Steve's 1/72 'D-Day Fighters'

[stona]

Well this arrived sharpish - as usual from John at the Scale Model Shop.

Here's the box:



So this comprises no less than five 1/72 kits (you read that right, 1/72 - my poor eyes). They come in at well under a tenner each, so not at all dear, and if they are nothing else they are good value for money.

I'm not sure how appropriate to D-Day they all are, nor do I care, this is just a bit of fun.

I'm also not sure how to go about making an interesting thread for this. I will probably build them one by one, because I'm easily confused by too many bits from too many models. I'll keep them all in one thread, with just the odd update rather than detailed build threads, and I'll try to dig up any interesting stuff on the individual aircraft presented. We should have a grand finale, all five models in about, I don't know, two or three years Seriously, I'm aiming to build them over the next couple of months - or so.

They will be built OOB, no fancy stuff for me and these.

[Jim R]

Certainly value for money. The newer Airfix kits are generally pretty good. Not sure of the ages of this selection. Look forward to seeing how these build up. Starting with the ????

[stona]

Which one first indeed?

I have opened the large box. You get five bags of sprues, which I'm fervently praying are the five kits. There's one instruction booklet for the lot, which looks more than decent. It maybe my imagination, but Airfix do seem to have upped their game as far as instructions go. Also included is one of those enormous black stands to pose all five in flight (nope) and little pots of paint with two tubes of glue. Why two tubes? No idea. If I was going to use the glue included, one would be enough. I suppose twelve year old me would have needed about five! The decals also come on one large sheet, though mercifully there are demarcations for the various kits.

The paints will go to the grandkids, but I'll spare my daughter the glue. You know that it would end up on the cat, in someone's eye and just about everywhere else it is not required

I'll probably build them in the order of the instruction booklet. So, Bf 109, Fw 190 (which sees off the Germans) and then the P-51 (the only American), Spitfire and finally the Tempest.

To be fair, it's a decent selection of 1944 fighters.

[minitnkr]

The P47 would have rounded it out nicely. Pun intended.

[Guest]

Wouldn’t this fit well in the D-Day group build, though?

[A_J_Rimmer]

It Does look like a nice selection of kits, and I'd probably pick one up if I didn't have most of them in the stash already. It might have been nice to have had it all Allied fighters though, with maybe their Typhoon and something else. I'm actually surprised Airfix didn't tool up something like a P-47 this year.

Looking forward to seeing what you do with the set.

[stona]

Wouldn’t this fit well in the D-Day group build, though? :smiling3:

If it went on for another three months

[stona]

I've made a start on the 109, which seems coincidentally to be the most basic of the kits. This is probably less than ten parts! The cockpit is very, very basic, there is nothing in it except a crude representation of the pilot's seat.

Nonetheless, the exterior detail and fit are nice enough, and it looks like a Bf 109. There's a little bit of fettling to be done - this is just stuck together - before I can add the canopy and prime it. There's only about another half dozen parts to add.



I can't tell you how hard I'm resisting adding something behind the pilots seat so that you can't see into the rear fuselage, but I did say OOB :smiling3:

[stona]

I managed to spray the underside/side colour of RLM76.

I'm only posting this because my original intention was to use the MRP paints, which I have generally found to be reasonably accurate and always easy to use - I do like them. Not the RLM 76. It appears to be a compromise between the blue/grey mid war colour (which I want) and the late war colour which was not a million miles away from the British colour Sky. By falling between the two it is a poor representation of either. Anyway, I broke out my precious stash of the now discontinued Colourcoats and used their more exact version of RLM 76 instead. I've done the auxiliary/drop tank in the MRP colour for a bit of contrast when the tank is finally added.

This, therefore, is the now defunct - from a paint manufacturing point of view - Sovereign Hobby Colourcoat version of RLM 76.



I'd also forgotten just how well enamel paints cover compared with the various acrylics/acrylic laquers like MRP!

I'm still planning to use the MRP versions of the camouflage colours RLM 74 and 75. I hope that they are better than the RLM 76.

[stona]

And they are:



The sharp eyed, or those who have built this kit, might notice that I've gone for a scheme that I feel is more appropriate for a G-6 of this werknummer/period than that in the destructions. I've sprayed it freehand, which is fun at this scale! You can't see it because I've taken this photo and not someone who knows what they are doing, but to their credit, MRP have managed to get a touch of the 'violet' in the RLM 75, so good on 'em. There's a reason it was unofficially described as 'grauviolet'. A lot of manufacturers don't do this.

The only things I've done to improve what's in the box is drill out the air intake (it comes with a flat front) and cut off the cannon that stuck a scale foot out in front of the spinner for unfathomable reasons. I drilled that out too. Otherwise, what you see is what you get.

[stona]

ONE DOWN - FOUR TO GO:

The little Bf 109 is done!
It is a Bf 109 G-6, werknummer 162707, of 11./JG 26, based at the large airfield complex at Villacoubly, France at the time of the invasion. Here's just a half a walkaround. I'm limiting the pictures or there will be dozens of them by the time I've finished.

I did add swastikas (not in the box) because to me that is an important historical detail - others are free to differ. There are various aerials and a pitot tube which would have been carried by this aircraft which were not in the box, and aren't on the model







On the Airfix site there is some decent information about these subjects, except for this one. It was flown by Gefreiter Heinz Lienich (one ‘n’) and was based at the airfield complex at Villacoubly, France at the time of the invasion. I struggled to find out about Lienich, not least because Airfix seem to have misspelled his name, but also because he was not a famous 'expert', or famous anything.

Aircraft with Werknummern in the 162xxx-163xxx range, like this one, were built by Messerschmitt AG at Regensburg in April and June 1944, so this was not an elderly machine. There were no elderly machines at front line Luftwaffe units in June 1944. In the six months leading up to the invasion, the Luftwaffe had lost 4,190 fighters, 251% of its fighter strength. On average, that’s almost half its fighter strength every month!

As for Lienich, he had an eventful and eventually fatal time in France.

He successfully bailed out twice. The first time was on 25 February 1944, when he abandoned ‘Yellow 2’, a Bf 109G-3, Werknummer 16293 (or 16291?) following an engine failure on a non-operational flight. He came down near Louvemont, 10 km southeast of St. Dizier.

On the second occasion, 8 June 1944, just two days after D-Day, he successfully abandoned the subject of this model, ‘Yellow 15’, following combat with a Spitfire 5Km southwest of Caen.

His luck ran out on 22 June 1944. Lienich was shot down and killed while flying another Bf 109 G-6, Werknummer 163499, "Yellow 16". He had been in combat with P-47s of the 365th or 368th FG at Cornier, south of Tinche.

As far as I can tell, Lienich was never credited with any victories. I don’t have a date or place of birth, but I would be surprised if he was not just one of any number of young, inexperienced, pilots sent into action by the Luftwaffe as the war situation deteriorated. Many of them fell victim to the numerical and qualitative superiority of the Allied fighter pilots.

Lest we forget.

[Allen Dewire]

Steve, Your builds are always so great to follow. Not only do you present an excellent finished model, even in this tiny scale, but your background info is always informative and a pleasure to read. Thanks Sir!!! Bring on the next one please...

Prost
Allen

[Jim R]

That is a great result, beautifully photographed. Just shows that with skill a really good model can be made from a fairly simple kit that doesn't cost a fortune.
Like Allen I appreciate the background story - most interesting.

[Mickc1440]

Lovely result for a basic kit, looking forward to the next

[scottie3158]

A great result and an interesting insight in to the aircraft and pilot.