Finished Builds: Models

[Spey_Phantom]

if you have finished models, post them here  

[Spey_Phantom]

my Netherlands East-Indies DH.100 Vampire 

http://www.whatifmodelers.com/index.php/topic,31411.0.html

[thedarkmaster]

My ME262 of the Indian National Army





http://www.whatifmodelers.com/index.php/topic,31660.msg487159/topicseen.html#new

[rickshaw]

Gloster Sea Meteor F.1, embarked HMS ILLUSTRIOUS, Operation OLYMPIC, invasion of Kyushu, Japan, 1946.











Apologies for the poor quality pictures.  I'll see if I can improve them.

[Tuck]

RAF Gloster Ghoul Mk II





Rest of build here:

http://www.whatifmodelers.com/index.php/topic,31373.0.html

[Tuck]

Me 909

All finished!  I know, it would have FOD issues with that intake, but I still like it!







Rest of build here:

http://www.whatifmodelers.com/index.php/topic,31432.0.html

[tc2324]

Junker Ju 510 Bomber Destroyer    -     http://www.whatifmodelers.com/index.php/topic,31719.0.html

The First Washington Conference, also known as the Arcadia Conference, (ARCADIA was the code name used for the conference), was held in Washington, D.C. from December 22, 1941 to January 14, 1942. It was the first meeting on military strategy between the heads of government of the United Kingdom and the United States following the United States' entry into World War II. The major factor to emerge from this conference was the `Japan First` policy. With Japan controlling a vast area within the Pacific and expanding, it was decided that the Japanese forces needed to be pushed back to their home islands and at the very least, contained until a `special weapon` was ready for use. (It is thought that this reference is the first time that, what is now known as the Atomic Bomb, was mentioned to the British PM). With this policy in mind, a holding action would take place in the European conflict with an invasion date set sometime in the summer of 1945.



Operation Overlord, (the codename used for the invasion of occupied Europe), took place on June 5th 1945. By September 1945, the Pacific war was over after the two Atomic bombs had been dropped. All allied resources could now be focused on Nazi Germany. The use of the A-Bomb in Europe had been proposed, but then vetoed by the British and French as the full horror of the weapon was revealed via intelligence reports. (It is not known if Hitler would have shown such restraint if he had had possession of such a weapon).



Germany had not been idle however over the last 3 years and a number of jet fighter aircraft had started to appear above the skies of Europe. With the arrival of the new B-29 Superfortresses within the US 8th and 9th Air Force inventories it became even more important for Germany to repel the daily raids.



One such aircraft type was produced by the Junkers aircraft company with the designation Ju 510. Often nicknamed the `Buckel` after the humpbacked look of the aircraft due to it`s main fuel tank, this aircraft was designed to be a stand off bomber destroyer using speed as it`s main defensive weapon. Test flown as early as May 1945, by March 1946 the aircraft was in use with 6 fighter units.



The aircraft used an upgraded version of the HWK 109-509 liquid-fuel bi-propellant rocket engine that powered the Messerschmitt Me 163 and Bachem Ba 349 aircraft. However with a larger fuel tank the Ju 510 had more time to stay on station while awaiting the incoming bomber formations. It was also fitted with four machine guns for defence, however the Ju 510 did not have the typical fighter characteristics and many of these were removed by ground crews once a new aircraft reached them. The Ju 510`s main weapons were 8 five inch rockets with a range of two miles. The tactic favoured by the aircrews was to position themselves ahead of the bomber streams and then commence head on attacks. Once they were at a point in space where the range of the rockets would meet the bombers, they would ripple fire the rockets off and then make their escape. The rockets were also fitted with fuses so that they would detonate once they were at the end of their range. A direct hit by a rocket was enough to bring a bomber down, but it this was not achieved, then shrapnel from the warheads might get a lucky strike.



With many German controlled airfields under constant attack, Junkers had gone in a non conventional direction when launching the aircraft. Firstly the aircraft was placed on a launch dolly which could be towed behind any ground vehicle to any place with a long enough `runway`. This could include fields or a piece of road. The dolley was fitted with large wheels for all surfaces. They also had hard points for two rocket boosters and a parachute capsule. The standard launch procedure involved firing the boosters and aircraft rocket at the same time. Once the aircraft had passed the 500 ft mark the booster rockets had expended their fuel, one second later the dolley would detach from the Ju 510 and two seconds after that the parachute would deploy and bring the whole dolley down to be recovered and reused. After the mission the Ju 510 would land at any chosen location, usually a field of some kind, on it skid which was fitted to it`s underside.



406 Ju 510`s were built before the war in Europe came to an end in April 1947 and it is credited with 38 confirmed kills with another 65 probables. (It is hard to confirm exact numbers as flak bursts and rocket explosions were very similar is size).

[Bungle]

Here's the McDonnell F2-K Martlet VII in Seac  colours. First picture is the inspiration, the rest my Martlet VII.

Build thread (what there is) is here http://www.whatifmodelers.com/index.php/topic,31646.0.html

[manytanks]

http://www.whatifmodelers.com/index.php/topic,31696.0.html
Here is my finished Sd,Kfz,162 Jagdpanzer IV L 49 1946.  1:72 scale

[frank2056]

Build and back story:

http://www.whatifmodelers.com/index.php/topic,31677.0.html

Hispano Aviacion HA-207

[buzzbomb]

Turboprop Mosquito PR XXXIV







http://www.whatifmodelers.com/index.php/topic,31454.0.html

[NARSES2]

Here's my Spitfire PP XIX and Ki-115 from Hunter and Hunted

http://www.whatifmodelers.com/index.php/topic,32119.0.html

[Bungle]

Supermarine Narwhal


The Supermarine Narwhal was a British developed long-range maritime patrol aircraft for use by the Royal Air Force. It was developed by Supermarine from the American Boeing B-377 Stratocruiser, itself a development of the B-29 bomber. It was originally to be used primarily in the anti-submarine warfare (ASW) and maritime patrol aircraft (MPA) roles, and was later adapted for airborne early warning (AEW), search and rescue (SAR) and other roles from 1947 until 1960.

When the Narwhal was being designed the "Battle of the Atlantic" was still being fought and all possible submarine targets (German U-boats) were diesel-electric powered types and had very limited underwater endurance, the time underwater being limited by both the air available for the crew to breathe, and the battery power remaining to drive the submarine's underwater electric motors. While submerged it was incapable of travelling any great distance away from where it was detected. Then any aircraft could call up friendly Convoy Escort surface ships who would then deal with a submerged target in the normal way, with depth charges aimed using their own ASDIC sets. Hence for the Narwhal endurance in terms of the length of time it could spend in the air - as opposed to all-out range - was of prime importance. Once a submarine had been detected it might be necessary for the aircraft to remain over the last sighted position of the submarine all day (or night), preventing it from surfacing and making away at its higher surface speed. All the time the submarine was prevented from surfacing the crew's breathable air was being exhausted, and the batteries were consuming power, eventually the submarine would be forced to come up for air. It could then be attacked by the aircraft itself, again, this time using its own air-dropped depth charges or torpedos.

The Supermarine conversion under licence design was ordered to Air Ministry specification R.5/46 as a replacement for the long range Liberator. It narrowly beat the proposed Bristol Beausprit to be put into production.

The first test flight of the prototype Narwhal, was on 9 March 1947, a month before the invasion of Europe by the allied troops postponed from 1945. In the ASW role, the Narwhal carried both types of sonobuoy, Electronic warfare support measures, an Autolycus diesel fume detection system and a magnetic anomaly detector (MAD) system. Weapons were five bombs, or twelve torpedoes and seven barrel depth-charges, The Narwhal was also armed with two 40mm cannon in the front turret and two 20 mm cannon in two dorsal turrets.

During the invasion of France the Narwhal served as a defensive shield to allied shipping patrolling the length of the Channel, keeping the U-boat threat at bay.









Build thread here  http://www.whatifmodelers.com/index.php/topic,31407.0.html

[sequoiaranger]

"Egged on" by others, I arranged to have some vital components shipped to me so I could participate in this GB with an entry based on an He-162 drawing I re-configured thusly:



That then morphed into a more "final" form:



The result was a fun realization in plastic! The build thread, with lots of additional pictures, is at:

http://www.whatifmodelers.com/index.php/topic,31972.0.html

The backstory is below this latest image:



The war was going badly for the Germans. The Russian colossus was closing in from the East, and the British and American forces were storming in from the West. Though "wonder weapons" were being developed, and were promised to reverse the shrinking of the Reich if only they could be perfected and deployed, the skies over Germany became increasingly dominated by Allied aircraft. The training and technological edge that Germany had enjoyed at the outset of the war had been blunted and tattered by Allied developments, but the jet-propelled fighter had proven to be a quantum leap over piston-engined aircraft and had the promise to restore German air superiority.

A jet fighter with all its workings running smoothly was breathtaking to fly (Galland himself said it was like "the angels were pushing") and nearly un-interceptible with a speed advantage of some 100 mph over the best of Allied piston-engined fighters. The jets were notoriously tricky to fly, however, and their engines finicky and balky. They were most vulnerable to being shot down as they slowed down to their landing approach, or when one of their two engines (twin-engined Me-262 or Arado Ar-234) flamed out. Hordes of new jet fighters were needed to reverse the loss of ascendency in the skies over Germany.

In the Summer of 1944 the RLM proposed a "People's Fighter" project that, like the Volkswagen automobile, could be made cheaply and simply, could be made available in massive numbers, and be flown by semi-skilled pilots.  The fighter was to be small, powered by a single turbojet engine, be constructed using a minimum amount of strategic materials and unskilled labor, have a short take-off run, and have a speed of no less than 466 mph. This "Volksjaeger" needed to be in the air in 90 days.

In a surprise reversal of edict, stemming from dissatisfaction with aircraft manufacturers' perceived shortcomings, Hitler now stepped in and decreed that Messerschmitt would make only bombers, and that Heinkel would now make fighters for the 3rd Reich. Heinkel rose to the challenge with a largely wooden version of its P 1073 project featuring a slim fuselage, short wing, an engine mounted on top of the fuselage, and a v-shaped twin tail with endplates. The Heinkel He-162 "Salamander" was the result.

The diminutive jet fighter would probably be hard for inexperienced pilots to fly, and the Reich could not afford losses due to accidents, so Heinkel created a similar two-seater trainer aircraft using many He-162 components, but it was larger and powered by a pusher turboprop with contra-rotating propellers. Called the He-1062, it was much easier to fly, had room for a second crewmember (the "A" model), and retained many of the characteristics of the He-162. As it turned out, the diminutive He-162 was terribly unstable, and rarely reached the speeds expected of it. The He-1062 was more reliable in practice and actually faster than the hamstrung He-162, and became the aircraft of choice as the Volksjaeger.

The larger wing and twin-boomed configuration of the He-1062 meant that armament could be carried in the wing, leaving the fuselage for the increased fuel needs of the thirsty jet. For the single-seat "B" model, two 37mm Flak 18 cannon were installed in the booms, and two Rüstätze MG-151 20mm cannon pods were added under the wing. The twin tails and tall fuselage from which the nose seemed to protrude earned the nickname "Gabelschwanz Schnecke" (fork-tailed snail), but the craft earned pilots' respect with its docile handling and good turn of speed. The He-162 needed a long runway to get airborne (in contradiction to specifications), but the now-named "Molch" (Newt) used innovative vectored exhaust thrusters to add lift at low speeds. A fast climb rate and heavy armament allowed the Newt to be an effective bomber interceptor that could outrun Allied fighters.

As the war worsened, an Alpine Redoubt was established in the mountainous areas of Southern Germany to continue the war when Allied advances seemed to indicate the collapse of the Reich. From the Redoubt, wonder weapons would appear that would drive the Allies back and allow the survivors of the Redoubt to reclaim Germany.

Various nationalities aligned with the Reich were invited to join them, and their aircraft were allowed to sport the national markings consistent with German protocol. Ustashi Croatians that had fought alongside Germans were promised a new Nazi empire along the Adriatic coast when the Allies were vanquished, and a few fanatics conjured up an administrative unit called the "NEKRO", the Nazi Enklave [of] Kroatien and planned how they were going to re-establish a post-war Croatia once the Soviets were driven out.

Drazen Gingrovic, a noted Croatian herpetologist before joining the Luftwaffe, painted his #4 aircraft much like his favorite research subject, Triturus Alpestris , or the Alpine Newt (you can imagine his nickname!)  A highlight of "NEKRO 4"s career (the subject of my model) was to meet and escort Hitler's "Mein Flucht" aircraft, rail-launched out of a surrounded Berlin and flown by Hanna Reitsch, into the Redoubt. It shot down two Mustangs on that perilous mission, outrunning several others in the process. Hitler himself gratefully applied the two kill markings to the tail of "NEKRO 4" and conferred the Iron Cross on the spot to Drazen. When it flew on its next interception, damage inflicted by the guns of an Allied Lockheed P-80 fighter had the plane ditch in the Bodensee, a large lake near their Bavarian base at Lindenberg. The plane sank to the bottom, and modern "wreck-divers" are advised to check out "the largest Triturus Alpestris on record" lying half-submerged in the mud."

The subject aircraft is a Heinkel He-1062 B (single-seat interceptor version). The indigenous Alpine Newt inspired the camouflage of a blue-green-gray (RLM 84 of sorts) overpainted with Schwartzgrun 70 blotches and spots. Sides are mottled with a Braun/Weiss combination, and thin, brown RLM 26 stripes with yellow dots top the aircraft's ridges. Like the Alpine Newt, the undersides are red-orange, in keeping with the "don't shoot" coloration of the Platzschutzstaffeln that fought off marauding Allied aircraft when the jet fighters came in to land. The distinctive twin-boom configuration of the He-1062, resembling the Allied P-38, necessitated the "Papagei" (Parrot) undersides of bright red-orange and white striping to aid ground gunners in identification. The Ustashi tail emblem has a superimposed swastika, a replica of the proposed Croatian flag post-war. The leaf-like Croatian version of the Balkenkruze is used, and the Totenkopf (Death's Head) motif was decided upon for the "NEKRO" squadron badge. The Werke number is two different sizes, in the style of the time, and the tail is decorated with Hitler's honorific to the pilot.

About the model:  The ancient 1/72 Lindberg He-162 (two of them, actually) provided the stretched forward fuselage, outer wings, tailplanes, and landing struts. A Lindberg Arado Ar-234 provided the jet engine nacelle, though I turned the forward part 180 degrees. A Heller Saab J-21 provided the inner wings, twin booms, cockpit interior, and nose and main wheels. An Airfix B-25 lent its "boat-tail" nacelle end, and two different A6M "Zero" kits donated their propellers (the old 1960's Revell Zero kit had an opposite-rotating propeller, for some reason). Squadron provided the aftermarket canopy. Lots of cutting, plastic sheet, and puttying later, and with a complex dual-shaft propeller engineering setup, I had my "Newt".

[comrade harps]

The candy-coloured air force trilogy, Operation Downfall, 1946:




Features a Mustang IV:
http://www.whatifmodelers.com/index.php/topic,31495.msg484509.html#msg484509


A Tempest II:
http://www.whatifmodelers.com/index.php/topic,31495.msg494969.html#msg494969


And a P-47D-41:
http://www.whatifmodelers.com/index.php/topic,31495.msg500565.html#msg500565


Enjoy.