The Dragon (1/72 Eduard Fw190 A-8)

[Procopius]

THE DRAGON: Who’s he that seeks the Dragon’s blood,

And calls so angry, and so loud?

That English dog, will he before me stand?

I’ll cut him down with my courageous hand.

With my long teeth, and scurvy jaw,

Of such I’d break up half a score,

And stay my stomach, till I’d more.

-- Christmas Play of St. George and the Dragon, as collected by William Sandys, F.S.A., in Christmas-tide - its History, Festivities and Carols, 1852

This shall bestride the sea and ride the sky.

Thus shall he fly, and beat above your nation

The clashing pinions of Apocalypse,

Ye shall be deep-sea fish in pale prostration

Under the sky-foam of his flying ships.

When terror above your cities, dropping doom,

Shall shut all England in a lampless tomb,

Your widows and your orphans now forlorn

Shall be no safer than the dead they mourn.

When all their lights grow dark, their lives grow grey,

What will those widows and those orphans say?

-- G K Chesterton, The Turkey and the Turk,1925

Only Hope was left within her unbreakable house,

she remained under the lip of the jar, and did not

fly away.

-- Hesiod, Works and Days

"A cross-Channel invasion was not, as it happened, how I had visualized the war would be won... If anything, I had imagined some gigantic, climactic duel of aircraft, in which Spitfires without number would have overwhelmed the Germans first in the sky and them on the ground. But if a cross-Channel invasion it was to be, that was an end to it... They were going to win. The Germans were going to lose."

-- John Keegan, Six Armies in Normandy

From 1941 to possibly as late as 1943, the Luftwaffe's dragon, their butcher bird, their Würger (shrike), the Focke-Wulf 190 was the terror of Europe's skies. You don't need me to tell you that. If you're here, you already knew. Small, fast, heavily-armed and armored, it was a formidable foe for Allied fighter pilots and bombers alike. In a head-on attack, the Fw190A-8 brought four 20mm cannon and two 13mm heavy machineguns to bear; the eighteen-year-old nose gunner of a B-24 (like the one flown by my great-uncle on D-Day) could reply with two 0.50in machineguns to defend not only his own life, but the lives of his ten crewmates.

For a horrible year and a few months beyond, the Fw190 seemed to have finally ended the Spitfire's ascendancy, but of course, as it ultimately proved, and as anyone who knows birds could tell you, the merlin is larger, more beautiful, and more deadly than the harsh-voiced shrike.

The aircraft I'm building is Werknummer 170393/Yellow 11 of 6./JG1, flow by Fw. Alfred Bindseil, who had five victory claims (B-17, Spitfire, two P-51s, and a B-24), including a P-51 whose tail he severed with his prop. Bindseil survived the destruction of Yellow 11 when he force-landed it after encountering marauding P-47s on 31 May 1944, but met his destiny near St. Lo on 20 June 1944 in Werknummer 731091/Yellow 4, or SO I THOUGHT. Eduard has Bindseil's death as 20 June, so I pulled the combat reports for that date from the National Archives, only to discover he was killed in action on 20 JULY, probably in combat with Spitfires of 441 and 602 Squadrons (among them the great J E "Johnnie" Johnson, my boyhood hero, a dragonslayer for the 20th century and a man who I regard, without a trace of irony, as a great man and a genuine hero). 20 July was a bad day for JG1; though a total of three Spitfires were awarded to Oblt. von Kirchmayr (two) and Obfw Flecks (one), bringing their scores to 20 and 14, respectively. Let me emphasize here: no Spitfires were lost. However, ten JG1 Fw190s were destroyed and seven pilots were killed in combat with British and Canadian Spitfires on this day..

Now, all this being said, I did some archival research on 20 June , and it would be a pity for it to go to waste.

On 20 June a low altitude patrol of Spitfires from 317 (Polish) Squadron, operating with 131 Wing, encountered Fw190s, possibly part of a Frie Jagd from I and II/JG1.

On this date and in this place, Wing Commander Julian Kowalski (a Battle of Britain veteran of 302 Squadron) claimed a probable Fw190 as did Flight Sergeant Longin Winski, though the latter's claim was upgraded to a confirmed victory based on eyewitness testimony from a USAAF Lt. Gamble (possibly P-47D pilot Richard C. Gamble). Kowalski settled in Britain after the war and died in 1986; Winski appears to have died in May of 1946, apparently in the crash of P-47D 44-20867 in Austria; he was twenty-five.

"I noticed a FW.190 breaking cloud on my port and flying East to West. I attacked and the e/a then turned South. I was then astern and at 200 yards: [sic] from him. I fired two long bursts from all armament from dead astern and level with the FW.190 and he started to burn. I saw black smoke coming from him and gave him two more long bursts. Then another Spitfire got between the e/a and myself. I was forced to break off the engagement. A moment later I saw the e/a turn on his port wing and dive vertically apparently out of control. The height of combat was 2,500 feet. The e/a dived into clouds which were at 2,000 feet, leaving a heavy trail of black smoke behind him. I did not follow him owing to low base of cloud...I CLAIM 1 F.W.190 PROBABLY DESTROYED."

-- W/CDR Julian Kowalski, AIR 50/127/13

"I then looked around and saw another FW.190 on my port, I was flying south at the time, and I followed him in and out of cloud. I got in a long burst of cannon and m/g from 5-10 degs: from 250 to 200 yards: I saw hits along the wings and fuselage and he began to emit black smoke. He again dived into cloud and I followed. When he came out again I gave him another long burst from all armament and still more black smoke came from him. He turned left towards No. 3 landing strip (USA) and I lost sight of him in cloud."

-- F/Sgt Longin Winski, AIR 50/127/34

It would have been nice if Eduard had given me the proper date, since each combat report PDF from the National Archives in Kew costs about $5 US, but it was still very satisfying to read about Fw190s getting shot down.

I'm using the Eduard 1/72 kit, from their Royal boxing -- it has a confusing set of sprues to enable you to model different types of Fw190A-8, but some careful reading has what I need ready to go. I should be starting pretty soon, I hope.

[spruecutter96]

Good luck with the build, Sah!

I love a bit of FW-190 in the morning.....

Will be following with interest.

Chris.

[Stew Dapple]

Stage beautifully set as usual Edward, I'll take a seat if you don't mind...

Cheers,

Stew

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

Hesiod! I haven't read any Hesiod since I was at University.

Gotta love a Procopius thread!

[amblypygid]

Love the research, PC; though I share your aversion to the 190, I'll be following along if I may.

[CedB]

Great background as usual PC - I'm looking forward to seeing an Eduard Royal being built, so I'm in

[Beard]

I'll be watching as I have a liking for the Fw190, even though it (or rather the bombs it dropped) caused a lot of damage to my town.

[Leonl]

One to watch, I'm in...

[Tomoshenko]

As ever, wonderful overture to the build Mr P. Like the introduction to an epic film, which after all it is.

[lyn]

one to watch as well

[Procopius]

I made a very small start on this -- clipped some parts off sprues, managed to lose(!) the rather-wretched-looking-anyways resin wheels the kit includes (and if you are the sort of person who gets excited about resin wheels, I mean, I'm happy for you, but...no), and glued one or two panels to the cockpit tub sidewalls. I am very tired this week, though I've reached the depressingly low apex of my career as a social media manager by spending enough money on Twitter ads to actually get to talk to a sales rep from Twitter, and very shy and elusive beasts they are, too. I'm so tired, in fact, that I fell asleep reading one of the Jerry Crandall Fw 190 Dora books, and then immediately woke myself up by having it fall forward in all of its immensitude upon my sleeping form.

Hesiod! I haven't read any Hesiod since I was at University.

Ah, but you probably did it in Greek or Latin, which I can't read.

As ever, wonderful overture to the build Mr P. Like the introduction to an epic film, which after all it is.

A Bridge Too Far, perhaps...

My initial impression of the kit, by the way, is that it's fabulously overengineered, and it's going to be a devil to hide all the joins.

[Duncan B]

I hope that is no reflection on Jerry Crandall's book? You haven't swallowed the resin wheels thinking they were pills have you?

Anyway, take your time, we're all patiently waiting here. I've gone a bit (more) daft and bought a shed full of these kits including the Royal edition but haven't done anything other than spray some RLM66 and 02 around the sprues yet so will be interested to see how they go together.

Duncan B

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

Ah, but you probably did it in Greek or Latin, which I can't read

Greek, yes. I can't read it nowadays, either; we're talking 35 years ago!

[rob85]

Something a bit different mr p. Great opening post as ever, with your trade mark excellent quotes.

Looking forward to the building and chat

Rob

[Kitsticker]

Hi PC,

I hope you don't mind if I take a seat, can't promise to be quiet though!

I look forward to the usual mix of philosophy, the classics, aesthetic appreciation (or not!) and good old fashioned modelling - with updates from time to time of Winston's progress and pranks (oh yes)

'the merlin is larger, more beautiful, and more deadly than the harsh-voiced shrike' how true...... so, the Spit is King, I think we knew, don't forget the poor old overlooked Hurri though...

Cheers

Geoff

Not against a 190 though, I fear

Sorry, forgetting context wasn't I

Geoff

[mick]

will be watching

[Procopius]

Sorry for the long period of inactivity -- work and home life have conspired to drain me dry this past week. However, Mrs. P is inexplicably sulky and not speaking to me this evening, and I've decided to take the advice of Sappho ("if you're squeamish, don't prod the beach rubble"), and decided to do something that would make me happy instead.

As I said, the kit is fabulously over-engineered, and commits the cardinal sin (punishable by death in Procotopia) of requiring you to add exhausts and gun barrels very early on in the build. The exhausts are to be painted "russet", which frankly I don't believe is even a real colour. I mixed Tamiya Flat Red with Tamiya Red Brown (which could more accurately be called Brown Brown), and then sprayed a mixture of Clear Red and Clear Orange over it because apparently I like doing too much work and live for cleaning out my airbrush as often as possible.

Now, how do these actually go into the kit? Well, I'm getting ahead of myself here, but:

I'm not a huge Terry Pratchett fan, but I strongly suspect that Bloody Stupid Johnson had a hand in this.

Anyway, moving on.

I got the cockpit tub and the PE insturment panel together.

And sprayed the gear bay RLM02.

I was originally going to drill out all the "speed holes" in the roof to the gear bay, but thought better of it.

The whole bay goes together in a sort of tenuous and elaborate fashion with very fine tolerances. A little bit of flash that had gone undetected caused me some problems at first.

I also applied an enamel wash because I spent like ten bucks on one from MiG.

Oh right, I masked the canopy and sprayed the RLM66 interior colour, too.

I closed up the fuselage:

Fit so far is pretty good, but the open bows make me nervous.

Somehow I have to trap this PE upper console into the cockpit as well. Heaven only knows how, it doesn't drop in.

My little guy is looking pretty cute, but one impossibly sharp tooth has nosed up from his lower gums. I was holding him today when he suddenly engulfed my ear with his little mouth and then bit me. Ow.

Greek, yes. I can't read it nowadays, either; we're talking 35 years ago!

Thirty-five years ago, I couldn't read, full stop.

You haven't swallowed the resin wheels thinking they were pills have you?

Not yet, but I'm a little worried Winston might.

I hope that is no reflection on Jerry Crandall's book?

It's a pretty good reference on the 190D-9 (and they'd better be, for the price), as I'm sure you know, but I think he's a little starstruck by all these elderly German aircrew who were busy killing our people sixty years ago (at time of writing). There's certainly little attempt to fact-check or provide corrective information against their oral histories. E.G. he quotes a JG301 Ta152 pilot on the only Tempest vs. Ta152 encounter, but this guy gets virtually everything wrong including the number of Tempests (he says four against three Ta152s; there were only two Tempests) and the number shot down (he says two, only one was lost). Doesn't detract from the book as a modelling reference on the airframe, though. And every now and then it produces gems like my present signature.

[Stew Dapple]

Hmm, 'russet' as a colour of autumn leaves, or a woman's hair, or a jumper perhaps... but as part of an aircraft? Maybe they over-elaborated when translating 'rust' but even then it's not a colour I'd pick for exhaust pipes... which are going to provide some fun educational opportunities for creative masking once they are installed, by the look of things.

Still, over-engineering and unfriendly/illogical construction sequences notwithstanding I have to say I like the looks of the detail in all the little parts, perhaps I could be tempted. Hope it goes as well as it appears it ought to.

"Spitfires, the most feared of our enemies." - I'm slightly embarrassed to admit it for some reason but I love it when I read something like that.

Cheers,

Stew

[snapper_city]

Looking good so far PC.

[Procopius]

... which are going to provide some fun educational opportunities for creative masking once they are installed, by the look of things.

That's immediately where my mind went as well, exactly. Maybe a folded over slip of paper? It almost doesn't make sense to paint them now.

Still, over-engineering and unfriendly/illogical construction sequences notwithstanding I have to say I like the looks of the detail in all the little parts, perhaps I could be tempted. Hope it goes as well as it appears it ought to.

I will (grudgingly) admit that so far everything fits very well, though I have taken immense care to make sure I'm not surprised. I think with most kits of radial-engined aircraft, there are a lot of steps you have to do before closing up the fuselage (painting the engine and the interior of the cowling and so forth) that add time and which for no good reason frustrate me, since I like to get the kit closed up and the wings on so I feel like I'm doing something.

"Spitfires, the most feared of our enemies." - I'm slightly embarrassed to admit it for some reason but I love it when I read something like that.

I'll go one up on you there, I was on the train when I read it, and I felt such a flush of pride in and for the Spitfire that I immediately looked up and around in case there was someone I could tell.

EDIT: I feel rather bad for poor Winston at times, because he will be the beneficiary, if that is the word, of all of this (possibly misdirected, though I don't think it so) love and energy that I've poured into learning about all of this stuff. My own parents had minimal interest in the subject (my dad, like any American boy who grew up in the 1950s and 1960s, knows what a Mustang and a B-17 are, and it's weird to me to think that this knowledge is fading out of common currency even in my lifetime, and my mom forbade any "war toys", which proved a grave error, because I'm fairly certain I thought about war enough for a hundred children as a result), and I wonder if parental disinterest was what made this "mine". But on the other hand, I think of all the people I've known whose love for baseball, or Civil War history, or fishing or whatever came from their father, and I've just got to hold on to that hope.

[Stew Dapple]

When I masked the open cooling-gills on the Corsair I stuffed a little strip of cut-off washing-up sponge in the 'slot' to prevent the back of the engine getting painted in the exterior colours - it worked too. Might be worth a thought - I did have to push the sponge in with the point of my pointiest tweezers but pulled it out with no problems afterward, and the rear of the engine still in the intended colours.

Cheers,

Stew

[amblypygid]

I found the wheel well construction on Eduard's 1/48 Spitfire IX to be very clever in that it resulted in a rather nicer wheel well than I would normally expect. Too clever, though, because I couldn't for the life of me figure out why two pieces weren't symmetrical, but assumed this was just another example of Eduard's cleverness. Turned out that was where the undercarriage legs were going to be seated and I had one in upside-down. Oops. Nothing that Milliput couldn't conquer, and in any case I rarely go inspecting those parts of my completed models, so no harm done.

I stuffed a little strip of cut-off washing-up sponge in the 'slot' to prevent the back of the engine getting painted in the exterior colours

What a jolly good idea, I think I'll copy that when I get to that Special Hobby P-47 that keeps calling to me, thanks!

[Duncan B]

I must get started on one of my little 190s (note that now I've built a 1/48 scale one I'm getting all sizist!).

Duncan B

[CedB]

Great progress PC and those parts (and the painting) look really tidy.

How about Maskol for masking the fitted exhausts? If you painted the surrounds silver / aluminium first it would probably give you and opportunity for some chipping too when you pull it off? Hmmm, perhaps not a very good idea.

Russet. Lovely sounding word and, as Stew says, often used in the Autumn here. Is it also a bit onomatopoeic when you're talking about piles of leaves. A bit.

Winnie's biting is probably, I'm afraid, a 'feature' of teething and he'll probably bite anything that comes into range - see 'Charlie bit my finger' - perhaps you should have a video camera handy in case he does something 'cute'? You could 'go viral'!

[Duncan B]

EDIT: I feel rather bad for poor Winston at times, because he will be the beneficiary, if that is the word, of all of this (possibly misdirected, though I don't think it so) love and energy that I've poured into learning about all of this stuff. My own parents had minimal interest in the subject (my dad, like any American boy who grew up in the 1950s and 1960s, knows what a Mustang and a B-17 are, and it's weird to me to think that this knowledge is fading out of common currency even in my lifetime, and my mom forbade any "war toys", which proved a grave error, because I'm fairly certain I thought about war enough for a hundred children as a result), and I wonder if parental disinterest was what made this "mine". But on the other hand, I think of all the people I've known whose love for baseball, or Civil War history, or fishing or whatever came from their father, and I've just got to hold on to that hope.

A slight meander off course if you'll allow.

We are all products of our environment of course so we absorb from it. I grew up in a new housing estate built in the very early 1960's populated by families from all over Scotland (and further afield hence this Navy brat being there). Lots of other kids running around and lots of Dad's and Grandads that had seen service during the wars which seemed like a historic event to us kids but the grown ups still talked about. We all had some sort of military paraphernalia hanging up in the garden sheds, webbing, water bottles and bits of old uniforms (there was also a Hitler Youth knife in our shed although how it got there or where it is now I have no idea) that all came in very handy when playing soldiers in the recently abandoned railway that ran along the back of the estate. It all seemed so normal to play war, nobody told us to do it but I guess we were influenced by the experiences of the adults and the fact that to them it wasn't some distant historic event but a very real and tangible memory. For instance I remember my Dad telling me about how he watched the air raids on Portsmouth during the Battle of Britain and how he'd lie on Portsdown hill watching the contrails weave around in the sky above.

It wasn't until a very long time later, 25 years after the Falklands conflict in fact, that I realised that back in my childhood 20 years after WW2 wasn't a long time in the memory of those people who had lived through it and that some memories would be as fresh as ones from last week. I then started to remember about the houses with only an 'old' woman living in who's husband we'd never seen or the 'old' man that we kids would tease because he always seemed to be not quite all there but the other adults would talk about in hushed tones about him in a camp somewhere.

The aftershock of the war was all around us still rippling out but we kids couldn't see it and I guess that those ripples have all but disappeared now with only the dry facts of 'what and when' kept alive in books. Strangely I can't think what the 'background radiation' of my own son's formative years will have been however he does have a passing interest in historic events and aircraft of the period that he's picked up from me.

Sorry for the ramblings (as I'm not even sure what point I'm trying to make, if any) but you're cheaper than a Psychiatrist so thanks for listening!

Duncan B