to defend airfields that were only there to allow fighters to operate further forward, putting their already limited numbers of fighters under even more strain. Guadalcanal was exactly the wrong battle for the Japanese, who were looking for a knock out blow, but found themselves in a meat grinder battle of attrition they could not win.

Guadalcanal Diary Part Three - (Bam Balam!)

OK I'm struggling with the title - been a long day :-)

In addition to the fighters, to do the heavy lifting, I'm going to need some bombers. The Mitsubishi G4M1 Type 1 Naval Attack Bomber, commonly known by it's Allied reporting name as the"Betty" is the logical choice. Entering service in 1941 as a replacement for the G3M "Nell", it was in almost all ways but one a superlative aircraft. The G4M had exceptional range, good speed and bombload, and good (for the time) defensive weapons. The only problem was to achieve that superlative range and other positive features the design sacrificed protection. Not to put too fine a point on it, but they did have a worrying tendency to burn if hit. When used as a high level bomber the speed and range of the G4M meant it could be hard to intercept. They could also be converted to carry torpedoes as well as bombs, and some squadrons were specially trained to do so with the aim of contributing to the IJN's Kantai Kessen (Decisive Battle) doctrine, where they would wear the strength of the US fleet down by long range air attacks before the two battle lines would meet. 

The Betty was the workhorse of the Imperial Japanese Navy's land based bomber force (fleet?) in WW2. Notable points were the sinking of HMS Prince of Wales and Repulse, and the assassination (is that the right phrase??) of Admiral Yamamoto. Their long range meant they could bomb targets as far afield as China and Australia. The Betty was ubiquitous, wherever the IJN went, there was the G4M.

The G4M was a big bird, more akin to a Wellington or Mitchell in size and role than a Ju88 or Blenheim (for instance) and it has a distinctly portly appearance - the Japanese pilots nicknamed it "The Cigar" as a result of it's shape, though how much the flammability issue contributed is an interesting thought. The Allies were much more straight and to the point, calling them "The Flying Zippo". 

In many ways the Betty mirrored the Zero in design, with protection being sacrificed to achieve excellence in other areas (range in both cases). That analogy continues to the crews, who were honed to a very high standard of capability, but who could not be replaced easily when lost. At Guadalcanal, this became horribly apparent as squadrons were almost annihilated by Wildcats and AA in long range strikes against the US invasion fleet at Lunga Point. Some squadrons lost 75% of their combat strength and received no replacements.

Throughout the war the IJN tried to update the design, adding more defensive weapons and even some protection such as rudimentary self sealing fuel tanks, however the weakness was baked in to the design and even at the end, the Betty had a well earned reputation as a flying torch. The Betty ended it's career and the war as a launch platform for the Oka suicide rocket plane. 

In Blood Red Skies the Betty is a good medium bomber. Speed 6 is commendably nippy for such a big plane, and defensive firepower is adequate - FP1 all round with a bonus +1 in the rear arc due to the 20mm cannon in the tail . On the down side it is rated as Vulnerable,  so enemies firing at it get an extra attack dice, and it can't dodge incoming attacks with Agility 0. The FP 1 rating is ok but can be deceptive if you are facing Robust enemies such as Wildcats which can negate your FP.  

My models are from PlanePrinter - printed by Paul D for me on his machine as mine struggles a bit to deal with something this big. The base colour is Tamiya IJN Green, which I'm convinced is a bit too dark for 1:200, but too late now...............Decals from Misc Minis.

So, which way to Henderson Field?

What can you get for the price of a pint of milk nowadays? How abought a F4U Chance-Vought Corsair?

It has been a strange day at work - hanging around twiddling thumbs waiting to get a call out. In the meantime I decided to work out how much it cost to print a 1:200 scale model for Blood Red Skies*.

The answer is 52p in resin and electricity. About 12p of that is the supports which are discarded once the print is done. I'm printing the models in pairs which so far has meant no fails, but it does take longer to get a "squadron" of six printed - nearly seven hours a pair. I've printed in larger batches before, up to six at a time with smaller models (no Chance with the Corsair - geddit!), but that seems to lead to a higher change of a failed print, and I'm in no rush.

Just out of the printer

The file I'm using is from Roman Troyan's "Plane Printer" Patreon scheme - link below. This costs $7 a month. In the last month he released eleven models, though to be fair this is exceptional and normally it would be something like one or two a fortnight or so. You have to take pot luck here as he releases stuff on a whim - some of the releases this month are a Fw190A and a Nieuport Delange NiD-52 (I had to Google it!).

You still need to do some work on the file, add supports and check the mounting slot is ok. This can take a couple of tries to get it correct - or get someone else to do it if you don't have the "skilz". Then you need to clean up the model before painting, but that part at least is not much different to any other model. 

Ready for clean up

Obviously the printer, wash and cure station, isopropyl alcohol to clean up, gloves and the like, my time etc isn't factored in. Nor is the inconvenience (and smell).

3d printing isn't for everyone, and will never be. Overall it is still a bit hit and miss, but I have to say it is revolutionising the way I think of my hobby.

Link to Plane Printer


* Other WW2 dogfight games exist, they're just not as good.

Stupidity and persistence have a power all of their own. Update on Brewster Buffalo in Blood Red Skies

As regular readers may know, I am preternaturally indisposed towards the Brewster Buffalo, and said it, quite a bit. Also here https://twtrb.blogspot.com/2019/04/brewster-buffalo-in-blood-red-skies.html

It is therefore with some reluctance I have to admit defeat. In the two and a half years since that Blog post the "Community" have done their best to harry producers to the extent that ALL the Buffalo versions are now available in one form or another. Put that into context, only three or four Bf109 marks are readily available, with a production run of a dozen or so short of 34,000, but the Buffalo, which topped off around 500?? 

US F2A2\3

RocWorks , PlanePrinter, Armaments in Miniature

British Buffalo Mk I

RocWorks , Armaments in Miniature, 

Dutch B339c\d 

PlanePrinter

Finnish B239

RocWorks , Armaments in Miniature

Actually I love this. It shows that third party producers can see a demand and are prepared to fill it, even when large sales are not guaranteed. It means that when "The Community" ask for models, these guys are prepared to delve into the less glamourous, less successful and frankly obscure corners of aviation history and produce models for us. It means we can, if we want, fight more obscure but interesting theatres of war, such as China, or the early Blitzkrieg, or, well, just about anything. To be honest I never heard of a Curtis Wright CW-21 Demon before a couple of months ago - but now I think I fancy doing a Squadron. And I can get one. Or a Fokker DXXI in Dutch or Finnish versions, or a ............ you get the drift. 

Well done guys, thanks, and take a bow.

Of course I want a Fokker T.V. from someone either UK based or a .stl so I can print one, because, well ok they only made a dozen, and they lasted about 24 hours in combat, and were unsuccessful by any measure, but.........

Oh and rumour has it Warlord are planning at least one set of Buffalos. There, that is my cup running over :-)

Cheers

  

Painting Zeros wrong in Blood Red Skies - how to do it quickly! :-)

 

One of the big unanswered questions, just behind "Is there a God?", "Why do we dream?", "Is our universe the only one?" and "Why did they cancel Firefly but fund Star Trek Discovery?" is "What colour are early war Zeros?"

The only thing I'm certain of is they're not white. Probably. Why we still think they're white is a story for another day, and quite interesting, but I'm not going there now. The debate over the actual colour is still going on - the real experts seem to think a sort of light grey with a green-y tint, and Tamiya and others will sell you some paint for it. The only problem is I don't think it looks "right". I suspect that this is partly because the paints are designed to be used on 1:48 scale models and that at 1:200 for BRS you need to lighten them up. Whatever

Anyway this is how I'm painting mine. It is embarrassingly simple and quick yet I think it looks good enough for the table.

Step 1 undercoat with GW Wraithbone Contrast undercoat spray. Wraithbone is a funny off white colour designed for painting elves or fairies or something, but it just about ticks the box and takes 30 seconds or so to apply.

Step 2 block in the canopy in your colour of choice. I use a light blue but there are many ways to paint canopies and it is personal preference. Also paint the engine cowl. It could be black, but I stopped painting black stuff black on my BRS models and tend to use Vallejo German Grey because I think it looks better. Go back over the bits you missed and the canopy bars with "normal" GW Wraithbone paint.

Step 3 use GW Contrast Apothecary White to paint he panel lines. You follow the panel lines with a thin brush rather than wash the whole area down. This is the longest bit of the  process but is still pretty fast. 

Once dry, apply your decals of choice and you are done.

The models are A6M2s from the PlanePrinter Patreon printed on my Anycubic Photon, but the process works on any suitable model. Decals are from the "spares" box, mostly Warlord but some others thrown in. Yes it is certainly (probably) the wrong colour, but if these are on the table at a convention 98% of the passers by will see and immediately recognise them as Zeros, which is good enough for me.

Cheers

 

    

November painting challenge update and a strange rare bird

I set myself a target of painting 30 "engines" worth of Blood Red Skies models in November, and err, I failed. 

Ok not by much as I got as far as 28 but for some reason the last couple I just stalled. I think it was something to do with the fact they were going to be French Breguet 693 light attack bombers and they had that fiddly French 4 tone camo, but for whatever reason it didn't happen.

I did complete 8 Bf109fs and 7 Me262s and 6 Sturmoviks so that was not too bad a performance I suppose.

Today I have hit the target - ok 13 days late, but it is such a strange and pretty plane I thought I would do an update.

The plane in question is a Kyūshū Q1W Tokai , which translates as "Eastern Sea" but was given the much less prosaic reporting name "Lorna" by the Allies. 

I have to admit I had never heard of it before last week when it appeared as part of the Plane Printer Patreon that I subscribe to. It's a useful service where for a small monthly subscription you get access to models being released as stl files by the designer. Not having heard of a Plane Printer model is not that unusual as he tends to kick around in the long grass doing interesting but obscure, or at least not mainstream models. I regularly have to do a quick search to find out just what a particular release is, and this was no exception.

The Tokai is very interesting. Visually it looks like a copy of a shrunken Ju88, but it is nothing of the sort. This is the world's first purpose designed Anti Submarine Warfare aircraft. There is a lot of thought gone into the design too. Engines are optimised for low speed fuel economy, to allow the Tokai to loiter on station for longer, and it has a surprising array of black boxes, including Radar, Magnetic Anomaly Detector (MAD) and Electronic Support Measures (ESM) - basically everything you would expect in a modern Long Range Maritime Patrol aircraft such as an Orion. The problem was the Radar. Japan was pretty advanced in the theory, but less good at getting a set to work reliably. This caused a delay in the Tokai entering service from 1943 to 1945. The Tokai was probably a world beater, but the slow speed meant it was also an easy kill for any fighter, and by 1945 the Allies were dominating the skies around Japan.  

So here it is - still needs a coat of matt but quite cute, and finally 30 engines done :-)

  

Pearl Harbor Part 3 - decisions, thoughts and ramblings

I thought I would run through some of the thinking and reasons that went into the game.

Firstly this was pretty much planned on the back of a fag packet. We were chatting in The Ready Room on Facebook about the coming anniversary less than a week ago and I thought, why not?

Well not having any models was a start I suppose. Actually I did. I have a squadron of Vals printed for me more than a year ago by Paul Davison. They're a very basic model scaled up to 1:200 from 1:300 and although proportionally very nice they lack almost all details. They were a pain to clean up, but they did paint up ok in the end I suppose. Decals were from the spares box - mostly Warlord but others thrown in.

The Nevada I didn't have, but I do now have a 3d printer of my own so a quick search on Wargaming 3d got me a 1:1800 scale Nevada for $7 which printed quickly and cleanly. It's not quite the right model as it is the post Pearl Harbor refit, but it will do.

I quickly painted it in an approximation of the 1941 blue scheme. 1:1800 is probably about right as a target marker, or possibly a bit small. I suppose I could have scaled the stl up but I'm planning on playing Victory at Sea in 1:1800 so I will donate the finished model to Paul as he collects US ships in that scale.

The sea map is from Warlords Victory at Sea starter set. I roughly cut the land masses out of brown wrapping paper - I had intended to do a nice full colour version but work got in the way so brown paper and scissors it was - John Noakes would approve. He probably would chide me for using low tack tape to hold the land masses in place, because it wasn't quite low tack enough and some of the paper map surface was damaged removing it - Doh!

As usual I just used my old phone camera on this one - I have a much nicer camera but this was not intended as a big production, hence the dodgy pics :-) 

The scenario itself is quite interesting. Nevada was a very old design from pre WW1 so I didn't think it reasonable to class her as a standard Battleship in Airstrike. In the end I dropped the "Hardened" trait, and because the ship was slowed by the torpedo damage and was in very narrow waters I decided to reduce the effect of "Mobile" trait to -1 not -2. The Vals were all rated as Pilot Skill 3. You could argue they should be better as they were the cream of the crop, and had practiced their role in the attack for many, many hours. 

On the other hand the second wave of Vals were apparently not armed with armour piercing bombs. The plan was for this second wave to target the less well protected cruisers and destroyers so standard 500 lb bombs were used. The Val was an excellent aircraft but one weakness was it could not carry a 1000lb bomb, unlike it's US and German counterparts. If Nevada had been under attack by Ju87s I don't think she would have had any chance at all. 

As the Vals arrived over Ford Island they spotted Nevada making her slow way out and instead of pushing on to their assigned targets decided to try and sink the much more prestigious Battleship. It has also been suggested that they wanted to sink her in the narrow channel so as to block the harbour mouth, but I'm not sure how much of that is a cover story for what was a collective rush of blood to the head. 

Pearl Harbor is full of "what if" situations, but I wonder if the decision by a significant portion of the second wave dive bombers to attack Nevada and the destroyer Shaws which was in a floating dock so looked much more impressive than she actually was, rather than the very vulnerable and tightly packed cruisers in dock a stones throw away. Everyone knows the US Carriers were absent on the day and this in part allowed the USN to strike back through them only six months later, however I wonder if the carriers would have been committed without the support of the cruisers that escaped damage on Dec 7th due to Nevada & Shaws drawing in so many Vals. We will never know of course, but it's interesting to speculate.  

Me 262s The Last Stand - seemed like a good idea at the time

I'm trying to make the current 30 day lockdown a little bit more productive by painting 30 "engines" worth of Blood Red Skies planes. So far I have completed 8 Bf109F, 6 Il2 Sturmovics, and now 7 Me262s.

The 109Fs are 3d printed from RoC-Works stl files - beautiful models and I painted them as 3/JG27 in North Africa, including Hans Jochim Marsaille as the Ace. I has a bit of a problem as i decided to try and use a clay wash. These are popular on The Ready Room - lots of praise for Florry washes. I had a similar clay wash and decided to give it a try. Basically you apply a generous coat of the clay wash, let it dry then clean the model with a damp cloth or cotton bud. This should remove the wash except in the panel lines. In theory. In my case this was not a success - I just got a muddy model (doh). In the end I cleaned up the models and went for the tried and trusted Agrax \ Soft-tone pin wash. I like the Bf109F. It is probably the best and most balanced 109 in BRS, before the added weight starts to impact performance.  Decals from Misc Minis.

The Sturmoviks are 3d printed from the Plane Printer patreon. I subscribed for £6 a month. So far it has been well worth my investment as he has produced a fair few models I will be printing in due course.  I decided to try and paint the squadron in whitewashed winter camouflage. This seemed a good idea at the time. In the end it got a bit complicated as I decided to do them all as individuals rather than all the same scheme, reasoning that the whitewash would wear off differently in each case. The whitewash was a bit challenging but after using a fair amount of sponging I was happy enough with the result. These are the early single seat versions which I confidently expect to suffer just as much as the real world versions did from rear attacks.  Decals from the spares box.

Which brings me to the Me262s. Something about doing the Sturmoviks as individuals must have stuck in my mind, because when it came to the 262s I thought I would give it another go. This isn't as strange as it seems as when I was looking through the various on-line sources it became clear that there was little consistency in colour schemes. This was partly due to the rapidly changing war situation, but mostly because the supply of paint was getting erratic as the war moved into it's final stages. The scheme that most caught my fancy was a real "End of Days" one - aircraft were delivered to units and flown in combat with no camo at all. You know it wont end well when your planes are delivered without paint! In the end I painted up seven different camo styles ALL of which were used at one time or another by 3/JG7. They look a bit strange to my usually more bureaucratic mind but they will be fine I'm sure. Models by Warlord - and I have to say they were a pleasure to paint, decals Misc Minis and the spares box.

OK the more BRS aware will know that seven Me262s is a big "chunk" of points in the game. In fact if you are playing the current recommended restrictions on tournaments you can have (and indeed must have) only four of them, all with rubbish pilots. I have seven because I bought a Squadron and an Ace set, and before I had did the maths properly had ordered a foam transport tray from Just Lasered to hold them all, so I was committed (Doh!)

So that brings my total up to 28 "engines" with a fortnight or so to go. No idea what will be next, but I have plenty to choose from.

Cheers!