Dim_Thessalonica

Realistic releases.... I will limit myself to two very realistic wishes: 1/48 Spitfire Vc, and 1/48 Hawker Hurricane Mk1 fabric wings. C'mon Airfix, in both cases you have already a good basis to work with.

This will be an impressive build indeed! Sure, it will take some skill, but it will be a unique addition in any collection.

+1 for the early version.

New photos: sprues, decals + instructions. Wow!!! I mean, wow! http://www.gaspatchmodels.com/products/henschel-hs-123-a1-1-48.html http://www.gaspatchmodels.com/products/henschel-hs-123-b1-1-48.html

Great news! Was looking forward to that! Great box art too! PS : the question mark in the title is no longer needed

I think that Eduard should at some point - sooner rather than later - release some of its Bf-109s with foreign markings. As a fan of small airforces, I m bored with these Luftwaffe choices all the time.

Hi 28ZComeback, AFAIK, what Jun cites is correct. There was one SM79 captured by the Greek army in Korytza. It was left behind with minimum damage, after the Italian army's hasty withdrawal, and after some minor repairs, it flew south to Athens. In case you don't have them I post below four pictures of this airplane, the first three from Korytza airfield, and the third probably in a hangar in Faliron, Athens. As you may see, Greek markings where painted over the Italian ones in six positions (fuselage, upper, lower wings). Most probably it was used very few times, due to the lack of spares. As to the two Ro37 that were also captured in Korytza, opinions are divided as to if they were ever transported to Athens, and if they were used by the Royal Hellenic Air Force in any way. Most probably they were not, since apparently there are two pictures with some months difference, showing them at the same spot. Unfortunately I have only the first one, mentioned by Jun. A long time ago, I had also read about the case of a couple of Italian confiscated hydros (but never used by RHAF), but I am too far away fro my sources unfortunately. In any case, we can be "sure" only for the SM79. Hope this helps. Dimitrios

I don't think so. Not just the Potez 633, but Greek PZL P24, Hs 126, Blenheim MkIV, and Fairey Battles also had black serial numbers (the latter also had white serial numbers under wings), as shown in all relevant pictures just before the break-up of hostilities. At some point during the 6 months war, there has been an effort for change from black to white, for better recognition. Usually there is a marked difference in the font used for white serials, as is apparent in the above pictures. Moreover, apart from what mhaselden mentioned above, as you can see in the second picture I posted, among the wrecks there is a Luftwaffe Ju-87 Stuka, bearing the yellow front and rudder recognition colors of the Balkan campaign, that appear distinctively light in the picture, so surely no orthochromatic here. Interestingly, there were also cases of Greek Avro Tutors that had black letter and white number, so use of orthochromatic in this case should be excluded.

Hi, just saw this. As said earlier, the aircraft in the photo you posted is French. As regards to the Greek Potez 633, they must had been delivered in the typical french Khaki green, Dark gray, and Brown, over Light gray scheme. The picture below is of an aircraft most probably in this camo: Certain airplanes may have kept this camo till the very end: But in general, after October 1940, the Potez 633 camouflage gradually changed to Dark Green, Light Earth uppersides and maybe Sky blue undersides. There is a couple of new photos unearthed recently together with some older ones depicting this scheme: As you can see, propellers were aluminium or black, whereas serial numbers were initially black, then gradually in certain planes changed to white. Hope this helps Dimitrios

Oups, date corrected.

Sure J-W, After the German attack and the tripartite occupation of Greece in spring 1941, part of the Greek armed forces managed to escape, and joined the British and other Allied forces in Egypt. Among them there were a number of RHAF Avro Ansons and other planes. Greek pilots were numerous enough to allow for the formation of two RAF fighter squadrons - 335 (Greek) and 336 (Greek) – and a light bombardment one (13th LB Sq). Equipped initially with Hurricanes, the 335 and 336 Sqns got their first Spitfires Mk. V in 1943. They saw service against Axis forces in North Africa (most famously El Alamein) and later in Italy, while also performing attacks against German forces in occupied Greece. They arrived at the liberated homeland in October 1944, where they were hastily painted with Greek markings, initially the fuselage and later the wings ones. At these early times, there was no homogeneous and simultaneous change of markings, with many colorful and strange results. By the end of 1945 they all wore RHAF markings. The plane I tried to represent, arrived from Italy to Greece in 16/11/1944, where it got the Greek fuselage markings. It was damaged beyond repair after a forced landing in 27/2/1945. There are a couple of photos of this nice sharkmouth-bearing plane, some of them I think appeared in this very website, like this below one: There is very interesting article on RHAF Spitifires and their markings in IPMS Hellas magazine no 20 , October 2009 (needless to say, in Greek). Some of the info, I think, is reproduced in the LM decals instructions. Best, Dimitrios

An impressive build in all respects! I am a fan of 'small' air forces and I liked this version a lot.

Gentlemen, Thank you very much for your kind words! Tony, in case you haven't found it already, you can check below for the decals: http://www.lmdecals.gr/index.php/en/1-48-scale-decals/186-royal-hellenic-air-force-spitfire-mkv-greek-lm-48003 Dimitrios

Hi to everybody! First posting for me at Britmodeller, a kind of symbolic, I may say. This is a recently built 1/48 Italeri (Special Hobby reboxing) Spitfire Vc , representing a Royal Hellenic Air Force Sharkmouth Spitfire, immediately after the return of the RAF Greek squadrons to Greece (hence the mixed-bag markings - fuselage Greek, wings still RAF). It wasn't exactly a problem-free build, but with the help of Eduard photo-ethed and the recently published RHAF decals from our native LM decals, I tried to do my best. Hope you like it. Dimitris