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In October-December/41 the 145 IAP of the Soviet Air Force was moved from the Murmansk front and reorganized into 609 IAP at Kandalaksha; this unit was equipped with I-16, LaGG-3(Lavochkin-Gorbunov-Gudkov-3) and MiG-3s. Major Leonid Galchenko was made commander of the new unit. By 6th Jun 42 Galchenko was made a Hero of the Soviet Union. The famous white cat was painted in Semptember 1941. Galchenko decided to paint a cat in answer to the "Tigers head" he saw on a Me-109 that he tangled with several times on the Karelian front. He considered this as a sort of talisman, and it looks to have functioned well, because he was never shot down. (This aircraft with a later black cat was shot down once, but that time the pilot was not Galchenko but his wingman- Mironov. The red stars on the tail and fuselage were overpainted with camo colors; the addition of a red star on the spinner was probably painted at the time, because the whole fuselage was left without any national marking. Large splotches of white distemper were applied during the winter and probably to clean up the aircraft for a PRO shoot the scuffing on the wing walks were painted over with black. This is my rendition of that aircraft using the excellent ICM example. Completely OOB, I used Tamiya acrylics and artists water colours for the white distemper. Galchenko became deputy commander of 324 IAD (Fighter Aviation Division), and he received an La-5F, on whose tail he painted the cat emblem again. He continued to fly combat over the Arctic and on Karelia till the end of the war, totalling 24 individual victories, plus 12 shared, in 310 sorties. (Thanx to Massimo Tessitori)

Hello all For this group build I will be building three Lagg 3's. All will be in 1/72 but the kits are very different. One each of the Roden kit, the Emhar/Frog/RedStar and the Eastern Express kit. I will also be using Kuivalainen photo etch sets, Kora wheels and Steelwork undercarriage doors as a minimum of after market to start with. I may use at least one after market seat, also a Falcon canopy and perhaps two Rob Taurus canopies. All three aircraft can be seen here, they are 'White 68', 'Red 59' and 'Red 52' of 3rd Gv. IAP Baltic Fleet east of Lage Ladoga in winter 1942. All will have varying degrees of white distemper temporary winter camouflage applied: http://mig3.sovietwarplanes.com/lagg3/3gviap/3gviap.html I have the Roden kit, freshly purchased from BNA model world. This kit is a little notorious for the fact that in reality, although it looks nice on the sprues, nothing really fits together well: Some say with perseverance it is the best Lagg 3 in 1/72. Others say the Dakoplast/Eastern Express is the best. We will see, I am still waiting for that one to arrive. The third is the very old Red Star/Emhar kit. I only have a bagged version with the parts off the sprues and decals. It came with an instruction sheet for a KPM vac form. Although the instruction sheet may seem useless, it actually has some good plans and reference material in it. This kit is extremely lacking in detail and I hope to steal bits from the Roden and use the other two kits and all resources to make this kit the best it can be. I have made one before and it can be thrown together in a couple of hours, but rather more time and care will be taken on it this time. The KPM sheet: I hope to incorporate these three aircraft into a simple, snowy diorama. If anyone can recommend suitable pilot figures please let me know, as this time I'm going to try to include them and have some open canopies This should keep me busy for a while! Thanks for looking Best regards Tony Edited for spelling

Hello modellers , Well, I've been looking forward to this, only my second GB. I wasn't sure what a Vignette was in modelling terms. In terms of writing a little story, yes, so I thought that is maybe what it is for modelling. Perhaps a small section of what would usually be a diorama? A small part of the bigger picture. I hope I have at least the essence of the idea. Originally I had wanted to build one of two Spanish Civil War dioramas, but as time went by, I realised that my WIP for three I-16's had made such a diorama difficult. Many setbacks with these builds meant that I couldn't be very sure I could complete *another* I-16, a conversion to a 'Type 10' from an ICM 'Type 18' kit in time to have it ready for this GB. Moreover, I simply could not find figures I was happy with for the SCW Republican aircrew. I am so happy Minairons exist, their AFV's are lovely (although I prefer SteelWorks, but both are great). Nevertheless I purchased a set of their 'Republican Infantry' and was disappointed. They're obviously meant for the gaming community. They have that exaggerated, cartoon like quality, that inhuman chunkiness that simply doesn't float my boat. My brother is an avid gamer and I know these figures will be loved by that community (and I often wish I was part of it), but true to scale modelling is my love. Therefore figures like Preiser, even Revell and Airfix, make me happy So, I re-assessed. I'm making three Lagg-3 aircraft in 1/72 for the GPW GB. I checked and found it was OK to use one of these in this GB. This got me rather happy! A few months ago I found a photograph of a Polikarpov Po-2 being refuelled in the cold, harsh environment of a WW2 winter . I didn't know it was a Po-2 at first, but friends over on WW2 Aircraft Net helped me identify it as a night fighter variant on skis. The refueller is a BZ-35 in white distemper and I love white distemper camouflage! Here is the photo: Some sources state this as a BZ-38, but I will not worry too much about that, this Vignette will not even include the Po-2. I purchased a Po-2, but I have decided I will not have time to build it for this GB as I am also committed to the Airliner GB soon, so to keep it fun, a LaGG 3 (one of my aviation favourites!), should be in the process of refuelling. A photo of a LaGG 3 in winter 1942 by Lake Ladoga has always been a favourite; here it is: This image is from Page 10 of 'Lagg Fighters in Action', Squadron/Signal Aircraft Number 163 by Hans-Heiri Stapfer 1996. It is also on Massimo Tessitori's superb VVS website and there credited to'Red Stars'. If I need to remove it please let me know. I have always like the nature of this photograph; the rugged, extreme cold it shows, whilst the aircraft is pared down, even the cockpit main canopy removed, in this hellish freezing cold to improve visibility for the pilot; very likely Georgy Kostylev. He named his aircraft Columbine and was clearly fond of her, scoring at least 10 victories. Well, the components were in the porridge pot of my brain and this vignette was born. Georgy Kosylev waiting for his Columbine to be refuelled. Absolutely freezing even in his long coat. . For some reason the refuelling guy is wearing normal ground-crew clothing with no overcoat and doesn't seem to be cold at all. This causes some questions and thoughts to appear in the mind of Georgy! Has anyone yet noticed it is very cold ? The progress of my build of Columbine can be found here . Meanwhile, I purchased these Zvezda ground Crew figures: They are splendid figures and clearly based upon characters from a famous Soviet film (Only Old Men Are Going to Battle) that can be found here as a colour version (with subtitles) on Youtube, in particular one can identify the quite portly (like me) cheerful man: ​I ask some advice here; the Zvezda kit provides no information on the colours to be used for the ground crew uniforms, I have Googled but to no avail. l If I could type in Russian, I think I would have success, but I can't . Could anyone advise on colours? ​I have bought a figure to represent Georgy waiting for his beloved aircraft to be refuelled, it is by Aero-Bonus, is in resin and is very nice indeed. It was a little expensive for just one figure, but this is for something special Painting instructions are, very helpfully, included with this one: Finally the BZ-35. I have no way of knowing where Georgy got his fuel from, or what kind of bowser, but this will do; it was around in 1942 and looks the part. It is by PST and Sgt. Squarehead helped me to research and locate it; thanks Sarge! Finally the base, two dollars (a pound) picture frame from a Salvation Army charity shop: I will be cutting the size down to fit the dimensions allowed in this GB. It does not have glass, it has a plastic clear face, so I think this could be a nice 'icy' start to the terrain I've made a little start on the fuel truck/bowser and this, the base, a crew figure or two and the plot will be included in this WIP. I have never built a Vignette before and have no experience of painting figures or AFV's/trucks! !! This will be a huge learning experience. Any advice on how to replicate snow over forest/tundra grass will be much appreciated. Also any figure painting advice for 1/72. These are lovely figures and I'd like to do them justice. I've done a lot of Youtube and other research on painting them, and bought a 'Lifecolor' 'Flesh Paint' set. I hope that was a good start? Next post; the BZ gets underway. Thanks for reading and happy modelling Tony