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LeO 451, No 187, Vichy, GBI/31, pilot S-Lt . Borneque, Damas, summer 1941, Heller 1/72


JWM

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Hi,

Within Heller Classic GB i did LeO 451 in French Vichy AF from battle against Britts in June-July 1941 in Syria and Lebaon. Machine belonged to GB I/31, pilot S-Lt, Bernoque. Tha base was in Damas. Profile of this No 187 LeO is presented in book "French bombers of WWII "

 french-bombers-of-wwii-w-iext42014810.jp

 But there is also photo and some discrepences among them could be observed, so I did not follow profile of course...

The kit was improved: fuselage is longer for 6 mm as all drawings suggests, a new scratch build Hispano 404  gun was replaced, the Falcon vacu main canopy was intalled (many thanks to @TonyOD for it) as well as  4 mm larger diameter props (home made resin casts), finally it has a opened from front engines and scratch converted wheels based on one from Beriev MBR-2 kit. The details of build are here

Here she is: 

50686449298_9b0d62ff50_b.jpg

50687199091_e6c614a953_b.jpg

 

50687199601_ed81ea9527_b.jpg

50686449748_22dd6fe692_b.jpg

50686449983_da35ab0194_b.jpg

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50686450258_2c4471fc54_b.jpg

50686450508_ca1ed8fea1_b.jpg

50687284802_c6163fe357_b.jpg

 

Comments welcome

Regards

J-W

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Looks like an excellently built and carefully finished model – and then some hooligan used it to clean his brush, still full of semi dry silver paint… 😉

 

Sorry, but I don't get any impression of wear, tear or scuffed metal. There's no sense of cause and result, if you will.

 

But the base is beautiful!

 

Kind regards,

 

Joachim

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35 minutes ago, Spitfire31 said:

Looks like an excellently built and carefully finished model – and then some hooligan used it to clean his brush, still full of semi dry silver paint… 😉

 

Sorry, but I don't get any impression of wear, tear or scuffed metal. There's no sense of cause and result, if you will.

 

But the base is beautiful!

 

Kind regards,

 

Joachim

I am sorry that I disapointed you - the LeOs were painted with lacquer for wood (on bare metal) and were losing paint dramatically, I was trying to show it, if I you think that I failed in this I am sorry. Anyway, thank you for comment, maybe I will improve the technique ...

regards

J-W

 

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4 hours ago, tonyot said:

Lovely built there mate,..... shame that some Frenchmen fought on the wrong side of WW2.

Cheers

          Tony

Thank you! 

I am going to do some more dark  side French machines, for sure Potez 63-11 from Madagascar, MB 155 from Mers-el -Kebir and maybe also D520 and Hawks from Syria and Dakar, respectivly...  They were lucky anyway to have de Gaulle and finally to be on V-day parade...

Regards

J-W  

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7 hours ago, TheyJammedKenny! said:

 It's only akin to touching the electrified "third rail" on a subway line...

Indeed! But they were not the only one, who changed sides. Italy is the most obvious case, but the most important  but also forgotten in some way in this role was USSR...That is (and was for all those years) the 'hot" rail!

Modelling helps to think about the complexity of war history.

Regards

J-W

 

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This is one very good looking bomber! Not very often seen as a finished kit.

As for the painting...hmmm... I would "can spray" Tamiya AS-12, then cammo, then use a toothpicks or match to gently remove some of the top layer.

Done it with a bit of masking tape too. Better effect than "wipe the semi-dry" brush 😉.

And that peeling-off paint was not that "all-over".

http://www.pangea-systems.com/wwiiws/aircraft/LeO.451/turret01.jpg

https://www.asisbiz.com/Battles/BOF-a/images/French-Airforce-Liore-et-Olivier-LeO-451-destroyed-after-force-landing-France-May-Jun-1940-ebay-01.jpg

Regards

zigster

 

 

 

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17 hours ago, TheyJammedKenny! said:

Nicely executed build on this very, very difficult kit!  I'm impressed.  

Mnay thanks! Was not that difficult, but not Tamigawa or  "snap on" one for sure :)

17 hours ago, 2996 Victor said:

Superb result!

I have a great liking for the Vichy schemes, and this is a very unusual subject.

Excellent!

Kind regards,

Mark

Indeed they are particularly colorful, either just yellow or even more when yellow-red stripes on!

7 hours ago, zigster said:

This is one very good looking bomber! Not very often seen as a finished kit.

As for the painting...hmmm... I would "can spray" Tamiya AS-12, then cammo, then use a toothpicks or match to gently remove some of the top layer.

Done it with a bit of masking tape too. Better effect than "wipe the semi-dry" brush 😉.

And that peeling-off paint was not that "all-over".

http://www.pangea-systems.com/wwiiws/aircraft/LeO.451/turret01.jpg

https://www.asisbiz.com/Battles/BOF-a/images/French-Airforce-Liore-et-Olivier-LeO-451-destroyed-after-force-landing-France-May-Jun-1940-ebay-01.jpg

Regards

zigster

Thank you, I will try it once. Other French mashines did not sown that much devastated paint. Perhaps here it would be better first apply varnish, then silver, in this case the shining will be different, what should be in real thing... Just another Leo from Syria is shown on profiles as almost bare metal one

I-xmzETFxLuVon3QeDm8lF3o3qlB7OAqvRIZzgXp 

 

7 hours ago, Homer said:

A fantastic piece of modelling well done 👏 

Mnay thanks! 

 

6 hours ago, swralph said:

Nice one.😀

Thank you!

6 hours ago, RidgeRunner said:

She turned out very nicely, Jerzy :). All the work was worth it! :)

 

Martin

 

 

Many thanks! It was kind of strange build for me, since first time I've seen that kit some 45 years ago, and bought it finally two years ago...

 

Regards

J-W

 

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On 12/12/2020 at 3:27 AM, zigster said:

JWM!

You (and Moa) are bringing all those esoteric, forgotten aircraft to this forum, which is very refreshing.

And thanks for sharing that with us 😀

Zig

Thank you Zigster! LeO 451 became a bit forgotten indeed, I do not why, although of all French WW2 bombers was perhaps the most numerous and successful. Before French fall in 1940 the 452 (almost numerical coincidence with name!) of them were build and 130 were lost in fights. But when WW2 started on 3rd September 1939 only 10 were completed, so much less than some 70 of Polish PZL P37 Łoś (which was in some way comparable). Later they served in all Vichy actions (including sortie on Gibraltar) and even after WW2, where it was used as transport machine and test bed for jet engines for example.  I was surprised to find that the Syria campaign in 1941 seem to be the most intense Vichy war time action where LeOs took part. 

 

I think that @Moa explores much rare subjects of civvie aviation and his perfect builds are for sure much more refreshing,  surprising and inspiring that mine are... :)

Best regards

J-W

 

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That's a very good effort on a very difficult subject.

I've seen pictures of the wear on those planes and the paint on the real thing seems to have come off in sheets! Not an easy thing to reproduce on a model without looking over the top. If anything, you seem to have not removed enough paint. The real wear pattern seems very random as well. Maybe salt or hairspray fashion techniques would look better to some eyes more used to those methods being used.

It's a kind of counterpoint to the often repeated argument about D Day stripes looking far more pristine on models than the real thing actually was. Dammed if you do, dammed if you don't.

 

Well done for correcting the fuselage length. That's something that most would have missed on this rarely modelled subject.

 

Tony.

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1 hour ago, TonyW said:

That's a very good effort on a very difficult subject.

I've seen pictures of the wear on those planes and the paint on the real thing seems to have come off in sheets! Not an easy thing to reproduce on a model without looking over the top. If anything, you seem to have not removed enough paint. The real wear pattern seems very random as well. Maybe salt or hairspray fashion techniques would look better to some eyes more used to those methods being used.

It's a kind of counterpoint to the often repeated argument about D Day stripes looking far more pristine on models than the real thing actually was. Dammed if you do, dammed if you don't.

 

Well done for correcting the fuselage length. That's something that most would have missed on this rarely modelled subject.

 

Tony.

Thank you! 

Just to show how the paint went out of real things:

Fran_LeO_LeO451_1.jpg

 

You are right with invasion strips. My choice is to do them straight, not louse as they were... But it even more difficult with some captured airplanes (Yugoslav partisan, Italian  co-belligerence markings , Slovak uprising etc...) - they had sometimes hand painted markings like red stars without equal angles or circles painted by free hand - what to do with them? Like that Caproni: 

l7SQKNZ3zhesLfpyfkwohuU0M3dCHH8yMzKghHcL

 

REgards

J-W

 

 

 

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