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Swords of the Unjust (2 x 1/72 IBG Fw 190D-9)


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8 hours ago, Procopius said:

I took a look, and...holy hell! What kind of person designs a long, thin pylon with this as the only locating pin?

 

52057885731_13b8161eb3_h.jpgPXL_20220508_032229289 by Edward IX, on Flickr

A prime candidate for a couple of wire pins, and holes bored at a suitable interval in the fuselage underside.

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You would be spending the rest of your days “at her majesty’s pleasure” if you took photos in a UK swimming pool!*


But well done with the modelling.   It does get easier but then they go to Uni so you better have built up a stash first cos there’s no budget left for models!

 

* I used to work at a firm that specialized in Swimming Pool / Leisure Centres.  Each client/local authority would have at least one crypto-fascist who wanted the Children’s pool in an underground bunker with no windows and triple guards to ensure no undesirable attention.  Even the more sensible ones would be trying to avoid windows, passers-by etc until my boss pointed out anyone could buy a ticket to go swimming!

 

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On 5/5/2022 at 2:48 AM, Procopius said:

"The enemy has committed every conceivable crime against humanity, culture, and civilization. They are, in fact, so spiritually corrupt as to boast about it in public. They plunder honest and decent nations to fill the pockets of their own money barons. They let millions go hungry and hundreds of thousands starve to reduce them to political inactivity. They murder huge numbers of women and children, hoping through their unbelievable barbarism to weaken the will and destroy the confidence of their husbands and fathers. They bomb and burn more than two millennia of Europe’s cultural treasures. What other crimes could they commit to earn the disgust, the hatred, and the deep contempt of the entire world? Who has the right to speak of war crimes and historical justice, the enemy or we?"

 

-- Joseph Goebbels, “Vor einem neuen Jahr,” Das Reich, 2 January 1944 (trans. Randall Bytwerk)

 

 

"The order came to provide 25 workers. People from the employment office [Arbeitsamt] came from [Kremenets] and specified the relevant people; recruitment cards were delivered to them, but no one came forward, they all had taken flight. Then the German Gendarmerie came and started setting fire to the houses of those who had fled. [Svidrov’s] house was set ablaze first, and right after it the [Valushas’] house. The fire burned very fiercely, because it had not rained for two months, and in addition, the haystacks were standing in the yards. You can imagine what went on there. People ran up to put out the fire; they were forbidden to do so and were beaten and arrested. As a result, 6 farms burned to the ground. Here the flames are raging, and the Gendarmes go around setting other houses on fire. The people fall on their knees and kiss the Gendarmes’ hands, but the Gendarmes start beating them with rubber truncheons and threaten to burn down the whole village. I don’t know how it would have ended if [Ivan Zapurkany] had not intervened. He promised that workers would report by the following morning.

"During the fire, the militia went through the adjacent villages, seized the workers, and took them into custody. Wherever they found no workers, they locked up the parents until their children appeared. Thus they caused havoc all night long in [Bilozirka].

"The same thing took place in other villages too, such as [Shushkivtsi], [Molotkiv], Osnyky, [Moskalivka], so that the fires continued day and night. The workers who had not yet turned up by that time were supposed to be shot. All our schools have been closed, and the married teachers are being sent to work here, while the unmarried ones are being conscripted for work in Germany. Now they’re catching human beings the way dogcatchers used to catch dogs in earlier times."

 

-- Antonina Sidielnik, letter from Ukraine to a family member working in Germany, intercepted by German authorities c. October 1942

 

 

"Immediately I was struck by the high quality of my new mount. It was one of the group that came from the Focke-Wulf factory at Sorau in the 210 Werknummer series. Its construction and finish was superior to some of the others. The joints of aluminium sheeting and the riveting were very smooth to help reduce drag."

 

-- Leutnant Heinz-Karl Ossenkop, 2./JG26

  

 

  The thin-lipped armorer,
       Hephaestos, hobbled away,
    Thetis of the shining breasts
       Cried out in dismay
    At what the god had wrought
       To please her son, the strong
    Iron-hearted man-slaying Achilles
       Who would not live long.

 

-- W H Auden, "The Shield of Achilles"

 

 

"The 29th [of December 1944] dawns with the clearest possible sky, and very early in the morning, the aircraft reporting post informs us of large numbers of enemy fighters aloft, all of them Spitfires, the most feared of our enemies."

 

-- Feldwebel Fritz Unger, 11./JG54

 

 

And Samuel said, As thy sword hath made women childless, so shall thy mother be childless among women. And Samuel hewed Agag in pieces before the LORD in Gilgal.

 

-- 1 Samual 15:33 (King James Version)

 

 

The Gross-Rosen concentration camp system was centered in lower Silesia, in a town which first appears in the historical record in 1291 as Rogoźnica before vanishing into the borders of various other rapacious central European states for many centuries. In 1945, after the war ended and Poland's borders were once again redrawn, it would become Rogoźnica once more, but during the interwar era and the Second World War, it was Groß Rosen. Gross-Rosen had begun life as an outpost of Sachshausen in Oranienburg, one of the oldest of the concentration camps, where 100,000 were killed between 1936 and 1945, before being spun off into its own camp system in about May of 1941.

 

Gross-Rosen's network of subcamps supplied slaves to vast swathes of German industry, including Sigla Sicherheitsglas G.m.b.H. in Gross Kunzendorf, which produced the "KUDO" (KUnzendorf DOppelglas) safety glass used in Fw190 and Ju87 windscreens (slaves from Buchenwald manufactured Fw190 wings and undercarriages for Junkers at Niederorschel, about 450 kilometers away), as well as Focke-Wulf proper via their Sorau factory complex, about five kilometers from Gross Kunzendorf and serviced by the Alsau subcamp. Interestingly, at least one of the Gross-Rosen subcamps (Brieg) was guarded primarily by ground troops from the Luftwaffe, with only a handful of SS personnel; the slaves there were occaisonally rented out to local farmers to work in their fields. 

 

Focke-Wulf was not an early-adopter of slave labour in the German aviation industry. They had focused their initial efforts in establishing partnerships with French aviation firms in the occupied portion of that country, particularly Technique du Chatillon and SNCASO, initially in 1940 to work on civilian airliner projects for the postwar era, expected to come soon; after the loss of the Battle of Britain and the invasion of Russia, the relationship metastasized, and soon Technique du Chatillon, SNCASO, and Morane-Saulnier were all involved in the production of Fw190s. Skilled French labour was in the process of being scooped up by Generalbevollmächtigter für den Arbeitseinsatz Ernst Sauckel for his "foreign labour" program in Germany, thereby ensuring that Focke-Wulf, deprived of a major source of manpower, would turn to Erhard Milch's Jagerstab and its partnership with the SS to secure a ready supply of slave labour for their factories. In this they were following in the footsteps of Heinkel and Daimler-Benz, which in 1942 had made the first requests specifically for Jewish slaves to work assembling engines and airframes for the troubled He177 program.

 

By 1944, Sorau was one of the most important of Focke-Wulf's directly-controlled and widely-scattered aircraft factories, though large complexes run by other firms, such as AGO in Oschersleben or Fieseler's factory in Kassel (the latter producing at least 2,000 Fw190s, about 10% of the total built) contributed heavily. Sorau (also home to much of the Ta152 development programme) and Cottbus were the first two Focke-Wulf facilities scheduled to begin production of the Fw 190D-9, an "interim" design until the Ta152 was ready for pime-time. Sorau would finish the first production-standard 190D-9, W.nr. 210001, near the end of August 1944. 

 

Focke-Wulf Cottbus was another of the factories erected during that firm's eastward dispersion in 1941 to avoid RAF Bomber Command's attacks. After the war, one of the plant's hangars was disassembled and painstakingly transported to Virginia Beach in the United States. During reassembly, an inscription was found etched on one of the hangar's beams:

 
"Anusia Waclaw Worked Here, 10.14.1944.”

 
Anusia is the Polonised version of the Hebrew name Hannah. Cottbus relied heavily on slave labour from Sachsenhausen, centered in Oranienburg, through its Lieberose subcamp 25 kilometers from Cottbus.

 
As the Russians approached Cottbus, the slave labourers at Lieberose were sent on a death march back to Sachsenhausen, 165 kilometers away. It's entirely possible that Anusia Waclaw was on this march, if she wasn't already dead:  the Germans left behind the bodies of 753 slave labourers unceremoniously dumped into a mass grave, one of the largest -- outside of a concentration camp proper -- ever unearthed in Germany.

 

As an interim type -- intended to replace the aging Fw190A series until a more advanced design could enter production, in much the same way as the Spitfire IX had replaced the Mark V during development of the Mk VIII and Mk XIV -- the Germans intended a rate of production of four 190D-9s per day, split between Focke-Wulf Sorau and Cottbus, Arbeitgsgemeinschaft Roland in Nordenham, Mimetall in Erfurt, Fieseler's plant in Kassel, and lattermost, Concordia in Aslau. It would take the Germans until November of 1944 to reach their four-a-day production target, and it would only sometimes be met thereafter. By comparison, the Castle Bromwich works alone, which accounted for about half the Spitfire production capacity in the United Kingdom, produced slightly more than ten Spitfires per day, and the mammoth Willow Run plant in the United States at peak efficiency turned out a B-24 every sixty-three minutes. Total production of the Fw190D-9 is unknown; German industry reported 670 complete by the end of January of 1945 (though German production figures also include aircraft that underwent repair and rebuilding at the factory*), and J. Richard Smith and Eddie Creek, in their three-volume history of the Fw190, estimate "at least" 1,200 Fw190D-9s were produced, though for the last 550 or so off the production lines, there was little fuel to fly them with; it's possible as few as 900 of the total output ever reached the Luftwaffe. Regardless of how many saw actual use, the 190D-9 would become the last major piston-engined fighter fielded by the Luftwaffe, while the Ta152  almost wholly failed to materialize.

 

The first Luftwaffe unit to receive the Fw190D-9, known to its pilots as the "Dora 9",  was III. Gruppe of JG54, lead by the "experte" Robert "Bazi"** Weiß, on 20 September 1944. While Luftwaffe Jagdgeschwaders are often compared to RAF fighter wings, in general, they seem very much larger, since a full-strength fighter geschwader could conceivably have upwards of 120 aircraft. The four constituent Gruppes, each of thirty or so planes, were closer in size to RAF fighter wings, and seem to have typically been the largest tactical formation of a jagdgeschwader to fight together as a single unit, just like an RAF fighter wing of three or four squadrons. III./JG54 had been sent west at the start of 1943, becoming a de facto part of JG2. On the Ostfront, JG54 had done quite well; it was the third highest-scoring Jagdgeschwader in the east. JG26's veterans, however, were unimpressed. III./JG54 struggled to master the more complex tactics and more rigourous flying required against the USAAF and RAF, and they were eventually shifted away from the Channel Front and subordinated to JG1 for Reichsverteidigung duties. When the Allied invasion of France commenced in June of 1944, III./JG54 was thrown into the fray, and it quickly became clear that even over a year in the west was not enough to prepare them to withstand the coruscating fury of Anglo-American air power. Within a short period of time, Weiß advocated, in an unconscious echo of Leigh-Mallory's "Big Wing" proponency, that his aircraft shouldn't risk flying over the Allied beachhead unless at Gruppe strength. After the conclusion of the Normandy Campaign, the remnants of III./JG54 were pulled out of line to rest and refit. 

 

The Gruppe only returned to operations for Wacht Am Rhein, the last-gasp Ardennes Offensive in the winter of 1944/45. Their debut was not an auspicious one: on 27 December 1944, 486 (New Zealand) Squadron's Tempests got the drop on the unit and their new fighters, shooting down six for the loss of Flying Officer B M Hall (from Dannevirke on the North Island) and his aircraft. Three pilots were killed and two injured, among the former an officer, Oberleutnant Paul Breger. This was just the overture.

 

On 29 December 1944, III./JG54 was the subject of a shattering experience, "Black Friday", from which the Gruppe never recovered from. At least fifteen Fw190D-9s were lost, and thirteen pilots were killed, including the 121-claim (all but 26 in the East) "Bazi" Weiß. The 79-claim (all but 25 in the East) "experte" Oberfeldwebel Whilhelm Philipp escaped his aircraft, but broke his spine in the process. He never flew operationally again. So gutted was JG54 that to field enough aircraft for Operation Bodenplatte, a few days away, it had to be loaned Fw 190s from JG26. During their attack on the nearly abandoned Grimbergen/B-66 Airfield during Bodenplatte a few days later, III./JG54 lost a further nine pilots to marauding Spitfires from 308 (Polish) Squadron and a surprisingly spirited defense by the RAF Regiment, organized on the ground by the Polish ace Wing Commander Aleksander Gabszewicz DSO DFC VM. For administrative reasons, the survivors would become IV./JG26 in February of 1945 and follow that Jagdgeschwader into oblivion. 

 

The first aircraft I'm building is "Yellow 9"/W.Nr. 210128, flown by Oblt Eugen Schreiner, a bomber pilot transferred to fighter operations as the Luftwaffe's fortunes ebbed. He and his aircraft both were lost to a Spitfire from 331 (Norwegian) Squadron on Black Friday, on what was his second operational sortie in fighters. 

 

A handful of poor-quality images exist for this aircraft, taken after its loss. The "best" one is copyrighted, and hosted on Facebook (not a great place to store stuff, by the way), and may be found here.

 

It is the only aircraft lost by III./JG54 on 29 December 1944 that we have any photos of, however, and conveniently, it's one of the IBG kit decal options. It was one of the first Fw190D-9s built, either at Focke-Wulf Cottbus or Sorau. It has the early five-piece gun cowl (a staggering five variations of this cowl exist in total, most of the later ones involving fewer pieces in an effort to simplify production) and older-style flat canopy characteristic of early Fw190D-9s. 

 

This brings us to "Black 8"/W.nr. 210968, a Sorau-built Fw190D-9 of II/JG26 flown by Unteroffizier Karl Fröb. This aircraft crashed into Lake Schwerin in northern Germany on 17 April 1945, possibly through pilot error, and parts of it were recovered on 15 November 1990. It now resides in the Luftwaffe Museum in Berlin, where it is being restored. I said "possibly due to pilot error" advisedly, for there seems to be a lot of conflicting information between Donald Caldwell's book on JG26 (which gets a little fuzzy whenever the Top Guns of the Luftwaffe are getting kicked into their hats), the ol' Internet, and 2nd Tactical Air Force Volume III by Christophers Shores and Thomas. The lattermost source suggests Fröb disappeared on a ferry flight of I Gruppe of JG26, rather than the II Gruppe listed for the aircraft in Crandall's The Fw190D-9 Dora Volume II, potentially by a Tempest V of 80 Squadron; the squadron claimed three aircraft, and a 401 Squadron Spitfire IX claimed a fourth; according to Caldwell, I/JG26 lost six aircraft and two pilots, the RAF Tempest NV991 and her pilot, F/O LA Smith DFC. There is apparently a more full account of "Black 8"/W.nr. 210968's loss in Green Hearts: First in Combat with the Dora 9, by Axel Urbanke, which runs about $50 used. I will include a note from Future Me if he decides to buy the book solely for researching this build.UPDATE FROM FUTURE ME: I am deeply indebted to SafetyDad, who provided much information on the loss of "Black 8"/W.nr. 210968. According to  Fröb's Rottenführer, Karl Heinz Ossenkopf, the JG26 fighters were possibly (Ossenkopf was shot down subsequently himself and could not with certitude remember the precise reason JG26 had gone aloft) on a low-level frie jagd in support of the doomed 11. Armee, which had been encircled and which would surrender four days later. They were bounced by Spitfires and attempted to elude them by diving to wavetop height over Lake Schwerin. It appears that a cannon shell then hit Fröb's aircraft, causing its engine to seize. At such low altitude, there was almost no time to react, and the Fw190 plunged into the water. Fröb apparently unstrapped himself and ejected the sliding hood, but his body has never been recovered; it seems likely he was flung clear of the aircraft as it crashed while attempting to escape it and killed, either by the impact or drowning.

 

Like Yellow 9, Black 8 is an early-production aircraft, this time definitely from Focke-Wulf Sorau, again with the five-piece gun cowl; Jerry Crandall's profile of it suggests that it also had the old style "flat" sliding hood. An interesting note regarding this airframe is that the main landing gear legs appear to have been finished by different subcontractors, the port being painted with RLM02, and the starboard with "Light Gray", and each with its own dataplate, one of those little reminders of how widely dispersed German industry was by this point in time. 

 

52051049835_c65d00e93e_h.jpgPXL_20220504_190148156 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

My disordered bench is as cleared as it will ever be. I think in general dedicating a build, at my skill level, is more of an insult to the dedicatee than a tribute, but if this is for anyone, let it be for Anusia Waclaw, whose name, etched in a beam in the building she worked on for her enslavers, may be the only trace left behind that she ever existed. 

 

Let us begin. 

 

 

 

 

 

* If Civilian Repair Organization in Britain's efforts can be considered a guide -- the equivalent of 79,000 aircraft were returned to service from 1940 to 1945 through their efforts -- repaired aircraft could constitute a quite substantial total of the production figures for the 109 and and 190 during Speer's "Armaments Miracle" from 1942 on.

 

** Bazi is a Bavarian endearment that roughly equates to "little rascal".

With the greatest respect, Sir, I do not have the words, to respond with the the appropriate honours for these people..........amongst so many others......words cannot suffice

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Sorry PC, I love your builds, and look forward to them greatly....but I was just overwhelmed by the back story on this......

 

Carry on as usual, please

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20 hours ago, jackroadkill said:

How you have the time or inclination to build kits after a day like that I'll never know!  Fortunately for me, my days of child-rearing and the associated cat-herding, fog-plaiting, lack of sleep, weird decisions being made by spouses (which are obviously then not communicated until there are a huge amount of pieces to pick up) , weekends that disappear at the drop of a hat and other acts of  general psychological warfare that go with it are over.  I am still traumatised by the memory of countless Eisteddfodau, scout camps, guitar lessons etc.  I'm enjoying the window between children and grandchildren as much as I can for as long as I can!

You (and me) are in the eye of a whirlwind - enjoy it until the other side of it starts arriving🙂

Colin

Ps Procopius - thoroughly enjoying the build and the life lessons

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23 hours ago, Corsairfoxfouruncle said:

Annealing Edward will soften the metal enough to bend. Candle or a lighter for a short time and that should do it. 

 

I took your advice for the second one and it worked a treat. 

22 hours ago, jackroadkill said:

I am still traumatised by the memory of countless Eisteddfodau

The heady scent of leek immediately transports you back. "Senghenydd. I'm still in Senghenydd." The Doors start up, but somehow it's different.

 

Dyma'r diwedd
Ffrind hyfryd
Dyma'r diwedd
Fy unig ffrind, y diwedd...

 

3 hours ago, Kitsticker said:

Sorry PC, I love your builds, and look forward to them greatly....but I was just overwhelmed by the back story on this......

 

Carry on as usual, please

 

No apology needed, very kind of you to say!

 

Here's where I left off last night:

 

52057915541_c23fca7a81_h.jpgPXL_20220508_034225429 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

This morning, Winston celebrated Mother's Day (and VE-Day) by barfing on the white chair in the living room. Normally, or I should say in the past, he has been amazing about making it to the toilet when he had to throw up. He could make it there to vomit before he was even toilet trained. But now he's chosen to become the ne plus ultra of jerks (his mother called him a word that rhymes with "Bass Troll"), and not only just sat there limply after puking, when he started up again for round two and I rushed over with a wastebin, he tried to push it away so he had an unobstructed shot at the carpet. I did not punch a sick six year old child, dear reader, but I wanted to

 

Win didn't actually have the flu, but he has inherited the amazing genetic flaw of my wife's family: he throws up if he has a temperature. Had I known this, I would never have married her, because it is not a trait that needed propagation. He spent the rest of the day getting up enough strength to be obnoxious for twenty minutes, then being left drained and having to have a lie-down. He also managed to spill a whole melted popsicle on a couch, as well as a bottle of ginger ale, and he would have managed to spill a glass of milk that his mother foolishly permitted him to have as he lay limply in front of the TV, but reason, in the form of Hateful Father, intervened. Eventually he crawled off as animals do to die, but instead napped for two hours and emerged incredibly disheveled even by the very generous standard he lives his life by, to ask me if it was still the same day. Eventually we got them both into bed by 8 PM (their normal bedtime is nominally 6:30 but in reality closer to 7), and I made Mrs P the saddest, most disappointing Mothers' Day meal possible, at her request and by her command: a grilled American "cheese" sandwich and canned tomato soup with milk and another slice of alleged cheese, followed up by Ben & Jerry's brownie ice cream with hot fudge on top and a slice of grocery store French silk pie. Did I mention she's pregnant. 

 

Then: grotto time.

 

Tonight I scribed the panel lines on the second 190:

 

52060504863_58aeba2ac6_h.jpgPXL_20220509_015932301 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

The kit has a teeny-tiny intake on the upper starboard side of the nose which, after far too much time spent searching, I learned is for taking in fresh air for the cockpit. It of course has no hole in styrene form, but to waste time, I drilled it out.

 

52060962385_b04ad61ea3_h.jpgPXL_20220509_023553053 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

Here it is in situ:

 

52060504983_1335db1d60_h.jpgPXL_20220509_024159906 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

There's also a tiny PE plate on the same side above the middle cell of exhaust stacks; on the real aircraft, this shielded the supercharger intake from the exhaust gasses. 

 

52059503372_b71e20bc1d_h.jpgPXL_20220509_032243702 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

As noted in the 72nd Aircraft forum build thread, the part projecting off the aircraft is a little too large compared to photos of the real thing, but I was at my emotional limit for the day and not terribly interested in f...ooling about with something the size of my pinky toenail. 

 

There's a PE part that goes over the circle I scribed for the access hatch on the lower cowl. I think it was a mistake to put it on, since it stands rather proud and photos I've seen of this area seem to indicate leaving the scribed detail would be sufficient.

 

52060547996_570cf40bd6_h.jpgPXL_20220509_032255668 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

May have to prise it off and sand the glue residue away. Thoughts, my brain trust?

 

Test-fitted the supercharger intake, and it's probably the roughest two parts in the kit:

 

52060797499_9b1a4d9b00_h.jpgPXL_20220509_033338737 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

52060797734_913561ac48_h.jpgPXL_20220509_033346172 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

The fit is very poor, and here's how that part looks on the actual aircraft:

 

FW190-D9.jpg

 

fw190d9-stab-jg4-michalski-frankfurt-194

 

Seems pretty smooth and well faired-in. Not quite sure what happened with these parts that didn't happen with the rest of the kit, but they'll need some sanding to smooth them out and some fettling to have them even fit the recessed area.

 

I didn't take a photo, but I also painted both headrests RLM66 prior to glossing, so I can add the big warning stencil that goes on the head armour. Pretty close to closing up the aircraft and laying on some primer, I think.

 

It's past it now, but when I started this post, it was still VE-Day.

 

"[T]he murderous war-god lashed out with his long spear, striking her tasselled aegis, that dread aegis that resists even Zeus’s lightning, and she stepped back. Then, in her powerful hand, she grasped a great black jagged stone that men had raised, on the plain, in former times to mark a field boundary. She struck the angry Ares on the neck, and knocked him down, with a clash of armour, and he lay stretched out over an acre of ground, his hair in the dust, Pallas Athene laughed in triumph: ‘You have still not learnt to know my strength: it’s greater than yours, you fool, if you try and match it with mine.'"

 

-- Iliad, Book XXI

 

 

German aircraft wrecks

 

 

Happy VE-Day.

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1 minute ago, perdu said:

On this inauspicious day I mourn for your lost chair Edward, oh dear.

Oh, we have a potent spray -- probably liquefied radium or something equally toxic -- than can remove vomit from almost anywhere. I tried squirting it on Winston's stomach, but apparently it has its limits.

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40 minutes ago, Procopius said:

Well, Grant tested positive for covid. Awesome.

Might that explain Winston's stomach problems? Symptoms vary.
Fingers crossed that you and Mrs P remain unscathed.

Stay safe (or as far as possible).

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3 minutes ago, Steve Coombs said:

Might that explain Winston's stomach problems? Symptoms vary.
Fingers crossed that you and Mrs P remain unscathed.

Stay safe (or as far as possible).

That's what I thought as well, though he tested negative today. He was vaccinated, so maybe that was just what it did to him as it passed by. 

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Ah, apparently Winston pitched a fit at the doctor's, so his test was not able to be completed. He may well have it.

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So. Great day. I also ended up spanking Winston for the first and hopefully only time ever tonight. I'm sure we all have our own opinions about it. My parents were certainly all for it, and in my experience it doesn't work. So if you were thinking that maybe my problem is that I wasn't spanked enough as a kid, I can assure you, if anything, it was the reverse. All I know is that I feel rotten now. 

 

Sadly, modelling did not prove the balm my jangled soul craved.

 

Things started out okay. I got the Achtung! stencils on the cockpit armour:

 

52061945752_39aa13222e_h.jpgPXL_20220510_023811862 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

And folded, painted, and installed the tiny PE gunsights.

 

52062989728_76a925e41f_h.jpgPXL_20220510_022903950 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

52061942037_2bf53857d7_h.jpgPXL_20220510_023606554 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

(Which, as noted elsewhere, are wrong -- the gunsight appears to be a Revi-series reflector sight, which shouldn't have any framing around the glass. The Germans did have a gyroscopic gunsight that they were very proud of, the EZ42, but its development was plagued by problems, and it was produced in Munich and Dresden; the Royal Air Force smashed both cities within a few months of each other, fatally disrupting production, and the handful of gyro sights produced thereafter were reserved for the Me262.)

 

I also glossed the clear parts. Here is where my troubles began.

 

52062989733_75e718a7ba_h.jpgPXL_20220510_015724851 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

The IBG kit has four sliding hoods. Two are the bulged late hood, one open and one closed, and two are the earlier 190A-style hood, again one open, one closed. The only problem is, they got the part numbers backwards in the instructions.

 

 

They've since released a PDF set of instructions that are updated, but I didn't see, anywhere, mention of the fact that they screwed this up. So I spent a lot of time trying to get the parts to fit before I realized they were too narrow, and thus the open canopies. Okay, fine. I got the other ones clipped off, only to realize that the head armour interacted with the little seatbelts I'd glued to the cockpit tub in such a way that the canopy didn't fit. Hasty part removal followed. THEN, after all that, the clear parts needed a bit of coaxing to go on properly still.

 

52063272304_897aa5477b_h.jpgPXL_20220510_031647490 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

Getting part numbers wrong in the instructions could happen to anyone. But if you were going to pick one to screw up, this was pretty much the hummiest of dingers. 

 

What a rotten day.

 

 

 

 

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That does sound like a rotten day, indeed.

 

But... well those 190's are looking very good and pretty complete. I appreciate that you've still got a load of fiddly bits to add, but I hope that you're over the worst of it. I also hope that you're over the worst of the week and that things get better from here :) 

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

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Crappy, crappy, crappy doesn't define it.


Doesn't define you either PC, we know you will survive and hope 'the leaves from your tree' get over it (the dreaded lurgy) as soon as...

 

The 190s do begin to look PC-awesome as expected, even after the Great Clear Bits Saga.

 

👍

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What a cruddy day; I'll bet you were glad to finally get to bed in the end.  We've got three kids, all grown up now, and I only ever laid a hand on one once.  I felt worse about it than he did, so I didn't revisit that method of parenting.

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On 06/05/2022 at 15:59, Seahawk said:

the guilty pleasures of Saki.

Guilty?  

 

I used to read my daughter "The Stalled Ox" as bedtime story...   age 7, I did try other but she found this one very amusing and would ask for it.

http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/Stal819.shtml

 

I did also read her bits of the Hobbit, and also tried her on Titus Groan, which I think was too dense, but did knock her out quickly.   

 

a quick search up on Saki's history 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saki

"After his wife's death Charles Munro sent his three children, Ethel Mary (born April 1868), Charles Arthur (born July 1869) and two-year-old Hector, home to England. The children were sent to Broadgate Villa, in Pilton near Barnstaple, North Devon, to be raised by their grandmother and paternal maiden aunts, Charlotte and Augusta, in a strict and puritanical household. It is said that his aunts were most likely models for some of his characters, notably the aunt in "The Lumber Room" and the guardian in "Sredni Vashtar": Munro's sister Ethel said that the aunt in "The Lumber Room" was an almost perfect portrait of Aunt Augusta. Munro and his siblings led slightly insular lives during their early years and were educated by governesses. At the age of 12 the young Hector Munro was educated at Pencarwick School in Exmouth and then as a boarder at Bedford School." 

 

The Lumber Room

http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/LumRoo.shtml

 

Also recommended are Tobermory

http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/Tob.shtml

 

and Sredni Vashtar

https://www.classicshorts.com/stories/vashtar.html

 

I think I ran across Saki at school, when it was read by an English Teacher on last Friday afternoon lesson.  I forgot all about until I found a selection of stories in charity shop,  and was puzzled why it seemed familiar.  

 

Apologies for the digression @Procopius....  but better than me digging out my JaPo books..... ;) 

Neat work on the kits..

cheers

T

 

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3 minutes ago, Troy Smith said:

but better than me digging out my JaPo books..... ;) 

 

 

Nice work on being able to afford them, at least. I have the two Crandall books (which have a bit too much slavering adulation for the Luftwaffe, for my taste*) and the three-volume Creek/Smith set on the 190. 

 

 

* “The dilemma of the critic has always been that if he knows enough to speak with authority, he knows too much to speak with detachment." -- Raymond Chandler

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3 hours ago, Procopius said:
3 hours ago, Troy Smith said:

 

Nice work on being able to afford them, at least.

Pure luck.   Got them from sale listing on here, £20 each. Also got the G-10 book, same price, and the Bf109 K that was more.   A few years ago mind, but was cheap even then, as the new price seems to be in the £40-50 mark. 

 

I have a couple more I picked up at the Aviation Bookshop in Tunbridge Wells at the 25% off sale...

http://falkeeinsmodel.blogspot.com/2016/02/a-visit-to-aviation-bookshop-in.html

 

They sell kits as well... 

I think you'd flip if you went there.  One to try to fit in if you ever make back.... 

    My brain usually collapses.    The photos don't really do it justice.      It's even worth the 1hr 20 min bus journey  each way  for me on their sale weeks if I can't find anyone else who fancies the trip.

 

3 hours ago, Procopius said:

I have the two Crandall books

Just to cheer you up I don't think I've seen either for under £60, 

 

3 hours ago, Procopius said:

and the three-volume Creek/Smith set on the 190. 

I finally got Vol.1 at the shop sale for list price - 25%, but the other two I'd got for a lot less.    I find them both very impressive  and curiously annoying, as they seem to flit about between themes.   

At some point I should actually build some of the extensive amount of Fw190 kits I have amassed,  as as best I can remember the very first kit i ever had was the Revell 1/72 kit...   which was possibly the first Luftwaffe kit to remove the swastika, it even mentions this on the instructions..  

https://www.scalemates.com/products/img/0/2/3/1245023-27767-95-pristine.jpg

 

cheers

T

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2 minutes ago, Troy Smith said:

Pure luck.   Got them from sale listing on here, £20 each. Also got the G-10 book, same price, and the Bf109 K that was more.   A few years ago mind, but was cheap even then, as the new price seems to be in the £40-50 mark. 

 

Why you lucky...

 

3 minutes ago, Troy Smith said:

 

I think you'd flip if you went there.  One to try to fit in if you ever make back.... 

 

 

As Ced and Cookie can attest, when I was in the UK for Telford, I was in serious danger of breaking my legs from the weight of everything I crammed into my luggage for the trip back.

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