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KRK4m

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Everything posted by KRK4m

  1. A surprise attack from Hungary. https://www.scalemates.com/kits/armada-hobby-n72165-m59-apc--1542063 Very expensive (~50 E), but certainly better that the only one offered so far by Hobby Den. If only someone had come up with the idea of releasing the Korean K200 in this scale, I would be in paradise. Cheers Michael
  2. It's a pity you don't have the documentation that would allow you to release an equally comprehensive collection of Breguet 19s... 😢 Cheers Michael
  3. Indeed, the photo shows something strange, although the 5 designs you showed absolutely do not exhaust the variations of external P-47 tanks. There were a total of 11 of them and you can compare them (all drawings are in scale - it was supposed to be 1:48, but the printing house made it 1:52) on page 20 of my P-47 brochure (TBU #158). Under the fuselage there were American metal tanks with a capacity of 200 USgal (semi-drop, adjacent to the fuselage, for ferry flights or flat, box-shaped), 150 USgal (cylindrical), 110 USgal (drip), 75 USgal (drip) or British ones made of reinforced cardboard (all cylindrical) with capacities of 90, 125 or 165 ImpGal. Starting with the D-15 variant, almost all of them (the exception was this 200-USgal semi-flush ferry tank) could also be carried under the wings. It was also possible to install there (not limited by the low ground clearance of the fuselage) two other types of metal American teardrop tanks with a capacity of 150 or 165 USgal (from the P-38). The record holder was the P-47N - the only variant cleared with 310 USgal underwing tanks (from the P-61). Cheers Michael
  4. The FK.58 (which was essentially an evolution of the D.XXI made by Schatzki for the French) also had an identical telescopic sight protruding through the windscreen. Although the front exhaust ring indicates a Bristol engine, I still only see 7 cylinders in the row, and the Mercury would have 9. But there was no 7-cylinder Bristol... Interesting thought - I completely forgot about this prototype. But it was in the Netherlands in 1940. The spine shape and the canopy in the D.XXI and FK.58 are almost identical - the designer of both was Erich Schatzki. Great link, although I came up with the idea of scrolling down the table with individual stories only after reading the entire text letter by letter three times To sum up: you are right, both the 4 MGs in the wings and the lack of the upper tailplane strut indicate that it is not an FK.58. It seems that an elderly man well over 60 should sleep after midnight and not (cursorily) analyze photos. Sorry... Cheers Michael
  5. Everything's fine, except it's not a Fokker D.XXI. The French camouflage and markings are original, and the plane has a 14-cylinder French engine because it is a Koolhoven FK.58. Cheers Michael
  6. Contrary to the above opinion, I must say that the Italeri 1283 re-edition is much improved in detail, just like the Italeri 1322 FIAT CR.32 (ex Supermodel 10-009) Cheers Michael
  7. Don't feel too pressured to go with the long-tailed version (unless it's the P-40L), Brother. The French of the LaFayette Group used the P-40F with both short- and long fuselages. Cheers Michael
  8. I faced a similar problem a few years ago. In the same way, I have been building aircraft for 50 years and despite a few attempts in 1:48, a dozen in 1:100, one in 1:32 and one in 1:24, I stuck to 1:72 - today I have over a hundred of them in the display case and a similar number in stash. I've never built a tank in 1:35 or a ship in 1:350. Once upon a time, 50 years ago, I built two ships in 1:600 (Airfix) and four AFV in 1:76 (ditto). In this way, the natural choice for my warships was the 1:700 scale (I already have over 20 of them), and the 1:72 scale for the AFV (I'm already approaching 50, plus a dozen or so on the pile). In today's reality, exhibition space is becoming an increasingly luxurious good - I leave ships in 1:350 and AFV in 1:35 to the wealthier. Well, unless someone needs just 3 ships and 10 tanks - then you can stick to such scales. Cheers Michael
  9. Wrong section not only because the Spitfire is not an armoured vehicle, but also because "ready for inspection" is intended only to present the final result. There are "work in progress" sections to present the progress of work on the model. But the colours are really nice 👍 Cheers Michael
  10. As you well know, converting the Sunderland into an Empire C-class boat is a feasible operation https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235069104-short-empire-from-sunderland-using-adrians-vacu-fuselage/ Unfortunately, Maia has a shorter (and taller and wider at the bottom) fuselage and slightly longer wings with a much larger chord and surface area. The engines are further from the fuselage and the tail is mounted higher. All in all - although outwardly similar - S.21 is a flying boat much more distant from S.23 than Sunderland. Cheers Michael
  11. A rare example of a propeller-driven AFV. The Axis countries had amazing design ideas Cheers Michael.
  12. It's interesting what you write. As director of the Polish Aviation Museum, in 1989 I was ordered to take a MiG-21PFM from Goleniów. There were several dozen of them there, most of them had four-digit tactical numbers, as you well know, being the ending of the mfrs serial. Your 7903 is serialled 94N7903. You say that the Goleniów regiment had 12 such machines (7809-7815 and 7901-7905). I don't deny this - all 12 were "special weapons" carriers. But then, at the air base, my attention was caught by MiGs with a two-digit tactical number. There were eight of them: 01, 03-06 and 08-10. They had completely different factory serials than all the others, and the regiment CO "secretly" told me that they were "special weapons" carriers. So I swallowed this 01 like a young pelican swallows pincers and to this day I was convinced that the Krakow museum had a nuke-carrying Fishbed in its collection. It has the mfrs serial 940ML01 and is described in the museum's inventory as MiG-21PFMN. And now I have doubts: whether these two-digit tactical numbers (and completely different factory serials) were some kind of hoax (by whom?), or whether Goleniów had 20 and not 12 MiG-21 nuke carriers? And one more small note about the IAB-500. In addition to 300 litres of fuel, the bomb contained quite a large charge of phosphorus (it weighed a total of 470 kg), which ignited the entire mixture. One could say that it was the predecessor of later thermobaric bombs. And apart from that: a well-made model. I was sure it was 1:48 👏. Cheers Michael
  13. You're asking difficult questions, @Casey and I'm not a colour professional. I just like to have models painted with the appropriate color gradation - this one should be darker and that one lighter, or this green should be more blue and that one more yellow. Of the five questions you asked, I can only answer three: measurement angle was 45°/0°, observer angle: 10°, illuminant: D65, light source: 8 LEDs. The equipment I use is called Datacolor ColorReader Pro. The instrument is easy to use and (via BlueTooth) works with Android, which makes it just one step away from PhotoShop on my laptop. The price in Poland is about Ł300. Cheers Michael
  14. If these colours are to look like the samples provided by @PhantomBigStu, then the RGB for Light MB is 91-117-142 and for Dark MB 62-88-115. Please check this on your spectrometer and correct me if I'm wrong. The colours given by @MACALAIN are from a completely different story: Light MB as Hu157 is 65-121-157, which is a bit darker and much less purple, and Dark MB as Hu134 is 33-66-137, which is noticeably darker and again much less purple. I was surprised by @Mike Starmer proposals, which so far has always hit the mark. I don't have acrylics, but by mixing enamels in its proportions I obtained Dark MB almost identical to Phantom's (61-88-125) and obscenely bright Light MB. With a 4:1 ratio I got RGB 204-210-216, which is a light grey, closest to Hu147 (201-202-204), because Hu44 (181-208-237) - if similar in brightness - is much more bluish (saturated). Only a strong reversal of the proportions (2x Hu34 + 5x Hu104) gave RGB 89-121-143, which is close to Phantom's. But note that pure Hu96 from a can is not far from it either (97-121-147). As for Dark MB, in Mike's mixture I would only replace Hu25 with Hu134. Then with a 3:2 ratio we get RGB 61-85-123, a tad closer in hue to the sample provided by Phantom. Cheers Michael
  15. I started working on US Army AFV from the Vietnam War. First up are the M109 and M113, both in overall OD, of course. It is known that they should have white stars (four in the M109: front, rear and 2 sides, and in the M113 there is a fifth - on the roof), white double-row serial like US ARMY 123A456 on the sides (a question: should the M113 also have such a number on the rear wall?) and the unit markings on both mudguards at the front and rear. The latter in M109 is created by white letters and numbers directly on the OD background. And what should it be like in M113? In some drawings the background is OD, in others there are black quasi-plates? And one more thing: on some instruction sheets (Italeri, Tamiya) the M113 also has a yellow round shield on the front with black number 11 - probably a bridge limit. Was such a sign actually used in Vietnam, or did only vehicles used outside the combat zone have it, e.g. in Korea, Europe or the USA? Interestingly, a similar shield never appears on the M109 from Vietnam. Cheers Michael
  16. The new 3/4-colour camouflage for USN aircraft was announced on January 5, 1943 with an effective date of February 1. And stars with white bars were introduced in June. So formally, from February 1 to July 1 (5 months), the planes were to have new camouflage and old markings. For years, there have been speculations here and there about the "incomplete" repainting of aircraft in units in the spring of 1943. It mainly concerns fighters - in the case of the F6F, there is talk (apparently - I can't find it anywhere) of leaving the fuselage sides and fin in the old colour Blue Gray M485 (by the way, really barely darker and greener/less purple than ANA608 Intermediate Blue). Even more interesting insinuations appear with F4U - there (due to the lack of connection between the fuselage side areas and the fin+rudder) many artists (e.g. John Wood) willingly paint the fin in the old M485, and the sides in the new ANA608. There is even a famous photo of Boyington's F4U-1A, in which the underside of the outer (folding) part of the port wing is painted M685, and the starboard one - ANA608. https://www.asisbiz.com/il2/Corsair/VMF214/pages/Aircrew-US-National-Archives-80-G-54288-VMF-214-Turtle-Bay-Espiritu-Santo-New-Hebrides-Sep-1943-04.html With such a headache as they had on the Solomons, the planes could have many days of flying in such irregular patterns. Cheers Michael
  17. Let this be an excuse for the late Joe Baugher that he did not post information about the allocation of these 90 RAF numbers to the USN BuNos on his website. Until the day of his death, he did not complete his research on this matter and did not post it on his website. The data published by me is only a preliminary attempt included in the correspondence with me. Nevertheless, Joe insisted to the end that all 90 planes had BuNos. The problem remains: which ones? On the other hand, immediately before these FM-1s, the Royal Navy received 220 F4F-4B (Wright R-1820-engined) Martlet IV in 1942. These planes were financed by Lend-Lease, but did not receive BuNos. Could it be the same with the first FM-1s? So were there 7,825 or 7,915 Wildcats? Cheers Michael
  18. To sum up - most likely all 19 wore NMF or silver at some time. But at least 9 (that's how many photos I found) also appeared in other colours. Today I have 4 planes in SEA camouflage (63-8443, 66-9231, 66-9232 and 72-0439), two in desert camouflage (63-8440 and 73-1603), two in gray-blue low-vis (63-8441 and 72-0449) and one in pale gray low-vis (73-1607, thanks Giorgio). Unfortunately, some of these photos were taken after these planes were grounded and changed their designation to GF-5B. Either way, I have a few options for my F-5B . Cheers Michael
  19. First several hundred of production a/c had them. As well as the gun fairings. Cheers Michael
  20. After all, this new, even demarcation line runs much lower than the previous - wavy one. And there are no signs of the presence of M495 Light Gray above it. Therefore - although more interesting from the modeller's point of view - the concept of leaving the sides in M485 Blue Gray becomes unlikely. The photos simply don't show the wavy remnants of M495 above the low demarcation line from ANA601 White. The conclusion is that the entire sides above the white were one colour. Unless the paint shop on the Yorktown (and Essex, because only these two carriers are known to have operated F6Fs in the original camouflage) did not have ANA608 Intermediate Blue paint and the Light Gray "waves" protruding above the lowest demarcation line were painted over with a darker M485. Cheers Michael
  21. Probably only about 15-20 F-5Bs (not T-38s) flew in the USAF colours. Personally, I have only seen photos of these planes either in NMF or in SEA camo. Has anyone seen any other painting schemes for the USAF F-5B ? Cheers Michael
  22. They were definitely repainted White, because after adding Dark Sea Blue on the top, the demarcation line is even, and in the original scheme it is wavy. Cheers Michael
  23. I'm definitely not as much of a Wildcat expert as you are. But I once corresponded on this subject with the late Joe Baugher. If you trust his data, here it is: FM-1 Total: 1060 (including 312 for Britain) GM built version of the F4F-4, folding wings, 4 wing guns, 14 cyl. two-stage s/c R-1830-86, 1200hp, built 1942-43 by General Motors Linden, NJ BuNo. 14992-15401 410 for USN BuNo. 15402-15425 24 lent/leased to Britain as Martlet Mk.V JV415-438 BuNo. 15426-15469 44 for USN BuNo. 15470-15479 10 lent/leased to Britain as Martlet Mk.V JV439-448 BuNo. 15480-15519 40 for USN BuNo. 15520-15539 20 lent/leased to Britain as Martlet Mk.V JV449-468 BuNo. 15540-15569 30 for USN BuNo. 15570-15579 10 lent/leased to Britain as Martlet Mk.V JV469-478 BuNo. 15580-15629 50 for USN BuNo. 15630-15649 20 lent/leased to Britain as Martlet Mk.V JV479-498 BuNo. 15650-15679 30 for USN BuNo. 15680-15699 20 lent/leased to Britain as Martlet Mk.V JV499-518 BuNo. 15700-15729 30 for USN BuNo. 15730-15744 15 lent/leased to Britain as Martlet Mk.V JV519-533 BuNo. 15745-15774 30 for USN BuNo. 15775-15804 30 lent/leased to Britain as Martlet Mk.V JV534-563 BuNo. 15805-15824 20 for USN BuNo. 15825-15854 30 lent/leased to Britain as Martlet Mk.V JV564-593 BuNo. 15855-15869 15 for USN BuNo. 15870-15889 20 lent/leased to Britain as Martlet Mk.V JV594-613 BuNo. 15890-15893 4 for USN BuNo. 15894-15916 23 lent/leased to Britain as Martlet Mk.V JV614-636 BuNo. 15917-15951 35 for USN BuNo. 46738-46746 9 lent/leased to Britain as Martlet Mk.V JV325-333 BuNo. 46747 1 for USN BuNo. 46748-46753 6 lent/leased to Britain as Martlet Mk.V JV334-339 BuNo. 46754 1 for USN BuNo. 46755-46760 6 lent/leased to Britain as Martlet Mk.V JV340-345 BuNo. 46761 1 for USN BuNo. 46762-46769 8 lent/leased to Britain as Martlet Mk.V JV346-353 BuNo. 46770 1 for USN BuNo. 46771-46782 12 lent/leased to Britain as Martlet Mk.V JV354-365 BuNo. 46783 1 for USN BuNo. 46784-46796 13 lent/leased to Britain as Martlet Mk.V JV366-378 BuNo. 46797 1 for USN BuNo. 46798-46811 14 lent/leased to Britain as Martlet Mk.V JV379-392 BuNo. 46812 1 for USN BuNo. 46813-46815 3 lent/leased to Britain as Martlet Mk.V JV393-395 BuNo. 46816 1 for USN BuNo. 46817-46830 14 lent/leased to Britain as Martlet Mk.V JV396-409 BuNo. 46831 1 for USN BuNo. 46832 1 lent/leased to Britain as Martlet Mk.V JV410 BuNo. 46833 1 for USN BuNo. 46834-46837 4 lent/leased to Britain as Martlet Mk.V JV411-414 Cheers Michael
  24. Dear @Graham Boak, I don't know what sources you base your statement on, but IMHO the truth was completely different. Only the F13 version (without suffix) from 1919 had short wings (14.8 m span). Already in 1920, the F13a variant with a wingspan of 17.7 m entered production. And in total, until December 31, 1920, only 79 F13s were produced, i.e. less than 1/4 of the total of 351 F13s. So where do you see the "majority" here? Note that the first F13 was the factory WNr. J0531, and the J0533, used by the Polish airline Aerolloyd (renamed Aerolot, then Lot) in 1921-36, had a wingspan of 17.7 m from its first days. The next step was 1929 - from then on (F13f and later) all F13s had a fuselage 3 feet (90 cm) longer and wings from the W33 - the same span of 17.7m, but the leading edge sweep was increased 4 degrees and the trailing edge sweep was 4 degrees less - the wing area remained unchanged. The thoroughly researched and very extensive source http://www.hugojunkers.bplaced.net/junkers-f13.html presents the timeline of changes as follows: F13 was the initial design of 1919, powered with BMW IIIa or Mercedes IIIa F13a with increased wing span since 1920 F13b, c, d standard versions until 1928 with Junkers L2 (a since 1923), Junkers L5 (e since 1925), BMW IV (i since 1925) or BMW Va (o since 1926) F13f with modified wings, tail and undercarriage, same engines like d-series plus Puma (fy) and Jupiter (fae) since 1928 F13g with modified wing, W33 fuselage and Junkers L5 engine since 1929 F13h for US-market, increased wing swept and larger wing and Junkers L5 engine since 1929 F13k since 1930 with enclosed cockpit, toilet, modified undercarriage and wing and different engines Junkers L5 (ke), Jupiter IV (kae), Hornet and Hornet Geared (kue, kai), Jaguar (kao), Wasp (kau), Jaguar Major (kay) Ju13 or PS-2 Russian (Fili-built) F13s since 1923 JL6 original F13s of 1919, modified by Larsen in the USA JL12 original F13 of 1919, equipped with Liberty engine as ground attack aircraft by Larsen. I'm afraid that the urban legend about the large number of short-winged F13s was born in the USA, because all 25 aircraft assembled by Larsen actually had short wings. But in Europe it was really different. Cheers Michael
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