Another Zvezda 1/200th Ju-52

 Regular readers will recall that I already have a Zvezda Ju 52, but I got another one as I had a vague idea of doing a Condor Legion bomber. The 'plastic kit man' at Partisan was selling these cheap. 

Here it is in in its raw state. It was much easier to assemble than I remembered, I think I was mixing it up with the horrible Zvezda Dakotas, which were real pigs to put together.

I need to do something about that join line on the fuselage but generally it was a nice clean model. Even at 1/200 scale it is quite a large aircraft. 

And the underside with a nice sturdy undercart. It is hard to see in the photos but there are beautiful fine corrugations moulded into metalwork. 

And here is the finished thing in daylight.

And rather gloomy artificial light.

In the end I fairly obviously didn't do it as a Condor Legion plane, but I did find this interesting three tone splinter camo scheme used by some units at Crete. It is enhanced by the flashy yellow bits all over it.

The decals are largely those supplied with the kit, although I didn't put loads of fuselage markings on, just a cross and a single letter. As usual I didn't bother with decals on the underside.

Zvezda don't supply any swastika decals, so the tail swastikas are from one of the Doms Deals packs. German planes look much more in keeping with their crooked crosses on.

I'm rather pleased with how that came out, and if the Condor Legion really need a Ju 52, I can always buy another one! I've even got a couple of scenarios in mind where I might be able to use this and its pal. Watch this space. 

Bodged Bloch

Along with the D. 520, I thought the French could also do with some heavier air support. French bombers of the 1930s were certainly original, but towards the end of the 30s some more sensible designs (which didn't look like airborne bits of furniture) began to turn up.

As 1/144th scale 1940 French bombers are a bit rare, I was looking for something to bodge up, and the  Bloch MB131 bore a passing resemblance to a Blenheim, which is handy as Zvezda make a Blenheim in 1/200th scale.

And Lo and Behold, an MB131 takes to the air. These didn't actually serve as bombers but as fast recce, but if it looks like a bomber, sounds like a bomber... This one took a fair bit more bodgery than the D. 520 as for some unaccountable reason, the wierd asymmetrical nose of the Blenheim didn't seem to feature in other aircraft. It also had a ventral gun pod. The nose just took a moderate amount of filler and sanding to make into the more rounded Bloch nose. 

The tail on the Bloch was also more angular than the Blenheim, so a certain amount of cutting and sanding took place, particularly on the elevator. The one thing I couldn't fix was that the wings should be on the bottom of the fuselage instead of halfway up, but it was good enough. Like the D. 520 I did this in the grey/green/brown scheme and hand painted the roundels.

The ventral gun turret can be seen in the profile view here. I made it up out of sprue with a lot of sanding to get it into the teardrop shape, and added an MG from 0.5mm brass. This plane has its number on the fuselage and its squadron flash on the tail, another decal from the good old Emhar Mark IV box. I did the spinners red for a bit of contrast.

Here it is in flight being escorted by the D. 520. It looks a bit small as it is far away. not 1/200th scale at all.

I was very pleased with how that turned out. I've no idea when it might appear in a game, but I'll have to design a scenario which might feature it.

Zvezda Ju 88

I've always had a soft spot for the Ju 88, what a fabulous plane and so versatile it served throughout the war in a wide range of roles. As I was getting some planes to paint anyway, I ordered one of the Zvezda Ju 88s to add to my collection. As it is a bomber, it is in the delightfully bonkers 1/200th scale, but at least it means it takes up less space in the box. 

Here is the finished thing. It is a fair bit bigger than 1/300th, but even so, it was a bit fiddly painting the canopy frame, but I did my best. It was a nice clean kit with very few parts, and went together without a hitch despite their attempts to make these things 'snap fit'. Unusually I didn't even have any problem with the tail place which went in cleanly although I managed to knock the tiny tail wheel off in the process.

It looks very business like in flight, some thing to do with the proportions of the engines I think. The top canopy had an odd arrangement where it clicked over the MGs (which were on a seperate assembly), but I managed it without breaking anything despite my big fat fingers.

A somewhat blurry shot while it pretends it is flying over London in the Battle of Britain. There was very little flash on it, and the joins on the fuselage were easily smoothed down as they'd be very obvious in the highly matt paint finish.

It comes with four pleasing big bombs to sling under the wings, thye look rather menacing from the front. I modelled it wheels up and minus the the prop blades as I like my planes to be 'flying'. The blades came off OK but and the big spinners made it easy to clean up any resulting irregularities.

 Unusually this model only came with a wheels down option, Zvezda normally provide both, so I just left the undercart off. There are a couple of holes left which I suppose I should fill but I couldn't be bothered.

I painted it in standard green/dark green splinter with a sky blue underside as it is a nice scheme and good for the whole war. Humbrol Army Green 5102 for the base colour and VJ German Camo Green for the splinter pattern. The yellow spinners tone well with the overall green scheme and emphasise their aggressive look. 

Markings are as supplied, although the black fuselage numbers don't show up well against the green background. Zvezda don't supply swastika tail markings so I drew them on freehand with a Micron lining pen. Again, they are completely invisible in this photo.

So, overall a very nice little model and lots of fun to assemble and paint. It is just possible I might have a game in mind where this will see some use. Watch this space.

Gridded Age of Sail

We'd played Johns One Hour naval game at the club before lockdown, and we all thought it would benefit from a grid to make navigation easier. John had incorporated some ideas from the Portable Naval Wargame, and lo and behold, Gridded Age of Sail was born.

The scenario, the British are escorting a convoy from west to east, sadly the wind is from the NE so we are beating and a bit doomed from the start! The convoy has four merchant ships including an East Indiaman, while we had two frigates (myself and Tim C respectively) and a sloop (Jerry). Our job was to get the convoy off the eastern table edge or sink enough Spanish ships to claim a great victory.

The Spanish came on reaching from the east, a frigate and three ships of the line. Oh dear. Tim G had the frigate, otherwise Richard, Graham and Simon had the liners. 

The British in close up, the merchants are at the bottom. Orange is Jerry's sloop, yellow is Tim C and red is the mighty HMS Galatea (me). The red arrow is the wind direction and the compass shows our movement relative to the wind. Beating into the wind means we go one hex per turn (plus an extra one for undamaged frigates).

With the wind gauge, the Spaniards were on us in no time. We tied to stay to windward to gain and advantage over the Dons.

Sadly, three hexes per turn reaching with the wind beats two hexes into the wind every time, even for the RN and the Spaniards were in among the convoy before we'd even completed out turn.

The Spanish frigate was soon grappled with the East Indiaman, the rest of us took on a ship of the line each. 

As might be expected, Jerry's sloop didn't come off too well from this, but it was very heroic as he sank beneath the waves. Tim managed to sail around exchange salvoes with the enemy but I got hung up on Grahams 74. Fortunately I'd managed a bow rake on him before grappling so we went in with better odds.

A somewhat confused action ensued. My chaps began to get the better of the Spaniards (I guess they'd figured out how to climb the side of the huge ship towering above us).

To everyones surprise, I managed to sink the Spanish 74 (I'd have preferred to capture it but hey ho). Sadly the Galatea was crippled by this action and drifted slowly south, barely under control. Jerry was long on the bottom and under close range fire from two Spanish 74 Tim C soon struck.

By now the convoy was scattered to the four winds and another Spanish 74 sailed over and sent my crippled frigate to the bottom. I'd have preferred to surrender my heroic crew but that didn't seem to be an option.

Rather than prolong the agony we called it a day there. The convoy was scattered, sunk or captured and all our ships had been lost, although we'd managed to take one Spaniard with us. 

We gave the rules a good test out and all agreed that the grid made it much easier to keep track of what was where. The gunnery and sailing all worked fine. The only slight oddity was the number of ships sunk (very rare in this period) so we made some  suggestions on increasing the likelihood of ships striking once they were crippled, and John also added it as a captains option. Good stuff and I'd like to try it again.

Zvezda 1/200th SB-2

Along with the ground attack planes and fighters, I thought my Russians could do with some bombers and as my efforts to find cheap Lend Lease B-25s failed, I went with some Zvezda SB-2s in the delightfully eccentric 1/200th scale.

Here are the pair of them. It is a good job they are 1/200th as their wingspan is enormous. These are the versions with in-line engines rather than radials (which I think makes them a bit more modern?). Well, who cares really, they are great big bombers covered in red stars and I'm sure they are perfectly capable of showering bombs all over cowering Hitlerites until 1945. 

The kits went together reasonably well, most of it was fine but the tail planes were a bit fiddly due to Zvezdas insistence that these are 'snap fit' models. The elevators sort of overlap each other in a slot in the fuselage and in the end I just gave up trying to make them fit and slathered them in glue instead. They are still a bit wonky but hey ho.

I just did these plain green (Humbrol Army Green) with plain red stars and tail numbers in varying styles. There is a fair bit of perspex on these and the smaller scale means the bars are very small indeed so I gave up trying to paint them and did them with a micron (0.05mm) pen which seemed to come out OK.

Usual plain underside. The kits come with options for underact retracted or deployed. One casualty of my fat fingers was the antenna post on the underside. It was never going to survive an undercart up use anyway so it is probably better removed before painting. As with my other planes, I lopped of the prop blades to save my wargaming pals doing it for me and I think it looks better.

And off they go to bomb Berlin, as the bomber will always get through. I was really pleased with these, they came out well and look the part. I've already got some 1/300th SB-2s but the bigger models are just more pleasing. 

Zvezda 1/200th Ju-52

Another plane kit off the Bring and Buy was this Zvezda JU-52, in the rather eccentric scale of 1/200th. Zvezda do this for all their bigger planes, and in some way it is a blessing as 1/144th scale bomber and transport planes are really, really big.

Here it is waiting for takeoff. I did it in early war splinter as per the box art.

I painted over the canopy and picked out all the windows too. That was a labour of love... I did the cowlings in the bright yellow Crete scheme to brighten it up a bit.

Underside was just light blue with yellow wingtip flashes. As usual I didn't bother with the decals.

Aunty Ju off to drop some supplies or paratroops somewhere. Broadsword calling Danny Boy...

Another nice model. I'm not sure if/when I'll use it, but I expect it will come in handy for something.