Very unimpressed with Marcin's F-100's

The O8 F-100 Super Sabres that I've been waiting on arrived from Picoarmor today. The usual wonderful service from John and John and the usual pathetic delivery time from the Post Office. 

Having now gotten to work on the aircraft, I have to say the sculpts are pretty poor quality and far below Marcin's usual standards. They come in two pieces. The fuselage and tail assembly in one piece, which gets glued across the wing assembly, it being a second piece. The rudder has a very large piece of mold seepage and is a fair bit of a mess. The horizontal stabilizers are not level and of noticeably different shapes and lengths:

In the end, in order to get at the "blob" attached to the rudder, I had to snap off the entire vertical stabilizer. This is what it will look like once I get it glued back on:

As you can see, I have yet to finish filing it into the correct shape. 

I'm quite disappointed with these little models. They require an inordinate amount of work compared to their small size. No doubt they'll look fine on the table and from a distance and paint covers a multitude of sins, but still.... Ok, I realize this isn't 1/48 and I got two for only $1.85, but that's not the point. Sigh, usually Marcin's stuff is very impressive. Not this time. 

Ok, back to the maintenance shop. 

The Royal Danish Air Force in 1981

To continue on with the aircraft theme that I seem to be in lately, I thought I'd look at what minis I'll need in order to represent the ground attack aircraft of the Royal Danish Airforce (Kongelige Danske Flyvevåben) for my 1981 LANDJUT campaign. 

For interceptors, the Danes used the F-104G Starfighter, 

which they had the good sense NOT to press into service as a ground attack aircraft, thus avoiding the morbid "lawn dart" and "tent peg" jokes the West Germans had to suffer through. Even so, the Danish F-104 loss rate was 23.5% (12 out of 51). Oddly, the Norwegians, who also used them only in the interceptor role, lost only 6% and that in a country known for harsh weather! Oh! I just remembered another German joke - "What's the definition of an optimist? A Starfighter pilot who quits smoking." Ahem...well...moving right along....

The Danes relied on two aircraft types for their ground strike capability. The older of the two was the American-built F-100 Super Sabre, both the single seat D model:

And the two seater F model:

The Danes had been using the Hun since 1959 and it wouldn't finally be retired until 1982. Despite it's age, it could still pack a wallop with a 7000lb (approx. 3200kg) payload, although how effective it would've been over a modern battlefield against an enemy well supplied with up-to-date, shoulder-fired SAM's is debatable. 

The second strike aircraft used by Denmark was the Saab F-35 Draken; the single seat strike version:

Some of which were modified with chin cameras for an added reconnaissance role, the RF-35:

As well as some twin seat TF-35 trainers, normally unarmed, but which could easily be adapted for reconnaissance and strike roles:

Prior to the RF-35 reconnaissance Drakens, the RDAF used RF-84F Thunderflashes:

However, they were all retired in 1971 when the Drakens took over. Though they were kept in reserve for a few years, they were gone by 1981. I quite like this aircraft for some reason, so I may get just one, reasoning that a few might still have been in mothballs and pressed into service for the war emergency. Sounds plausible to me. The version available from O8 is the blunt-nosed fighter version, the Thunderstreak, like this West German one:

So I'd have to round the nose off with green putty. We'll see if I decide to get one. 

And lastly, in 1980, both the F-100's and F-104's began to be retired and replaced by the new F-16A's that Denmark started buying from the US:

These served as interceptors, ground strike aircraft, and in the reconnaissance role. In time, even the Drakens would be retired in their favor.

As you can see from the above photos, throughout the 1970's and up through 1983, all RDAF combat aircraft, save only the new F-16's in their three-tone grey scheme, were in overall gloss (except for the old Huns) olive drab green, for which, Humbrol 155 is an exact FS match. 

And here are my first Danish fixed wing aircraft; two Drakens:

Danish markings courtesy of  Dom's Decals. As usual, because the minis are suspended on a wire, it's difficult to get decent shots of the little devils.

Two F-100 D's should arrive in the mail on Monday and I have a pack of F-16's as part of the next order I'll be placing, so stand by for more!

The return of Mrs. History PhD

Over the last month or so, my wife has been painting a figure here and a figure there and she's finished two 3-man cells in 1/285 to go with her Viet Cong command stand (my post of July 20, 2014). Her short term goal is a VC infantry squad, which at full strength had 12 men (4 cells). However, like most armies, it was quite common to see only 3 cells to a squad (9 men) due to the attrition caused by death, wounds, illness, and temporary duty assignments elsewhere (called "TDY" when I was in the Army in the 80's).

So, here's what she has accomplished thus far:

I'm still flabbergasted that she does such a good job for a beginner! I particularly like the female grenade thrower and the prone guy with the RPK:

Although I have to say, GHQ has fallen down a bit there. In this role, it would have been more common to see an RPD:

But GHQ doesn't make a figure with one. 

The Mrs. says she'll do one more cell at least and possibly two to finish off her squad, so stand by for the whole squad soon. 

As an aside to the above photos, you can see my system of keeping track of what stand is part of what unit. This squad is part of blue platoon. The 3 dots in the blue square indicate that it's the third squad. White dots show the squad leader's cell/stand. Other cells get black dots. The actual squad leader figure always has a small tuft of elephant grass beside him (or occasionally "her"). Just helps with keeping everything organized on the table top during a game. 

The Mrs. says "See you all again soon!"

Bundesmarine F-104G Starfighters

I've been working on two West German Bundesmarine F-104G Starfighters:

for the last couple of days and I've finished them. Here they are all ready for the table:

Dom's Decals throughout. I was actually quite pleased with how the "Marine" decal turned out. As you can see, it's slightly over-scale, but not ridiculously so. After looking at a lot images of Bundesmarine Starfighters on Google, I see most had the black anti-glare panel on the nose, but quite a few didn't. I like the look of it, so mine do. I think these minis turned out pretty well. 

Now two more to do for the Luftwaffe!

Some recent 1/600 additions

Over the last several months, a number of new 1/600 scale models that are of interest to early 80's Cold War enthusiasts (they interest me anyway) have appeared on Shapeways, so I thought it would be timely to mention them.

Firstly, Dragoman's Depot on Shapeways has a West German DKW Munga:

Next, in addition to the East German Army's Trabant Kübel that I've already mentioned (my post of July 7, 2014), National Cheese Emporium on Shapeways has added four different versions of the M548: with and without canvas tarp and with and without 50cal. and mounting ring: 

And as variations on that theme, there are also West German Skorpion minelayers:

And US M139 Volcano minelayers:

There's also a West German Roland 2 SAM antiaircraft vehicle based on the Marder:

As well as the Green Archer counter-battery radar, used by West Germany, Denmark, The Netherlands, and Belgium, among others:

And after a chat with the designer, he has completed an East German IFA Sachsenring P3:

In addition, Kokoda Trail Models, also a Shapeways store, is offering a full Pershing II battery:

Although the Pershing II didn't enter service until 1983, the visual differences to the Pershing IA (the version in service in 1981) at this scale are negligible. The main issue for me is the IA usually had a tracked prime mover and the II had a wheeled one. 

So there we have it. Some very valuable additions to the models presently available in 3mm. More from me next time! 

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!

Beginning a Cold War reading list

I've decided to begin doing occasional posts on books to include in a well-stocked Cold War library. 

I recently received "The Soviet-East German Miltary Alliance" by Douglas A. Macgregor (Cambridge UP, 1989) in the mail. Although it is available electronically on GoogleBooks, I find that I still prefer an actual, physical book. 

If you have any interest in East Germany during the Cold War, I highly recommend this work to you. MacGregor explores the relationship between the Soviet Union and East Germany, from the emergence of the Communist German state in 1949 as a separate country to the state's end in 1990, as well as East Germany's transformation from merely a puppet state to the Soviet Union's militarily most reliable ally (the staunchest ideological ally throughout the Cold War was undoubtedly Bulgaria).

If you prefer a "hard copy" (a 21st Century phrase meaning "real book") as I do, they're easily found at a very good price. Mine is in excellent condition and it cost me $9.50 and that included postage! I encourage you to invest a couple of dollars. 

What's on your Cold War reading list?