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Another GB proposal year has just started, and my table is, no it was empty From the Mediterranean Theater of Operations, in short MTO, again comes a group build proposal concentrating in one of the hottest and most variety packed periods in warfare. From late autumn of 1942, when the Operation Torch was launched, until late summer of 1943, when Operation Husky was completed, the ever increasing might of the Allied was still met by determined and stiff resistance of the Axis. Following their trail from the shores of the Atlantic and the Western Desert of Libya, through Tunisia this campaign raged until all of Sicily was captured. The battle raged on the seas, on the ground and in the air. Never before, and never after, this period was there so many types of aircraft and armour facing each other. One could say this was the last real attempt of the Luftwaffe Kampfgeschwadern to strike in the west. The mighty Tiger 🐅 tank appeared in Tunisia. Various ships delivered artillery and air support to troops fighting on the ground. Also... Eh, that list could be endless. In my opinion there's no need to pinpoint the theme to the map of the ground campaign and invasions, but have anything from the MTO during that period, as we know that everything affects something, somehow. Would You be interested to write your own chapter of it in 2025? V-P P.S. Before you ask, Vichy is included vppelt68 (host) Corsairfoxfouruncle stevehnz JOCKNEY franky boy Grandboof ModelingEdmontonian John Masters 2996 Victor Toryu Marklo Rafwaffe modelling minion MRMRL Keeff Armor Novice ...

Hello! Back again with a speedbuild! I made this over the course of six days, after purchasing it at Scale Scotland 2022! I'm pretty happy with the result. WIP thread: here's the model: Thanks for looking!

Hi all, Latest one to get finished on the bench is Hobby Boss' very nice 1/48 F4F-4 Wildcat. I've built this as part of the excellent Mediterranean Theatre GB which you really should check out as there are some truly excellent builds going on and some really good finished ones in the gallery. The model was built OOTB with the exception of some seat belts and aftermarket decals from Superscale which performed excellently and I used both Vallejo and Lifecolor paints. Here are the pics; Hope you like her and thanks for looking in, all comments and criticisms are gratefully received. And for anyone interested here is the link to the WIP; Craig.

Hello everyone. I finished this build in June this year... But finally I've found some time and a good sheet of white paper to make pictures and post them here... This is my ready for inspection Hurricane and Swordfish (Airfix, 1/72) from Operation Torch kit. Here you see the building process (I still didn't move all the pictures from the PhotoBucket, but if you got a proper add-on for your browser you may see them all): It was a lovely build. As you may see I continued experimenting with weathering. Also it was my first experience with rigging. Hurricane was built straight from the box. And Swordfish got Eduard zoom set, AMMO rigging line, Albion tubes and beading wire. Swordfish also shows a canvas patchwork on the portside and some of the engine cowling panels replaced from another Swordfish with different camouflage.

Hello everyone, After my last 7-months build in 1/32 scale I decided to do something really easy... And I think this Airfix Club kit should be a good stress relief I will build a Sea Hurricane first, straight out of the box and closed canopy. The kit provides two sets of wings thus different Hurry versions can be built. The instruction explains only a carrier based version (Sea Hurricane), so a section of both fuselage halves requires cut off to fit an arresting hook mechanism: The interior is very basic but should not be a problem as I don't plan to leave it opened: Everything fits really well though some putty will be needed around arresting hook and for those nasty deepenings behind the wing...

I have three new Airfix Martlets and rashly a few days before Christmas though; 'I'll bash up a couple of them for the Mediterranean Theatre GB as the markings in the box are for two Operation Torch aircraft'. Not a good idea with three days to go and my speed of building. Thankfully sanity prevailed and I will work on them alongside by Tungsten Barrracuda at a more leisurely, and eminently sensible, pace. I'll still build two together and do one of each of the options in the box. They are both for aircraft from 888 Squadron from HMS Formidable. Both are classic Dark Slate Grey/Extra Dark Sea Grey over Sky but one has the US Stars instead of British roundels so they will look quite different. Airfix also give the option of folding the wings so I'll do one with straight wings and one with folded. No idea why Photobucket has inserted the pictures upside down. I'll see if I can fix them later. There are things about Photobucket that only Photobucket knows.

This is my first RFI and I do appreciate that there are many better modellers than me on here but I enjoyed making it. It is an Airfix Modeller's Club special edition and comes along with a Swordfish. The kit is brush painted with Xtracrylix paints and I used a Peewit paint mask. It went together pretty straightforwardly but the under fuselage insert for the arrestor hook was a bit of a challenge. And I don't think I did the best job on it. Originally the pilot's head barely cleared the cockpit sill so I packed up the seat with scrap. Hope it passes muster. I had terrible problems with Photobucket so sorry if the pictures are ropey

This is the new-tool Fairey Swordfish Mk.1 from the Airfix Club "Sparks of Liberation" boxing. I built it in tribute to my Grandfather, Joseph Liam Guerin, happily still with us, whose ship RFA Brown Ranger supported the Operation Torch landings. It represents V4448, a Swordfish of 833 Sqn, aboard HMS Biter. It is nicely detailed, and the final product looks good, to my eyes. Decals apply cleanly, although I would recommend some sort of setting solution such as decal fix, especially for the fuselage codes, given the profile of the area over which they sit. I was surprised how few stencils there were, but perhaps the FAA didn't go in for them? The moulding of some parts is very fine, which is great, but it does demand particular care in removing them, as the plastic is inclined to both bend and snap! The outer wing struts have a subsidiary strut behind them, and I broke both whilst extracting them, so I eventually abandoned my side cutters for the finer pieces. From the instructions I wasn't sure how to assemble the cockpit tub and made the wrong choice, making it slightly too wide, which it then needed a lot of glue, clamping and brute force to correct when I put the fuselage halves together. The efforts made by Airfix to simplify the assembly of the wings were effective, though. This build for the first time I 90% finished painting the fuselage and inner surfaces of the wings before putting them together, which I found substantially easier, and will try to remember next time. I wish I had thought to put on the lower wing decals at the same time! The Airfix painting guide doesn't show the standard RAF/FAA fin flash in use, but I found a French profile which did, and so followed that element of it. I also followed the other profile, and deviated from the painting guide, by roughly painting-out the "Royal" of "Royal Navy" above the port and starboard serial codes. To achieve the overall camouflage scheme, I applied an interpretation of the two schemes to create the camouflage pattern, as the Airfix painting guide showed the same pattern on both port and starboard sides, which seemed inherently unlikely, as well as being contradicted by the overhead view. It is also worth noting that some of the painting instructions given in the course of the build are different from those parts as shown in the painting guide, for example the bomb racks and rocket carriers, which are both 85 Coal Black according to the instructions, but 90 Beige Green (approx Sky) according to the painting guide. The kit comes with a torpedo and its impedimenta plus two extra rockets, and so is a useful source of spares. Overall a very good kit.

This is another in my series of builds "Aircraft my Father Fixed". Up to now I've built mostly the aircraft my Father worked on while in Burma in the latter half of WWII while attached to 5 Squadron. Before that he was with 81 Squadron from their entry into Operation Torch at Gibraltar Oct '42 up until Sicily had been pacified in Oct-Nov1943 whereupon he was transferred to Cairo en-route to India and 5 Squadron. Funnily enough, 81 Squadron followed his his wake a couple of weeks later and ended up based 5 miles down the road in India, re-equipping with Spitfire VIII, hence why we have a Christmas dinner menu from 81 Sqn in 1943 in my father's effects. Anyway, back to Tunisia in the spring/summer of 1943. Up to that point, the squadron had been equipped with Spitfire Vb Trop and Vc Trop (hence my earlier abortive attempt to convert the Hobbyboss Vb Trop to a Vc Trop), however these were beginnign to be outmatched by the German aircraft. The Tropical filters used on the V series had an unfortunate side-effect of reducing overall performance of the engine. So in May '43 81 Sqn started receiving Spitfire IXs. At this point they were based in Tunisia at Souk-el-Khemis airfield and subsequently moved to other airfields in the general vicinity. From reading Alan Peart's book "From North Africa to the Arakan" you get to see that conditions on these airfields were basic to say the least. So I want to try to capture a snapshot of the activity of the groundcrew in these conditions in my diorama. Build thread viewable here So here are the photos of the finished build: Made it in time for the Farnborough club meet tomorrow! Phew!

Inspired by robvulcan and PC2012's builds it is now my turn to have a bash at a large scale detailed Spitfire. This is another in my series of builds "Aircraft my Father Fixed". Up to now I've built mostly the aircraft my Father worked on while in Burma in the latter half of WWII while attached to 5 Squadron. before that he was with 81 Squadron from their entry into Operation Torch at Gibraltar Oct '42 up until Sicily had been pacified in Oct-Nov1943 whereupon he was transferred to Cairo en-route to India and 5 Squadron. Funnily enough, 81 Squadron followed his his wake a couple of weeks later and ended up based 5 miles down the road in India, re-equipping with Spitfire VIII, hence why I have a Christmas dinner menu from 81 Sqn in 1943: Anyway, back to Tunisia in the spring/summer of 1943. Up to that point, the squadron had been equipped with Spitfire Vb Trop and Vc Trop (hence my earlier abortive attempt to convert the Hobbyboss Vb Trop to a Vc Trop), however these were beginnign to be outmatched by the German aircraft. The Tropical filters used on the V series had an unfortunate side-effect of reducing overall performance of the engine. So in May '43 81 Sqn started receiving Spitfire IXs. At this point they were based in Tunisia at Souk-el-Khemis airfield and subsequently moved to other airfields in the general vicinity. From reading Alan Peart's book "From North Africa to the Arakan" you get to see that conditions on these airfields were basic to say the least. So I want to try to capture a snapshot of the activity of the groundcrew in these conditions in my diorama. So to begin with, the model - you've all seen plenty of sprue shots so I won't bother here, but at least here is the box: For the base I'm using a 300x300 wooden base supplied by one of my IPMS Farnborough colleagues from his website: http://www.ema-heritage.com/displaybases.html That should give enough space for the aircraft and some activity around it. Speaking of which, the donor kits for figures, materials etc include this lot: Yes I know there is 1:35 scale figures in there but my Dad was only 5' 5" tall, so they'll be okay On th eleft you can see some of the ValueGear stuff that I used in my Hurricane diorama earlier in the year. This stuff is superb, huge variety and excellent casting and detail. I picked up a set of crates as well which you can see in the glass ashtray in the top left. Above that is the IconAir accumulator trolley I built originally for the Hobbyboss build. I've added a small engine on the top of it to represent the generator that was fitted to many of them. This was sourced from the US Maintenance Yard kit from the compressor you can see at the bottom right of the box top picture. For the Spitfire I've got a collection of Decals for the inside and outside that will allow me to represent EN204 FL-L: (from the Osprey book "Spitfire Aces of North Africa and Italy) Note how the original "E" lettering has been badly overpainted to turn it into a "L" Here are the decals I'll use: There is a huge amount of aftermarket stuff for this kit and here is a selection of what I may or may not be using: There are wheels, seat, large cannon wing covers, cockpit door with seperate crowbar (not to be painted red!!), Cockpit upgrade set, cockpit stbd sidewall, "cloth" seatbelts PE Toolbox by Aber (just like the one I have in the Hurricane dio) and finally the PE set for the Hobbyboss Vb, but which contains some very useful bits for this build, eg the PE radio hatch door which will be used elsewhere on this build! I actually started this build a couple of weeks ago but haven't got very far because in the weather we've been having the man-cave shed is to flipping cold!! So I've come up with a cunning plan... Part of the delay was waiting for all the parts to arrive and also to do the research for the various things I want to do. Here is a sample of some of the reference material I've collected: This of course doesn't show the e-book PDF of Monforton's book or the other reference photos, sites etc that I've used and will be using. I've printed some of the engine photos and stuck them up: which gives away my cunning plan to get around the cold weather situation... move a lot of the modelling stuff into a temporary table in the lounge! All the airbrushing will still have to be done in the shed, but at least I can build and brush paint in comfort! I began on the figures as I was waiting. I picke dout two from the 8th army set and one form the Tank riders set: The Tank rider figure in grey had to have the top of his head rebuilt as I won't be putting a steel helmet on him, instead he'll get an RAF side cap at a suitably rakish angle! I began work on the engine and my aim is to add as much detail as I can bear to. The inspiration for that is the amazing Hornet build being undertaken by airscale in another thread here: http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234950214-hph-de-havilland-hornet-sea-hornet-f-mk22-tt202/ Truly magnificent stuff and if I can get anything approaching this, I'll be very happy! Progress so far: Its all a bit bland and OOB so far - well apart from the replacement resin rocker covers with the Rolls Royce logo on them. This will change as time progresses I hope. Now since I've got an accumulator trolley in The diorama, there should be somewhere for it to plug into: Voila! So of course there is also the question of the starboard rear panel I've been pestering people about on another thread... this one: As you can see I've successfully cut it out without causing damage to the surrounds and next to it is the PE Radio access panel from the VB PE set which is near enough the same size (its about 1.75 inches too tall, but that won't be noticeable when its hanging open. Here is the inside of it: which has superb fine detail. One of the things that my researches show for this access hatch is that the inner frame is very visible, with all its lightening holes present. So I'm going to have to scratch build that so that means removing the existing rib detail in the kit: So thats where I stand so far - bloody hell its taken an hour to write this post! I'd better get on with the rest of the day...

OPERATION 'TORCH' The Anglo-American Invasion of Vichy French North Africa Book by AIRfile Following the invasion by German forces into France in 1940, the armed forces of that country became split as to their alliances. To the north and west the French capitulated to the Germans under the overwhelming power that the axis forces projected. The case was different in the Vichy area of south-east France, along with other French controlled areas bounding the Mediterranean; namely Morocco, Algiers and Tunisia. These areas became known as the Vichy French controlled areas The Vichy French aligned themselves with Germany, as part of an agreement not to divide France up to the axis nations at the end of the war. This meant that access to the Mediterranean was threatened, not only from German and Italian forces but now also Vichy French forces. This situation was exacerbated by the French anger at Britain's attacks on the French naval bases in 1940, to prevent the French warships being taken over by the axis forces. In Britain, plans were drawn up to invade the Vichy French controlled areas of North Africa and the invasion began in November 1942. Three operational sectors were allocated to the Allied invasion force: Morocco in the west was fully US controlled, with the US landing force being supported by P-40F Warhawks flying off from 4 US carriers. Oran, in Algieria was the central sector and this consisted of US landing forces transported by Royal Navy carriers. The eastern sector was Algiers and consisted of an Anglo-American landing force, also carried and supported by British carriers and warships. The Book This book is produced in the now familiar, A4 portrait layout and softback cover, similar to previous AIRfile publications. It is compiled by, well respected and renown in the modelling world, Neil Robinson and it is profusely illustrated by equally respected Peter Scott. The first thing one notices when initially flicking through these pages, is the array of colour that adorns the aircraft during this campaign. The Second World War usually portrays an impression of aircraft in subdued camouflage patterns, especially for British aircraft, of browns or greys and greens etc., however the Vichy French aircraft contrast immensely with that concept and the first few pages of the book appear to be a profusion of brightly coloured aircraft. This will surely generate an interest in building and painting something just that little bit different from that war period. Some pages are dedicated to a single aircraft. These show a four-sided view of the aircraft, along with the description and historical notes. These layouts can be especially useful for the modeller as they depict an all round view of the colours and markings for that particular aircraft. Other pages show up to four profile views of aircraft, with a narrative depicting the history, colours and markings for that specific airframe. The next section in the book covers the British aircraft taking part in this operation and is further divided between aircraft of the Fleet Air Arm and Royal Air Force . It is interesting to note that all the current, operational, front-line Fleet Air Arm aircraft types were involved, from the newly introduced Seafire, to Sea Hurricanes, Fulmars, Martlets, Albacores and Swordfish; from the carriers, plus the ubiquitous Walrus which was launched from the battleships and cruisers taking part. It is noted in the book that Fleet Air Arm fighters commitment was 130 fighters and 30 Albacore and Swordfish torpedo bombers. From a Royal Air Force perspective, the aircraft covered include the Spitfire, Hurricane, Blenheim, Hudson and Beaufighter. These aircraft show the 'American style' white star markings, in place of the standard British roundels, the reason for this being two-fold. Firstly, it was to avoid confusion of identifying allied and axis aircraft as the Vichy French had similar shaped roundels on their aircraft and, secondly, to give the impression that this was an all US operation; mainly due to the French feelings about the British shelling their ships at Mers-el-Kebir and other French controlled ports. The image below is an enlarged view from a page and shows the narrative which accompanies each excellently illustrated aircraft. The next section of the book depicts aircraft from the US Navy and US Army Air Force which took part in this operation. The identification markings, of white star over dark blue circle background was accentuated by a thick yellow ring surrounding the standard symbols. Some of the illustrations which adorn these pages are of full four sided views of a single aircraft, along with the narrative which is placed in a convenient area between the drawings. These 4-view illustrations should be of particular help in a model build as they show the demarcations of the camouflage, as well as the separation lines between upper and lower fuselage colouring. Another salient feature is that the placement of markings, such as the US Flag, in the illustrations which are another helpful aid for the modeller. Approximately two-thirds is taken up with details of the aircraft of the allied invasion forces, with the remainder of this fine book is being dedicated to aircraft of the axis forces which were deployed in defence of the invasion. The section on Luftwaffe aircraft comes first and, like the previous sections, is profusely illustrated with well researched colour drawings of German aircraft. This starts with fighters and is followed by the various bombers in use at the time. It is interesting to note within these illustrations how the aircraft camouflage patterns differ across the region; such as the dark European theatre type camouflage of the Ju-87's above which were based in Tunisia; to the sand/desert type such as these Ju-88's below based at Sicily. The final part of this book describes the aircraft of the Italian air force in that area at the time. These drawings include some nice representations of the nose-arts that were painted on the aircraft. Most illustrations are in portrait format however, due to their size, some of the illustrations of bombers; as with the Savoia-Marchetti SM.79 & 84 below, have been displayed in landscape format. This is not just a book of excellently researched and illustrated pictures of aircraft; it also contains pages of interesting information. An example which is illustrated below depicts the structure and breakdown of the RAF colour schemes and details of the RAF Wings/Squadrons at Gibraltar during this operation Similarly, within the Axis forces sections, there is informative data on the Luftwaffe and Italian air forces and their aircraft. Conclusion This is a very well documented book concerning the aircraft involved, on both sides, during Operation Torch - the invasion of Vichy French controlled territory in North Africa. Within its pages are details of 152 different aircraft. The breakdown of illustrations is: Vichy French 36; US Navy 18; USAAF 25; Fleet Air Arm 26; Royal Air Force 15; Luftwaffe 36 and Regia Aeronautica 7. There is so much choice here and this should be of great benefit for the modeller wishing to research and build an aircraft of this period and theatre of combat. AIRfile continue to produce informative and colourful publications for the modeller and this is no exception. Neil Robinson has compiled yet another really useful book which is not only informative but should also be a very an essential reference tool, especially with the many full colour illustrations produced by Peter Scott. The data supplied in the narrative of each aircraft, details the colours and specific markings which will help the modeller to super detail their particular model. The illustrations, which I have scanned and produced here, have been reduced in size and quality to fit in the with the review layout and do not do the book enough justice. If you are intending to build a model aircraft depicting this period and theatre of operation then this book would be a very useful research tool. Highly recommended. Review sample courtesy of Buy it Now Kindly mention Britmodeller.com to the supplier when making enquiries or orders