F4U-4 use in WWII

[Spitfires Forever]

Hello,

I just received an old Hasegawa 1/48 F4U-4 and I have a question regarding the use of the A and B model of this Corsair variant during WWII. I want to build a WWII aircraft but it seems that WWII decals are not as available as the Korean! If at all (although the old Monogram kit did offer WWII decals along with the Korean War markings back in the day, if I remember correctly.) As I understand it from the small amount of info on the net, they didn't start arriving at front line carriers until 1945. Did both the -4a model and cannon equipped 4b both make it onto carriers and into battle? How much mor effective were they in the ACM environment. Any info would be appreciated.

Cheers

[Troy Smith]

Hi Randy

 

 

There are decals for WWII F4U-4's,   eg

http://www.ultracast.ca/products/Limited Stock/AeroMaster/48-Scale/48-254/

 

The Hase/mania kit has an underserved reputation, I spent some time trying to make the Academy F4U-4 better,  and then got a Hase F4U-4, and was rather surprised to find that they apart from the over wide spine/fin and canopy on the Academy kit they are basically the same,   and compared to a Tamiya F4U-1,  the fuselage is too deep and slab sided, and the wings too low.

 

Anyway, check the above links, there were a lot more -4's used in WW2 than usually thought is the answer, but they are not very exciting schemes, and photos don't seem very common.

cheers

T

PS AFAIK, the -4's were all standard gun wing,  the cannon -4B are post war

 

Edited June 13, 2017 by Troy Smith
add details

[Guest]

Thanks once again Troy, always there to help. I am glad I didn't buy the kit. I know Hobby Boss has a -4b but that would be too late of a version for me. Would a Tamiya F4U-1D with a Hamilton Standard four bladed prop do the trick, or are there too many additional components that would be difficult to add?

[Troy Smith]

10 minutes ago, Spitfire addict said:

Thanks once again Troy, always there to help. I am glad I didn't buy the kit. I know Hobby Boss has a -4b but that would be too late of a version for me. Would a Tamiya F4U-1D with a Hamilton Standard four bladed prop do the trick, or are there too many additional components that would be difficult to add?

 

no, the entire front end from firewall is different.

 

Hobyboss do an early F4U-4,  probably available cheaper in the US from a far east mail order, it has some issues, but overall decent AFAIK,  it's late, I can dif out info on the glitches. IIRC, Gear door shape, cowl intake and prop?   

the -4 are the only HB Corsairs worth the bother BTW, as the -1 are done better by Tamiya, and the F4U-5/AU-1/-7 by Hasegawa

 

 

 

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, Troy Smith said:

 

no, the entire front end from firewall is different.

 

Hobyboss do an early F4U-4,  probably available cheaper in the US from a far east mail order, it has some issues, but overall decent AFAIK,  it's late, I can dif out info on the glitches. IIRC, Gear door shape, cowl intake and prop?   

the -4 are the only HB Corsairs worth the bother BTW, as the -1 are done better by Tamiya, and the F4U-5/AU-1/-7 by Hasegawa

 

 

 

Thanks for the info. As we all know there are no perfect kits out there, they all have issues. The only path will be to pick the most accurate kit available and go from there. Glad to know HB makes an early version. I can scrape enough decals out of my stash to get the right markings, then with a little white paint I can get close. Thanks again my friend.

Cheers

[JWM]

John Glenn's F4U4:

 

I made her once from Matchbox 1/72 kit with Esci decals (was on RFI already)

Cheers

J-W

Edited June 13, 2017 by JWM

[72modeler]

On ‎6‎/‎12‎/‎2017 at 9:52 PM, Troy Smith said:

 

no, the entire front end from firewall is different.

 

Hobyboss do an early F4U-4,  probably available cheaper in the US from a far east mail order, it has some issues, but overall decent AFAIK,  it's late, I can dif out info on the glitches. IIRC, Gear door shape, cowl intake and prop?   

the -4 are the only HB Corsairs worth the bother BTW, as the -1 are done better by Tamiya, and the F4U-5/AU-1/-7 by Hasegawa

 

 

 

What Troy said plus don't forget that the dash four also had a true floor to the cockpit and the seat was a bucket attached to the armor plate/backrest; the exhausts were also different. It would be nice to have a decent state of the art F4U-4 in 1/72 and 1/48- with some slide molding and/or clever engineering of inserts, both windscreen and armament fits could be easily done to make an F4U-4 and 4B. Like Dusty Springfield said in  the song - "'Wishin' and hopin' and dreamin' and prayin'.."

Mike

[Tailspin Turtle]

http://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2014/03/f4u-4-modelers-notes.html

[72modeler]

7 hours ago, Tailspin Turtle said:

http://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2014/03/f4u-4-modelers-notes.html

Once again, you da man, Tommy! Thanks for sharing these references...now, all we need is a decent kit!

Mike

[David H]

On 6/12/2017 at 9:19 PM, Troy Smith said:

Hi Randy

 

 

There are decals for WWII F4U-4's,   eg

http://www.ultracast.ca/products/Limited Stock/AeroMaster/48-Scale/48-254/

 

The Hase/mania kit has an underserved reputation, I spent some time trying to make the Academy F4U-4 better,  and then got a Hase F4U-4, and was rather surprised to find that they apart from the over wide spine/fin and canopy on the Academy kit they are basically the same,   and compared to a Tamiya F4U-1,  the fuselage is too deep and slab sided, and the wings too low.

 

Anyway, check the above links, there were a lot more -4's used in WW2 than usually thought is the answer, but they are not very exciting schemes, and photos don't seem very common.

cheers

T

PS AFAIK, the -4's were all standard gun wing,  the cannon -4B are post war

 

 

[David H]

I have a somewhat different take on the Hasegawa/ Mania kit. I agree that the rear lower fuselage keel may be a bit deep but i think the shapes otherwise are clearly better than the Academy kit. I like to re scribe panel lines, so having to do those over on the Hasegawa is not a deal-breaker for me.

 

I think Hasegawa's treatment of the fabric surfaces is better than HobbyBoss' approach, plus the shape of the "spade" doors on the main gear struts is better.

 

The wheel wells are (typically) shallow and if you're into re-working something like that, knock yourself out. The tyres are truly abysmal but are easily rectified with aftermarket resin. The forward fuselage/cowling is integrated into a single piece (mainly having to do with the -4s  somewhat more integrated cowl flaps installation), and a separate cowling would have been nice to have. The myriad of fasteners on the Corsair front fuselage and cowling are missing from the Hasegawa kit which is too bad since they add a lot of visual interest.

 

The Tamiya windscreen actually fits quite nicely onto the Hasegawa fuselage, if you desire to build a plane from the first half of the production run.

 

Lastly, while the -4 Corsairs used by the Marines were admittedly rather boring, there were some very attractive "G-Symbol" Markings from air groups like BOXER, ANTIETAM and LAKE CHAMPLAIN that dont get much play. For some reason, several air groups "didn't get the email" about G-Symbols being replaced by alpha-numeric characters (Borrrre-Inggg!!)

 

In summation, we really don't have a "great" F4U-4 in 48th scale. Any way you cut it, you're in for a fair amount of work. However, i feel the Hasegawa/ Mania kit is the lesser of three (?) evils.

 

david

[Troy Smith]

I disagree David

 

the main parts of Academy -4 (APART from the fuselage spine) are the same as Hase/Mania -4... 

 

I was pretty surprised when I compared the two kit, given the drubbing the Academy kit gets.  

 

If you look at the link you can see the Hase/Acad have the wing too low on fuselage, by nearly 2mm,  It's easy enough to  trim up, it's  not that hard to  reshape the fuselage,  where I got stuck was doing this makes the belly wrong, as the above mean reworking the centre section, as the belly  line is about right.

 

I posted the below here

 

Quote

for the wing being  too low, look at this

 

 

 

and then look at the  Acad/Has -4,  note the postion of wing to exhaust, and then you can see the wing is too low.

this is the  Acad

 

this is the Tamiya -1 for comparison, note the extra depth on the straight lower section of  the angled firewall panel  on Acad  above

 

 

It's not really  horrible, but I started out just trying  to thin the Academy spine, and  then found more problems with the fuselage, again, assuming Tamiya got it right....but  if you look at the factory photo this clearly shows the 'egg' shape,  well, the bottom of it,  and this is the shape of  the Tamiya rear cockpit bulkhead

 

 

if then look at the Acad/hase -4, you can see it's deeper, and the bottom of  the 'egg' almost has corners.

 

I just have not had  the enthusiasm to do all the comparison photos .... 

 

i did bash  the  Acad fuselage into shape, but then the belly went wrong, and I then put it away for a while.

 

I suspect that fixing the belly will require cutting off the wings and making the centre section parts deeper.  This then would require making up a wing spar to see the wing anhedral,   and this was the point the bits went into the 'later' box

 

more of my ramblings

 

Quote

HB  -4  is better than any other 1/48th -4,as it has a fuselage   that is basically the same  as the Tamiya in depth and shape.

 

This is the best photo I have  found of a -4 underside

 

remember  the F4U-4 is basically the same to  the firewall as an F4U-1,  with a new engine added  on, plus some belly modifications.

 

Here's a -1 belly

 

 

I really need to  do some  pics but if you do tape a tamiya -1 to the Academy  -4,  note that the  Academy is deeper, more slab sided,  and  the wing roots are about 2 mm lower,   I  corrected the fuselage, but then that messed up the belly  line,  I  think that the  Academy  wings sitting too low  make  the belly too flat.

It's hard to explain, and it's not an area commonly  visible on photos

 

If  you are basically happy with the Hase -4,  then taking 2 mm out of the spine of the Acadamy kit  will get it to be basically the  same.

 

Here's what I mean about the 'egg shape'  of the  fuselage

 

 

you can see that the Tamiya rear cockpit bulkhead is this 'egg' shape,  try fitting his into  the Acad fuselage to see what I  mean.

 

What this means is that if you are happy with the Hase/mania,  it's not too much work to make the Academy match that by taking out 2mm from the Acad spine.

I don't think the wing depth problem screams 'wrong' but  I've not seen it mentioned before.

 

The Hobby Boss, for it's faults, is a much better match  for  the Tamiya fuselage (assuming the Tamiya gets it right)

 

I got the Hobby Boss cheap, but their retail new is too much, and their other versions, apart from the -4, are really not worth the bother.

 

Sorry if  this is  not the clearest post,  it's  blinkin' hot  at the mo (by English standards) and my brain is melting! 

 

But, I certainly agree that a good OOB F4U-4 would be a boon!  

 

cheers

T

 

 

 

 

Edited June 21, 2017 by Troy Smith

[warhawk]

A rather interesting decal sheet has been released:

 

https://www.scalemates.com/kits/dp-casper-72033-corsair-f4u-4-at-wwii--1328990

[Geoffrey Sinclair]

On 13/06/2017 at 10:16, Spitfires Forever said:

F4U-4 and I have a question regarding the use of the A and B model of this Corsair variant during WWII. I want to build a WWII aircraft but it seems that WWII decals are not as available as the Korean! If at all (although the old Monogram kit did offer WWII decals along with the Korean War markings back in the day, if I remember correctly.) As I understand it from the small amount of info on the net, they didn't start arriving at front line carriers until 1945. Did both the -4a model and cannon equipped 4b both make it onto carriers and into battle?

The F4U-4 began production in December 1944 and a number saw combat.  There were 300 cannon armed F4U-4C built probably by end June 1945 but someone needs to look at the first 1,300 or so F4U-4 individual aircraft cards to see exactly when.  The F4U-4B began production in April 1946.

 

The 200 cannon armed F4U-1C were built between August 1944 and January 1945.

[EwenS]

My notes indicate that the 3 USMC squadrons in MAG14 (VMF-212, 222, 223) traded in their well worn F4U-1 for brand new F4U-4 aircraft while on Samar in the Philippines on 15 May 1945. They then moved to Okinawa at the beginning of June 1945, flying their first CAP operation on 10 June and claiming their first kill there the next day.

 

The USN squadrons began receiving them in Feb 1945 initially as odd aircraft in squadrons working up. The first fully equipped squadron seems to be VBF89 on Antietam. By 4 Aug 1945 there were 5 squadrons with them on board 4 Essex class carriers in the Pacific Fleet which had all seen combat. Data is from official USN squadron aircraft returns accurate to with 7-10 days allowing for compiling the data.

 

Hancock VBF6 (on board from July 1945)

Intrepid VF10 & VBF 10 (on board from June 1945)

Wasp VBF86 (on board from July 1945)

Lexington VBF94 (on board from May 1945)

 

Plus another two carriers in the final stages of working up

Antietam VBF89 (possibly the first USN unit to receive them swapping F4U-1 for F4U-4 late Feb/Early March 1945 while still working up in the Atlantic)

Boxer VBF93

 

Plus VBF14, VBF19 (destined for Hornet in Sept), VBF80, VBF84, VBF95 all working up with a mix of F4U-1 & -4 aircraft.

 

Over in the Atlantic VBF3, VBF20, VF-75A & B (destined for the FD Roosevelt), VBF150, VBF152, VBF153 were fully equipped and working up while VF74B & VBF74B (destined for the Midway) had a mix of F4U-1 & -4.

 

It seems units were originally equipped with F4U-1 aircraft and then switched to the new model before embarking in carriers bound for the front line. Each USN squadron would have had approx 36 aircraft.