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1/72 AZ Models Breda Ba65-80 Africa 1940


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4 hours ago, alt-92 said:

👍🏼  Good choice :) 

I believe this is a fairly recent release of the Breda by AZ. 
Are you familiar with AZ kits? 

This will be the first kit by AZ that I've done. I've got a couple in the stash. I got this one as I hadn't seen the subject before. I've just built 6 Reggaine fighters so have some practice with Italian camo. 

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The instructions are nice and clear and in colour provided you aren't colour blind and can tell the different shades of brown apart :).

 

The first job is to remove the big pin marks from the inside of the fuselage and remove the small amounts of flash from the cowling end of both pieces

 

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Yup, that's AZ :P   
Mind you, despite the lack of locating pins, a fair amount of butt-joins and large gates:
with a bit of care and test-fitting, they build into nice models.

Not exactly Tamiya, but then the big names don't do such esoteric subjects :) 

 

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8 hours ago, Richard Tucker said:

This is my first group build :).

Welcome aboard with a great choice, warning these can become a bit addictive. I did my first ever in January of 2018 and been down here ever since. Ive even hosted three builds, with a fourth one starting in three weeks. Ive got 3-4 more up for votes in the November vote. 
 

Dennis

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Welcome to the build Richard, our second Breda. Group builds are fantastic for gaining knowledge and experience, there where I do the majority of my building. Looking forward to seeing your Italian camouflage, most of all enjoy the experience.

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7 hours ago, AdrianMF said:

Wow! Nice choice. I wanted one of these, but I couldn't find one on ebay so I've ended up building the RCR kit and the Rareplanes kit (who needs two Breda-65s?) instead. Looking forward to seeing how it builds up.

 

Regards,

Adrian

If you need three artscale.eu has it for a decent price. 😛

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8 hours ago, Richard Tucker said:

There are plenty more pins that need removing including one that is bang in the middle of the seat.

Welcome to the AZ/KP world!  Lots of pins and gates to remove.  You get used to it.  I am looking forward to your Breda.  I have this same kit so it will be a good primer for me to see your build.  

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A little progress yesterday. The pins have been removed and the cockpit area has been assembled. I didn't have an Interior Green as suggested by the instructions but having checked the paint stash, a faded pot of Vallejo Gunship Green that I bought reduced from my local model shop seems to be a good colour match. I've ordered some Italian seat belt PE to increase the interest. It would appear that this plane comes without any sort of controls except rudder pedals! 

 

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I also started on the engines as they have quite a bit of excess plastic. 

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Hope you don't mind me chiming in about the cockpit...

There are pictures of the Breda 65 cockpit at this link:

 

http://www.cmpr.it/MN - Manuale Ba. 65 A.80/man.ba.65 A.80.htm

 

Youn can see from the picture that the colour used is quite light,. And there's more....

The Ba.65 had a mixed construction with a frame of steel tubes over which the aluminum sking was attached. Not very modern really but this aircraft was designed at a time when other construction techniques were not common. The maintenance manual of the aircraft states that the frame elements had to be painted in anti-corrosion primer first and then covered by an enamel coat. No mention is made of the colours unfortunately, however it is known that the approved primer for steel elements was grey.

Similar indications are given in the manual for the aluminum skin: a coat of anti-corrosion primer followed by a coat of enamel paint. No area was supposed to be left uncoated. The primers for aluminum were of various colours: grey, light green and even light yellow. Again nothing is written in the manual about the final enamel coat.

AZ's indication of using interior green likely comes from the view that the cockpit of all Italian aircraft was left in the so-called Verde Anticorrosione (anti-corrosion green), that however was a primer for aluminum surfaces (the light green primer mentioned above). Today we know that other colours were used for sure, partly due to the analysis of wrecks and partly because the maintenance manuals of other aircraft clearly stated the use of different colours, for example grey and even silver.

So what colour would be more likely on the Ba.65 ? Since only B/W pictures exist, it's hard to tell. The seat was generally painted aluminum, so at least that's a start from which trying to understand how dark the other paints were. The pictures in the linked page (that all come from the maintenance manual) seem to show the frame in a lighter colour compared to the rest of the cockpit, they may be in grey. The skin panels look darker.. a different grey or a green ?

Unfortunately there's no answer to these questions yet and each modeller has to make a choice. Personally, considering that Breda later used grey on other types, I would go for grey, maybe using two different shades for the frame and the panels, but it it only a somewhat educated guess. The only sure thing is that the seat was in aluminum and the instrument panel in black...

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4 hours ago, Giorgio N said:

Hope you don't mind me chiming in about the cockpit...

There are pictures of the Breda 65 cockpit at this link:

 

http://www.cmpr.it/MN - Manuale Ba. 65 A.80/man.ba.65 A.80.htm

 

Youn can see from the picture that the colour used is quite light,. And there's more....

The Ba.65 had a mixed construction with a frame of steel tubes over which the aluminum sking was attached. Not very modern really but this aircraft was designed at a time when other construction techniques were not common. The maintenance manual of the aircraft states that the frame elements had to be painted in anti-corrosion primer first and then covered by an enamel coat. No mention is made of the colours unfortunately, however it is known that the approved primer for steel elements was grey.

Similar indications are given in the manual for the aluminum skin: a coat of anti-corrosion primer followed by a coat of enamel paint. No area was supposed to be left uncoated. The primers for aluminum were of various colours: grey, light green and even light yellow. Again nothing is written in the manual about the final enamel coat.

AZ's indication of using interior green likely comes from the view that the cockpit of all Italian aircraft was left in the so-called Verde Anticorrosione (anti-corrosion green), that however was a primer for aluminum surfaces (the light green primer mentioned above). Today we know that other colours were used for sure, partly due to the analysis of wrecks and partly because the maintenance manuals of other aircraft clearly stated the use of different colours, for example grey and even silver.

So what colour would be more likely on the Ba.65 ? Since only B/W pictures exist, it's hard to tell. The seat was generally painted aluminum, so at least that's a start from which trying to understand how dark the other paints were. The pictures in the linked page (that all come from the maintenance manual) seem to show the frame in a lighter colour compared to the rest of the cockpit, they may be in grey. The skin panels look darker.. a different grey or a green ?

Unfortunately there's no answer to these questions yet and each modeller has to make a choice. Personally, considering that Breda later used grey on other types, I would go for grey, maybe using two different shades for the frame and the panels, but it it only a somewhat educated guess. The only sure thing is that the seat was in aluminum and the instrument panel in black...

This is really great feedback. I've looked a tthe links and you can expect another re-coloured interior picture soon :).

 

I really appreciate the feedback and insight.

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Only glad to help Richard ! I'd have liked to help you more, while on other Italian types I have found more concrete evidence of the most likely used cockpit paints, for the Ba.65 I have never found anything conclusive.

I'll keep an eye on this build, this is a kit that I have always wanted to buy but for some reason never did. It's an interesting subject too, if only because it was one of the most controversial aircraft in Italian service in WW2

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13 hours ago, Giorgio N said:

Only glad to help Richard ! I'd have liked to help you more, while on other Italian types I have found more concrete evidence of the most likely used cockpit paints, for the Ba.65 I have never found anything conclusive.

I'll keep an eye on this build, this is a kit that I have always wanted to buy but for some reason never did. It's an interesting subject too, if only because it was one of the most controversial aircraft in Italian service in WW2

I appreciate the help. Why was it controversial?

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5 hours ago, Richard Tucker said:

I appreciate the help. Why was it controversial?

The Ba.65 was an evolution of the previous Ba.64 design (the two are very similar) and was in theory a very modern aircraft when first presented in 1935, with an all-metallic construction. It was supposed to be one of the best aircraft around and in reality the type did attract a lot of interest from several countries, being bought by Chile, Iraq and Portugal. It was the first really operational type of the so called "assalto" (assault) cathegory, an aircraft supposed to attack enemy targets at high speed and low level both in the vicinity of the frontline and beyond, with a speed that would have allowed them to evade and if required fight back against the enemy fighters. If required the type had to operate as fighter and a recce capability was included, in this case with a second crewman.

The problem is that when the time came for the type to operate in a combat zone the performance was much inferior to what everybody hoped for and the aircraft proved very troublesome.In Spain it was clear that the speed was not sufficient as a fighter (although there were some victories) while twin-seater recce aircraft suffered from stability issues. As a dive bomber the results were ok but the lack of dive brakes was a problem. In the proposed straight level attack missions the results were poor with a severe lack in bombing accuracy. On the pros side the aircraft was very robust and could take a lot of hits.

More in general. the aircraft ended being too heavy for the power available and the various systems were unreliable. Already by 1938 the type was assessed as almost dangerous to fly if used at full warload, so much that the standard load became a ridiculous 100 lbs. of small bombs.

The Ba.65 was being withdrawn by early 1940 but the total failure of its replacement, the Breda Ba.88, led the air force to bring back in service as many aircraft as possible durign the first stages of the war in North Africa, where the type did its job, although not spectacularly.

Part of the Ba-65 problems were due to the fact that while it may have been a modern design in 1935, those were years of incredibly fast advancements in aeronautics, so that within only a couple years the type was becoming obsolete. Other problems were common to other Italian aircraft of the era, in particular the lack of power and excessive weight. Other problems were all of Breda's own making, as the aircraft had a few design flaws. It should also be mentioned that the whole concept of the "assalto" aircraft did not work out too well, although in a sense this was very close to what types like the Typhoon ended up doing...

The failure of the Ba.65 made a lot of noise and had an effect on the air force top echelons, and the commander of the air force Gen. Valle was replaced in November 1939 also because of this. With hindsight it is of course now easy to understand why the type was probably a bad idea from the start, in fairness however we should remember that many drew the wrong conclusions about air warfare in the mid '30s and proposed aircraft types that proved to be the wrong answer. The Ba.65 was one of them

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4 minutes ago, Giorgio N said:

The Ba.65 was an evolution of the previous Ba.64 design (the two are very similar) and was in theory a very modern aircraft when first presented in 1935, with an all-metallic construction. It was supposed to be one of the best aircraft around and in reality the type did attract a lot of interest from several countries, being bought by Chile, Iraq and Portugal. It was the first really operational type of the so called "assalto" (assault) cathegory, an aircraft supposed to attack enemy targets at high speed and low level both in the vicinity of the frontline and beyond, with a speed that would have allowed them to evade and if required fight back against the enemy fighters. If required the type had to operate as fighter and a recce capability was included, in this case with a second crewman.

The problem is that when the time came for the type to operate in a combat zone the performance was much inferior to what everybody hoped for and the aircraft proved very troublesome.In Spain it was clear that the speed was not sufficient as a fighter (although there were some victories) while twin-seater recce aircraft suffered from stability issues. As a dive bomber the results were ok but the lack of dive brakes was a problem. In the proposed straight level attack missions the results were poor with a severe lack in bombing accuracy. On the pros side the aircraft was very robust and could take a lot of hits.

More in general. the aircraft ended being too heavy for the power available and the various systems were unreliable. Already by 1938 the type was assessed as almost dangerous to fly if used at full warload, so much that the standard load became a ridiculous 100 lbs. of small bombs.

The Ba.65 was being withdrawn by early 1940 but the total failure of its replacement, the Breda Ba.88, led the air force to bring back in service as many aircraft as possible durign the first stages of the war in North Africa, where the type did its job, although not spectacularly.

Part of the Ba-65 problems were due to the fact that while it may have been a modern design in 1935, those were years of incredibly fast advancements in aeronautics, so that within only a couple years the type was becoming obsolete. Other problems were common to other Italian aircraft of the era, in particular the lack of power and excessive weight. Other problems were all of Breda's own making, as the aircraft had a few design flaws. It should also be mentioned that the whole concept of the "assalto" aircraft did not work out too well, although in a sense this was very close to what types like the Typhoon ended up doing...

The failure of the Ba.65 made a lot of noise and had an effect on the air force top echelons, and the commander of the air force Gen. Valle was replaced in November 1939 also because of this. With hindsight it is of course now easy to understand why the type was probably a bad idea from the start, in fairness however we should remember that many drew the wrong conclusions about air warfare in the mid '30s and proposed aircraft types that proved to be the wrong answer. The Ba.65 was one of them

This is really interesting and it seems very similar to the Fairey Battle for the RAF. Underpowered and overtaken by technological progress but was still used early in the war until its shortcomings were realised.

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Finally made some progress on the Breda. The fuselage went together surprisingly well. The cockpit was also a good fit despite the unusual shape.

 

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The engine is painted and I'll use the great detailed diagrams provided by Giorgio to check which way up it should be :). I'm not going to make the mistake I made a while back and put 3 engines in a B17 one way up and the other upside down 😕 

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