Polish Fitter C's and Soviet Hinds

I've been feeling in a bit of a 3mm rut lately, what with churning out loads of East German and Danish vehicles over the last 3-4+ months, so the aircraft binge I've been on lately has felt pretty good. I'll have to get back to vehicles, as there's still so much to get done, but I'm in no huge hurry. That being the case, I've been working on my first Polish fixed wings, as well as my first Soviet helicopters. 

First up is a Polish Su-20 Fitter C, it being one of the export versions of the Soviet-built Su-17 ground attack aircraft:

As you can see, some squadrons painted the air intake cone red and others used green. For no particular reason, I opted for green. Here's my rendition:

I never apply decals to the undersides of the wings. At 1/600, these little guys will only ever been seen from above, so it's a waste of effort and decals to put them on the bottom. When doing this Su-20, something I've seen a thousand times, but never really thought about, hit me. Cold War Polish aircraft had national insignia on each side of the fuselage and each side of the vertical stabilizer (the "tail"), but none on the upper surfaces of the wings! Lower surfaces, yes, but not the tops:

That seems odd to me. Perhaps that's been changed since Poland joined NATO? Also, as an added aside, from 1918 until 1993, the Polish checkerboard insignia was always presented with a red square in the upper left-hand corner (as viewed). In 1993, this was changed to a white square in the upper left, as a break from the Communist era. 

Next, I've added two Soviet Mi-24 Hind F gunships to my growing aircraft collection. The real thing:

And mine:

The Hind D entered service in 1973-74 and had a four-barreled 12.7mm Gatling gun mounted on the chin:

However, very early in the Soviet involvement in Afghanistan, it became blatantly obvious that the weapon did not pack a heavy enough punch. Beginning in late 1981, the Hind F entered service, which replaced the machine gun with a twin-barreled 30mm cannon:

In reality, the Hind F became operational in the autumn of 1981, but for my purposes, I'll assume that the Soviets pushed this forward by a few months, knowing that war with NATO was imminent. 

Ok, I'm headed back to the painting desk. More 3mm goodness from me soon!

A bit of a problem with my Fitter C's!

Those of you who read my blog on a regular basis will know that for 1/600 scale aircraft, I generally drill a hole in the model's belly and use Gorilla Superglue Gel to afix it to the tip of a wire. It's quite fiddly holding the model perched straight and level while waiting for the glue to set, but in the end, it turns out a good looking "flying" aircraft. 

This week, I bought four of O8's very nice Su-17 Fitter C's for my Soviets and Poles:

They clean up pretty well, given that Marcin uses so much aluminum in his amalgam that it can often be diamond-hard. However, this time he's really outdone himself! I've tried to drill the belly of one of the models using my Dremel, as I always do, and this thing is so hard that I can't even get a hole started! All I've managed to do is produce a battered, semi-flat, mangled-looking place:

Ok, obviously a rethink is going to be necessary here. If drilling is out, I do have a pile of small rare earth magnets lying about unused. Gluing a magnet to the model's belly is no problem (especially since I've already made a fairly flat place with all of my drilling attempts). But that begs the question of how to get the matching magnet to perch atop the wire. Hmm....

Obviously, the magnet will never sit securely directly on the tip of the wire. I need some sort of flat surface atop the wire, but what to use as this tiny "table"? Where I work, we have a fairly large laminating shop, which is just chock-full of interesting little odds and ends. To afix acetate overlays to maps, the shop uses Chicago posts:

Unfortunately they're made of aluminum, so I'll have to glue magnets to both the aircraft and the "table".

That's without any magnets attached yet. It's very definitely not the most elegant solution and it is anything but unobtrusive, however, it does work. It will have to do until I think of a better way. This is what the whole thing will look like after it's all glued together:

Well, it'll all look much better after it's painted and flocked (he said hopefully)....

The East German Air Force in 1981

Over the past week, I've started putting a bit of thought (and research) into what East German aircraft I'll need for my LANDJUT 1981 campaign. 

The East German Air Force (Luftstreitkräfte or "LSK") was formed in 1956 and dissolved in 1990 with the reunification of East and West Germany. During the LSK's lifetime, its main focus was defending East German airspace against penetration by NATO aircraft. A ground strike capability was considered of secondary importance and mostly left up to their fleet of Mi-24 Hind attack helicopters.

Because I'm focusing on a ground campaign, my only interest is in ground attack aircraft. Interceptors generally dealt only with inbound enemy strategic bombers and air superiority aircraft. Low-altitude, heavily-laden ground attack aircraft flew slowly enough that high-speed interceptors had a bit of difficulty in effectively dealing with them. 

In March 1981, what fixed-wing aircraft would the LSK use to attack NATO ground forces? The East Germans didn't begin receiving Soviet-built Su-17 (export models were known as Su-20 or Su-22) Fitter C attack aircraft until December 1984:

Prior to that, a hodge-podge of aircraft were pressed into service. There were a considerable number of outdated MiG-17 Frescos, relegated to the role of fighter bomber:

But these were being retired as quickly as they could be replaced with more modern aircraft. The bulk of LSK attack aircraft were several squadrons worth of the more modern versions of the MiG-21 Fishbed:

The LSK also had a number of Aero L-39 Albatross advanced trainers that could also serve in a light strike role:

Without doubt, the most capable fighter bombers in the East German Air Force were their new MiG-23 Floggers, which they began receiving from the Soviets in mid to late 1980:

By the Spring of 1981, probably no more than a squadron (and most likely less) would have been in the LSK's inventory. 

The East German Air Force did have a lot more aircraft types than just these that I've touched on, but the majority were interceptors and so I've skipped over them. 

Luckily, between Oddzial Osmy and Tumbling Dice, I'll have no problem making up some aircraft stands for my East Germans (except for the Aero Albatross, which no one makes in 1/600). I'll order some of the above aircraft and begin getting the necessary paints. I will get some Su-17's, as the Soviets and Poles were using them in time for the beginning of my campaign.

I also need to expand my West German aircraft and start some Danish ones, but that's for a future post. More next time!