Giorgio N

A USAAF P-40E in North Africa would be a rare thing, not even sure I've ever seen one, most were P-40F with some P-40K. Which aircraft in particular are you planning ? You are correct that the P-40s sent to North Africa in a RAF desert scheme would have had US colours, although generally these were known as substitute rather than equivalent, with the terms equivalent used for the colours agreed between US and the UK and later incorporated in the ANA Bulletin. Of course not all P-40s went to North Africa in this scheme as a number had overall Sand as upper surfaces and there were other exceptions, The thread I linked above will describe several of these In general the Du Pont paints used by Curtiss as substitute for MAP paints seem to have actually been quite similar to the British ones. The "dark earth" may have been slightly lighter and the "mid stone" is said to have been yellower but I wonder how much of that difference would have been noticeable without having an aircraft in proper MAP paints right beside. Personally when I built a former USAAF P-40F in French markings I only slightly altered my usual "British" paints to reflect this, just to make this model that slightly different from other models of British built aircraft in the same theatre. I believe that based on the information available today even going with standard RAF paints would lead to a result pretty close to what the real aircraft would have worn in 1943.

Not ANA or FS colours: the ANA standard was introduced when fighting in North Africa was over (official issue September '43 but then took some time to send card to all manufacturers), although of course many of the colours already existed in other standards. The first FS.595 dates from 1956 so it's way later, although again pre-existing colours were incorporated in the catalogue. I asked about the colours used on USAAF P-40F in the MTO a few years ago and these are the answers I got: Well, I notice now that it was ten years ago... and I still have to build that kit ! In any case to recap the answer I got was that most were in Du-Pont paints that were close enough to the proper MAP colour while some others wore different schemes. Since you seem to be interested in the more standard RAF style desert scheme, what may be important is to understand how different these Du-Pont colours were from the actual British ones. There have been threads in this same forum discussing this, some information for example is here: I'm sure there are other threads in this same forum on the subject, the internal search function is not the best but generally I get good result by typing in google a few key words followed by "Britmodeller"

Yes, KP today is just a brand onwed by AZ. Metal mould long-run kits tend to be branded KP while short runs appear more in AZ branded boxes... but this is not always the case so better check somewhere first before buying a kit from one of these companies. I'm building one of these 109Es at the moment and while I liked some aspects the fit is not what I'd have expected from a modern tooling. Still they seem to be quite successful, guess that the competitive price helps

A question to which I probably already know the answer... I guess that production aircraft involved in experimental or research activity would be eligible even if they are not strictly designed for the role, right ? If so I've long desired to build Hunter WV383 while with RAE in the old Light Aircraft Grey with blue trim scheme, as seen in the link below: https://www.airhistory.net/photo/95791/WV383 This GB may be a good excuse to finally build a model of this aircraft, I've got the Xtrakit T.7 in the stash that I could just build OOB for this subject. This aircraft is today on display at Farnborough in her later Raspberry Ripple scheme, scheme that is sure very attractive but I find the earlier scheme very interesting, probably because it's quite unusual

I remember when I considered a conversion of an F-5B how I noticed that both this and the T-38 have a "triangular" shaped fairing ahead of the windscreen but these differed in shape. I would have to go over the pictures again to verify this and properly check how different they are. Or I could compare the Wolfpack Talon with the Esci F-5B since both are pretty good shapewise

I'd like to see a WIP of those kits to see what other changes were introduced to the kit, however in general modifying the intakes and the wing leading edges is not enough to convert the Hasegawa kit into a proper T-38. Among the main differences is the lower fuselage that in the F-5B is deeper than the T-38s in the wheel wells and airbrakes area and this leads to quite a different shape. The upper front fuselage profile is also different. An F-5B can be quickly made into a T-38 look-alike but to get to a proper T-38 there's quite some work to be done

I'm honestly quite puzzled by some of the replies here... really, has any of you participated in a discussion about accuracy of a kit ???? Has any of you properly read one such discussion ??? 0.00001 of a Micron ???? Thickness of the plastic ???? Do you realize that all kits that have sparked discussions over their accuracy have done so because of major shape and/or dimensional errors ?????? Because that's the reality of these discussions, every time they occur is because someone notices some major error, it's not a matter of microns, most times it's because of shape inaccuracies that can be seen just by comparing the model with photographs of the real thing. Want examples ? I can bring up many ! In most of them just one picture is enough to show the error, in a few the errors can be found just by comparing dimensions with proper measurements of the real thing. But in any case we're talking errors that go well beyond the limitation of the manufacturing process and are always due to one thing: the use of incorrect and/or insufficient references by the manufacturer. And more... accuracy Vs. buildability ? What's the correlation between the two ? There have been very complicated and hard to build kits that were also inaccurate and there are kits designed for easy assembly that are remarkably accurate. A kit can be easy or difficult to build regardless of how correct or not the cross sections are. An accurate kit does not have to be more complicated than an inaccurate one. Complex engineering is generally due to other requirements, for example the need to add more detail or to make different versions from a common set of moulds. Stuffing up accuracy while building ??? Why ? if my kit features accurate shapes and dimensions, how are my skills going to affect the final result ? Does it become shorter because I'm less skilled ? Sure, I may mess up the cross sections because I'm sanding the edges too much... but why should I sand the edges of a fuselage to the point of changin the cross sections (unless it's a vacuform )? The only way a modeller's skill can affect the accuracy of the complete model is by gluing the parts incorrectly for one reason or the other, but then such an error would equally affect a less accurate model (I should know, years ago I inverted the intakes on a Matchbox Harrier... made for some unusual looking model). But this has to do with basic skills, it's not much a matter of being a more or less experienced modeller. Not mentioned here but an often discussed issue... accuracy Vs. price ? Sure, more research can in theory result in higher development costs. Still there are plenty of examples of companies offering pretty accurate products at very reasonable prices so it can be done. Simply some companies try harder than others.... Accuracy of a kit is a result of the work of the manufacturer. Accuracy of the completed model can then benefit from the work of the modeller. It's then up to each modeller to decide how much work, if any, he/she is interested in putting in. Some may want to put more, some may just not care. As modellers each of us can clearly do what he likes. As customers of kit manufacturing companies we should however be entitled to ask from them as much as possible in every aspect, and accuracy is one of them.

A 1/72 T-38 is a very hard to find beast ! The only real T-38 in this scale was the kit from Sword, one of their early short-run kits. This was available in several variants, of which the easier to find was the C. I'd have to check my references to see if any C was used in conjuction with the SR-71 fleet but IIRC they were all As. Avoid the Hasegawa kit, it was just an F-5B with some modifications suggested in the instructions, a proper T-38 is quite a different aircraft. Same for the PM kit, that is also pretty bad in general. Years ago there was an article on how to convert an F-5B into a T-38, starting from the very good Esci kit. It's not the simplest of jobs but can be done if you are so inclined. If you don't mind changing scale, Wolfapack from Korean issued a series of very nice T-38 in 1/48. If you want to stick to 1/72 then you have a choice between searching for the Sword kit or converting an F-5B. Hopefully one day someone will issue a proper 1/72 kit of this aircraft

Are they still active ? Their website disappeared around a month ago and a number of shops seem to have stopped receiving their products

On the F-14A the two nozzles were one open and one closed any time the aircraft was parked. This was due to the engine shut-down procedure and generally resulted in the left nozzle closed while the right remained open. This was the most common but there are pictures showing the opposite. In the B and D variant generally the aircraft are parked with both nozzles open but it's possibile to see pictures showing one nozzle open and the other closed

There is a clear logic in this, although it may be seen as a pretty perverse logic... The reason for the existence of the large nuclear arsenals was (and still is) deterrence. The availability of enough weapons to destroy the enemy "just" once was seen as something that could have tempted the enemy to devise plans to preemptively destroy or disable a part of such force, so negating or weakening the deterrent effect. Having enough weapons to pulverize the enemy not one but 20 times meant that no enemy could have ever dreamt of trying to disable the nuclear force as even a small fraction of this could have still completely destroyed the same enemy. We should also keep in mind that military commanders of the era were very concerned with the actual reliability of their arsenals, missiles in particular. An aircraft can be flight tested at any time, a missile can't. Tests were done randomly each year but it was well understood that a fraction of the nuclear force would have not reached their intended targets. Same problem with the warheads, the fact that some of these would have been duds had to be kept in mind (and again tests were conducted to verify the actual reliability). At some point in the '70s there were concerns in the US that only 20-30% of the strategic missile force would have actually destroyed their targets, that meant requiring to be able to destroy the enemy at least 5 times to guarantee the destruction of the same enemy once.

The Mirage IV fleet was expected to have 36 operational aircraft at any time (12 of which on immediate alert), meaning that the 60 built kept being rotated from storage to operational units to maintenance and so on.... that is yet one other example of how the number of aicraft built differs from that of those available for duty. This is indeed quite a small number but in the end made sense in the overall French strategy: the idea was to be able to hit a relatively small number of targets, around 10 major Soviet cities. Again the number of aircraft was higher than the number of targets to be able to have at least one bomb dropped on each target. Clearly the Mirage IV force was not capable of destroying the whole Soviet Union but the thought was that the capability of destroying those 10 cities would have been enough to deter a potential aggression. We should also keep in mind that the Mirage IV was a later aircraft compared to the British bombers and by the time this became operational work was also ongoing on the development of indigenous ballistic missiles, work that led to the land-based S2 and the M1 SLBM. The contemporary of the British V bombers in French service was the Vautour, of which around 40 served as nuclear bombers. Not really an aircraft particularly suited to the task and something comparable more to a Canberra in performance than to strategic bombers.

Considering how the Hobbyboss kit is clearly "inspired" by the earlier Italeri kit, I often wondered how they managed to get the windscreen so wrong.... all they had to do was to keep being "inspired" by the Italian kit to get it right...

Nice choice of subject, it's the same I was considering but mine would have been in 1/72 scale. I always loved Goldstein's story and his defiance toward the Nazis in the choice of a name for his aircraft. What colour will you chose for the spinners ? I've seen both red and blue mentioned but I've not started any proper research into this

It's the concept of "overkill", you need to have a number of weapons exceeding what is theoretically needed to guarantee that the enemy will be assured to receive the damage required to take into account all those weapons that will never reach the target. This is particularly important in nuclear warfare as pretty much all nuclear weapons carriers are one-mission only tools for one reason or the other: some bombers will never even leave base because of technical problems, some will be lost over the route to target for enemy action or accidents, some may not find their target, some will drop but their weapons will not work... finally some will reach their target, drop and see a result. With very little chance for a bomber to return to base and be rearmed, it is important that the first wave will do as much damage as possible, hence the need for many more bombers than targets. And of course, as others have said, there were never 300 bombers operational at any given time in the RAF... There were also rarely enough bombs for all the bombers: Blue Danube total production was 58 while Red Beard was around 150. The later WE.177 was built in over 300 units, with around 40-50 used as depth charges. If we consider the total number of aircraft with nuclear capability built for the RAF in the same timeframe it's clear that there were way more "bombers" than bombs, that makes sense since the number of operational aircraft depends on a number of operational issues. There's also the fact that not all "bombers" were assigned to the nuclear role: a number of V-bombers served in other roles like tanking and recce and this is even more true for the tactical strike aircraft, where only some units equipped with say the Jaguar or Tornado had this as a role while others served in different missions.