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Sharkmouth Greek Spitfire Vc - 1/48 Italeri


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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 K.

 

 

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Edited by Dim_Thessalonica
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Wow,...... you`ve done a beautiful job and I love the colour scheme,...... I would like to do this one myself. I`ll have to lookout for some of those decals myself.

Cheers

          Tony

Edited by tonyot
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Gentlemen,


Thank you very much for your kind words!

 

22 hours ago, tonyot said:

 I would like to do this one myself. I`ll have to lookout for some of those decals myself.

Cheers

          Tony

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

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49 minutes ago, Dim_Thessalonica said:

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

Thanks Dimitrios, I`ve orded the sets in 48ths and 72nd scales,......a bit expensive,.....but they should keep me busy for a while! 

All the best

                Tony

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Nice build :). Very colourful Spt. 

Can you tell more about the history, please? When exactly they returned back to Grece? Where those squadrons involve in action against Germans or it was when war was already over?

Cheers

J-W

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3 hours ago, JWM said:

Nice build :). Very colourful Spt. 

Can you tell more about the history, please? When exactly they returned back to Grece? Where those squadrons involve in action against Germans or it was when war was already over?

Cheers

J-W

 

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:

sharkmouth%20Spit%20VC.jpg

 

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

Edited by Dim_Thessalonica
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Hi Dimitrios,

Thank you very much for enlightning me on the RHAF brief history. Just to be sure -  It was November '44 when they came to Grece (you wrote '45, but then airplane crashed in Feb 45, as you said - so I think it was '44).

As far as I remember it is usually said that Germans phased out of Greece not defending too much due to strategic losses in Balkans  (Bulgaria, Rumunia...) sometime in late Autumn '44. Am I right? Or I mixed something? It was sad, but soon kind of civil war started...

Regarding RHAF from 1941 I constructed some models of this period some more than 10 years ago. Two of them I posted already on BM in recent years:

I have also Avia 534 and PZL 24 G - but  did them in my school time - some 43-44 years ago, so they are not planned to be post here...At least without serious refershing.

I am thinking on Breguet XIX from Greece, 1941 but the one of Republican Spain painting is perhaps more likely...

Congrats for very nice Spit again and greetings from Krakow!

Jerzy-Wojtek

 

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