Jeju Uprising - Hasegawa 1/48 Aichi D3A2

[Hurricaneflyer]

October 11th, 1948

 

In the chaos and confusion of the conflict against the forces of Syngman Rhee, a group of former IJAF and IJNAF turned Worker's Party of South Korea guerillas had begun a monumental endeavor. Knowing that the resistance would inevitably fall without some form of trump card to balance the odds, they had started to renovate a number of former Japanese aircraft located in hidden hangers on the island, dating back to the Second World War and whose existence was only known by the personnel who hid them. Though highly restricted in almost every measure possible, their efforts had finally readied a motley collection of IJNAF/IJAF aircraft, including D3A1/2s, Ki-51s and C6N1s to fly in attacks on the air-vulnerable South Korean army, to devastating effect...

 

 

 

Alright, backstory over. I might continue it later with a number of different models...

 

In all seriousness though, I did enjoy this build, although a few of the techniques I used did not work as well as I would have wanted, such as painting the decals, accidentally contaminating the Clear, etc... Nonetheless, I feel satisfied with it. As for construction, it was all out-of-box, bar the central and right bombs, which came from a Tamiya J1N1 and an unknown kit respectively. The only issues I found with the kit  were that: 

A: The wing to fuselage joint is oddly-shaped, which resulted in a rather large gap that could not be satisfactorily filled with filler,

B: The construction of the gunner's mount is vague at best, with various loose hinges giving the form of the completed result, pointing the seat at a 65 degree angle. Normally, this would not be such an issue, but given how cramped the gunner's position is without the mounting, as well as the fact that glue can only be applied once everything is all put together means that it took a solid 2 hours to wrestle it into place.

 

As for markings, they fictional, taking inspiration from the early Indonesian Air Force roundel by overpainting the supplied Hinomarus with the South Korean flag's blue, and the fin-flash is the orange (or as close as I could get with my peeling spare Canberra decals) stripes of the People's Republic of Korea, the first government to exist after the end of the Japanese occupation. The camouflage is the regular IJN Green over Grey, with stripes of red-brown painted as make-shift additions to help better conceal the aircraft.

 

Last of all, you will have to forgive me for the poor background (my workbench), poor photography (my 7 year-old phone and questionable photography 'skills') and even poorer lighting, as being occupied for most of the day led to it being nightfall far before I could take photographs. Please feel free to comment and critique, another opinion other than my own would be much appreciated.

 

In any case, I wish all of you who are still in the 25th a very Merry Christmas, and to everyone a good night.

...Unless you are in somewhere other than Oceana or the Americas, in which case Good Day!

 

Sincerely, Hurricaneflyer

Edited December 26, 2022 by Hurricaneflyer
Forgot to add a few bits' and pieces.

[stevehnz]

Interesting back story, I'd never heard of the Jeju Uprising before. The Jeju Air Force certainly not.   Your interpretation of what might have been is nicely executed, or at least was when I could persuade your photos to open, they're a bit on the big side, if you could edit them down to about 1000-1200 pixels wide will be appreciated by members using cellular data, slower connections or heaven help them dial up, & the moderation team as well.  

Steve.

[georgeusa]

I like your "Jeju Air Force" Val.  The markings are unique, but quite conceivable.  Good use of the kit to provide a basis for an imagined air force.  As for the actual uprising, it is surprising South Korea has finally admitted their efforts to quell it were over the top and unnecessary force was used by the government.  Sometimes the U. S. government's pick of who to support is a bit lacking.  Thanks for sharing a bit of what if. 

[Kiwikitbasher]

Nicely done, Daniel, your Val turned out nicely, and a good what if back-story. Well done!

[Hurricaneflyer]

Thank you all for your feedback, I do hope that you find the model and concept to be of interest.

17 hours ago, stevehnz said:

...Your interpretation of what might have been is nicely executed, or at least was when I could persuade your photos to open, they're a bit on the big side, if you could edit them down to about 1000-1200 pixels wide will be appreciated by members using cellular data, slower connections or heaven help them dial up, & the moderation team as well.  

Steve.

Hello Steve, unfortunately in my rush to post this I had forgotten to look up a proper tutorial on image-hosting, so based off of the Britmodeller guide I ended up using 'imgbox' to host them, which turned out to be quite slow. I am still trying to get the hang of things, so next time I will try to use Scalemates instead. If you or anyone else could provide any tips or such on sizing the images it would be much appreciated.

Edited December 27, 2022 by Hurricaneflyer
Rephrasing of certain lines...

[stevehnz]

Hi HF, I use Flickr as a photohost, the odd photo I save direct from my phone to there, it seems to resize it to 1200 pixels when posting it here. Photos I upload to my PC I edit them in Irfanview,  a free image editing app which is user friendly & becomes quite instinctive after a while, there you can resize to any size you like before uploading to flickr & posting here.

Steve.

[Volant]

Nice build, and it’s good to see a Val in something other than grey and green, adds something to the shape.