Re: Spinners' Strike Fighters Thread

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Parani Aviation Company YG/1 'Goshawk' - 1st Training Air Regiment, Parani Army Air Force, 1939

In 1919 British geologists discovered oil reserves located in the Mazadran area straddling the River Kerman which for many centuries had been recognised as defining the border between the neighbouring Arab nations of Dhimar and Paran. The British government quickly negotiated permissions to drill on the Dhimari side of the Kerman Valley setting up the Anglo-Dhimari Oil Company and in 1921 drilling operations followed.

However, in January 1928 Shah Mushani of Paran sent his army across the border in an attempt to capture the Mazadran oil fields but this was repelled by Dhimari forces bolstered by UK forces drawn in from Persia. In particular, the RAF inflicted severe losses on Parani forces and were subsequently largely responsible for preventing any resurgence with 'air policing' tactics that saw the constant harassment of Parani forces and Parani settlers in the Kerman Valley. Over the next two years Dhimar becomes a wealthy and economically powerful country whilst Paran has become poor.

By the middle of 1930 Shah Mushani of Paran had stopped his attempts to capture the Mazadran oil fields and focused on re-building his domestic power base by the ruthless eradication of his political opponents after which he had absolute control of his political party and government. In early 1931 Mushani announced a five year plan to strengthen his armed forces by expansion allied to an ambitious domestic arms production programme including the creation of an indigenous aviation industry. In June 1931, Shah Mushani announced the creation of the Parani Aviation Company who were tasked with three aircraft projects of increasing complexity; a light-attack aircraft that could also serve as a trainer, a tactical bomber and a single-seat fighter aircraft. To kick start these projects, Mushani appoints Nikolai Yergin as the chief designer of the Parani Aviation Company giving Yergin licence to recruit several other Russian engineers including Vladimir Gudkov from the OKB-301 design bureau.

For the light attack aircraft Yergin and Gudkov schemed the YG/1 a two-seat, single-engined biplane with a tubular steel framework covered with fabric. This was a conservative design but probably the right choice for an embryonic aircraft company in 1932. The prototype YG/1 was completed by late 1933 but it's first flight was delayed due to problems with the Italian supplied Alfa Romeo D2 nine-cylinder radial engine. The first flight of the YG/1 took place on February 1st, 1934 with its designer Nikolai Yergin at the controls and after a series of successful trials production began later in 1934 and 36 aircraft were built over a period of nearly three years.

Entering service with the 1st Training Air Regiment of the Parani Army Air Force in September 1935 this versatile but pedestrian aircraft served as a trainer, close air support aircraft and army liaison aircraft with the last examples finally being removed from the Parani Army Air Force inventory in December 1949.




Whilst the original 'Strike Fighters' game is based on a fictional 'jet age' conflict between the middle-east states of Dhimar and Paran I just love using it for an earlier conflict covering WW2 and the very early post-war years. I give the Parani's a mix of mainly axis aircraft whilst the Dhimari's operate a wide variety of UK/US aircraft. However, for this fictional YG/1 aircraft I have used... well, you tell me!

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Parani Aircraft Company YG/2 - 1st Bomber Regiment, Parani Army Air Force, 1939







For the second indigenous Parani aircraft design (mentioned in my backstory for the YG/1) I've chosen the Italian Caproni Ca.135 twin-engine bomber to masquerade as the YG/2 because it's pedestrian enough and really not well known. The wiki page is quite a good read and who knew that Belgium obtained a production license?

Oh, yes. The YG/1. It's the VL Tuisku! Very obscure.

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Parani Aviation Company YG/3 'Storm' - 2nd Fighter Regiment, Parani Army Air Force, 1941








My final aircraft in the Parani indigenous aircraft trilogy is the YG/3 fighter and this uses my 'go to' prop fighter - the Finnish VL Myrsky II. Back in 2014 a 3D modeller called 'Veltro2K' made the VL Myrsky for me and I made the Ilmavoimat skin from scratch and from my templates I've previously made fictional Spanish, Chinese and Polish fighter aircraft (and possibly an RAF fighter too, I can't remember). I chose a sand colour and added a 50% opacity black camo pattern to give a sand and chocolate uppersurface camo with Parani insignia and red/white/black bands on the rudder.

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Grumman F6F-5 Hellcat - 3e Escuadrille Aeronaval de Atague, Comando de la Aviacion Naval Argentina, 1954







The Hellcat 3D model hosted at the DAT site is an absolute cracker and I've managed to neatly overpaint the US insignia on the stock blue skin to give a blank canvas. I've chosen to make an Argentine Navy Hellcat as I like the colourful rudder markings and there are good references available to their contemporary Corsairs. I had to make a few decals and the numbers on the cowl were an absolute pain to make for some reason. I quite like this!

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Curtiss-Wright CW-21B Demon - 3rd Squadron, American Volunteer Group, 1941




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Not the best-looking fighter but reading up on Curtiss-Wright Demon reveals that it did actually serve with the American Volunteer Group albeit just three of the early Model 21's and they didn't last long. This is the superior Model 21B with a revised inward retracting main landing gear.  This 3D model is hosted at the DAT site and comes with Dutch NEI markings that I've neatly overpainted and then I've added AVG markings including a sharkmouth that is possibly a bit too big.

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Armstrong Whitworth Elswick Mk.II - No.74 Squadron, RAF Fighter Command, 1937







A very recent release from the DAT boys (and yet another rare bird) this is the Yugoslavian Ikarus IK-2 monoplane fighter masquerading as the Armstrong Whitworth Elswick Mk.II in colourful pre-war RAF markings. My inspiration was the No.74 Squadron Gloster Gauntlet on the front cover of 'On Silver Wings' by Alec Lumsden and Owen Thetford. Initially, this started well with a quick silver skin derived from the speculative map with the parts added back in and a few layers created by me for the black fin and yellow spinner. I had planned to use my preferred method of using decals for all markings but the 3D model has a few tears in it which cause decals to bleed out into other areas so I switched to painting them directly onto the skin which seemed to work. But I just couldn't get the tiger pattern onto the upper fuselage between the wings so had to resort to a decal to bridge the gap between the wings but this decal also bled out on the port fuselage so I've angled my screenshots so that this doesn't show. After that, I just used a few K80** serial number decals on the fin and under the wings (I'd previously made these for something else and they are quite contemporary).

The IK-2 would also make a good 'Pearl Habour' defender or perhaps a Japanese attacker!

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Dornier Do 22P - 4th Attack Regiment, Parani Army Air Force, 1939

Dornier's Do C3 was a three-seat, single-engined, parasol wing monoplane floatplane that first flew in 1935. With little or no interest from the Luftwaffe, Dornier looked for export customers with small numbers of the floatplane version eventually being sold to Yugoslavia, Greece and Latvia. In March 1938, the Republic of Paran expressed interest in the proposed Do 22L landplane version and Dornier offered a new export version to Paran designated as the Do 22P. Powered by a Hispano-Suiza 12Ybrs engine driving a three-bladed propeller the Do 22P could carry up bombs under the fuselage and had a defensive armament of one fixed forward-firing machine gun plus two in the rear cockpit and one in a ventral tunnel. Paran ordered 12 Do 22P's and, with no requirement for a prototype, production at Dornier's factory at Friedrichshafen began in November 1938.

Entering service with the 4th Attack Regiment (The Jerboa's) of the Parani Army Air Force in the Spring of 1939 the Do 22P's were docile to fly and easy to maintain. By the end of September 1939 the 4th Attack Regiment were fully equipped and Shah Mushani of Paran was keen to use the Do 22P's against Dhimar. With the outbreak of World War Two Dhimar had seen the RAF leave the region and, with Dhimar's defences down, Shah Mushani wanted revenge for the attacks on Parani settlers in the Kerman Valley. On October 1st, 1939 Shah Mushani launched an attack on the Dhimari oilfields at Al'Haramlek and Najahaf and also an attack on the port of Al'Duhok. The 4th Attack Regiment were tasked with the strike on the two oilfields and dispatched two flights of four Do 22P's achieving total surprise and destroying both objectives.







Wow! The Do 22 is so ugly it must be a Blackburn product!

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Fairey Fulcrum Mk.I - No.15 Squadron, RAF Bomber Command, 1938

During 1931, the British Air Ministry released Specification G.4/31 calling for a general purpose aircraft capable of carrying out level bombing, army co-operation, dive bombing, reconnaissance, casualty evacuation and torpedo bombing. Fairey's proposal was the Fairey G.4/31, a single-engine, two-seat biplane but this was rejected by the Air Ministry and the requirement was eventually met by the Vickers Wellesley. But even as work proceeded on the construction of the Fairey G.4/31 prototype, the Fairey design office had already started work on Operational Requirements for a light-bomber to Specification P.27/32 and also for a naval torpedo-bomber to Specification P.2/33. Marcel Lobelle, Fairey Aviation's chief designer, led the design team responsible for the light-bomber (a project that would eventually lead to the Fairy Battle) whilst John Walvis led the design team working on the naval torpedo-bomber.

With the Air Ministry strongly favouring a radial engine for the naval torpedo-bomber, Walvis set about designing the Fairey P.2/33 as an all metal, single-engine monoplane powered by the promising Bristol Pegasus XX nine-cylinder, single-row, air-cooled radial aero engine with a planned rating of 925 hp. During the design phase Walvis was able to incorporate aerodynamic innovations such as wing fillets, a fully enclosed cockpit and a fixed landing gear covered in streamlined spats. By mid-1934, Air Ministry officials could see such a high demand for the Rolls-Royce PV-12 (Merlin) engine that a decision was taken to prioritise production of the PV-12 for the planned interceptor/fighter aircraft (most notably F.36/34 & F.37/34) and the Fairey Battle. However, the Air Ministry were so impressed with Fairey's P.2/33 radial-engined design that they asked Fairey to submit it to a new Specification P.41/34 for a general purpose attack bomber for the RAF and authorised the production of three P.41/34 prototypes.

Renamed as the Fairey Fulcrum, development moved swiftly and on December 8th 1935 the first Fulcrum prototype (K4404) equipped with an early Bristol Pegasus IV rated at 680 hp made its maiden flight at Hayes in Middlesex before being transferred to RAF Martlesham Heath for service trials. The second and third prototypes were both powered by Bristol Pegasus VI engines rated at 750 hp and completed an accelerated programme of service trials during the Spring of 1936 leading to a production order of 145 Fulcrum Mk.I aircraft. Entering service with No.15 Squadron in March 1937 the Fulcrum Mk.I eventually served with seven RAF Squadrons and whilst largely obsolete by the start of the Second World War it remained in front-line service. However, it was not deployed to France as part of the British RAF Advanced Air Striking Force but served at home with No. 1 Group in operations against German shipping massed in the Channel ports for Operation Sealion. Their last combat sorties included raids on Boulogne and Calais in late 1940 but by early 1941 the remaining Fulcrums were transferred to Northern Ireland for coastal patrol work.







I've always loved the relatively short-lived NIVO Green schemes seen on the Fairey Hendon and also on the Handley-Page Heyford pre-war RAF bombers. In plastic model form, my Fairey Battle and Armstrong Whitworth Whitley all had this scheme but that was probably because all I had as a cash-strapped teenager in the 1970's was an 'M3' tinlet to choose from! Anyway, this is the Northrop Gamma 2E - another rare bird from the DAT stable and it comes with painted-on Chinese markings which I've managed to either overpaint or simply decal over.

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Fairey Fulcrum Mk.I - No.600 (City of London) Squadron, Royal Auxilliary Air Force, 1938





I've got a bit of a pre-war thing going on at the moment so I thought I'd dress up the 'Fulcrum' (lol) with more colourful markings. I wanted to use rudder stripes which meant knocking up a couple of white outlined serial numbers and added a red and white engine cowling. On the first picture if you look at the 'red box' code letters on the spats you can see a bit of compression going on. Sweet!

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Boulton Paul Defender Mk.I - No.303 Squadron, RAF Fighter Command, 1940

The Boulton Paul P.83 was designed to Air Ministry Specification F.40/34 for a single-seat monplane fighter of wooden construction that could be built rapidly and in large numbers. As part of the Air Ministry policy of diverting production of the Rolls-Royce Merlin engine to priority projects such as the Hawker Hurricane and Supermarine Spitfire the Air Ministry had specified that all F.40/34 submissions must use the Napier Falcon (a licence-built Hispano-Suiza 12Y-45) with a planned rating of 920 hp. The P.83 was a conventional low-wing monoplane but of wooden construction with plywood skinning over stringers in a semi-monocoque construction.

In the Spring of 1936, Boulton Paul commenced assembly on the first P.83 prototype at their new Wolverhampton facility and made quick progress. With their contemporary turret-fighter being named Defiant, Boulton Paul requested the name Defender for their new fighter and this was agreed with the Air Ministry. Making it's maiden flight on April 4th, 1937 (piloted by Boulton Paul's chief test pilot Cecil Feather) the Defender demonstrated good handling and an impressive rate of climb. Service pilots reported that the Defender could climb faster than both the Spitfire and Hurricane but that its top speed was somewhere inbetween the two. In June 1937 the Air Ministry placed an order for 240 aircraft and whilst official acceptance trials did not commence until July 1938 the first Defender Squadrons were formed in early 1939.

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Parani Aviation Company YG/X 'Condor' - 8th Fighter Regiment, Parani Army Air Force, 1945






Another re-purposing of the Italian SAI Ambrosini SS.4 - a 3D model built by Veltro2K at my suggestion back in 2015 and probably my best skin made from scratch.

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It's not pretty but the MiG-3 is rather rakish!

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Brewster Aeronautical Corporation B-339 'Buffalo' - 1st Aviation Regiment, Estonian Air Force, 1940

In July 1938 a group of Estonian Air Force officers arrived at the Supermarine works for a technical presentation on the Spitfire Type 300 and, on a later visit, to watch a series of demonstration flights of the Spitfire flown by Supermarine's chief test pilot Mutt Summers. The Estonians left suitably impressed and made an advance payment for 12 Spitfires to Order No. C.186/39. This order was approved by the Air Ministry and a contract between the two governments was finalised on March 2nd, 1939. However, by then the Estonian order had already been made as a third priority on the Foreign Office's list and with war clouds looming Estonia looked elsewhere for a modern fighter aircraft but whilst also keeping the Spitfire order intact.

Wasting no time, in April 1939 Estonian Air Force officers made the long journey to the Brewster Aeronautical Corporation's main production facilities at the Brewster Building in Long Island, New York to look at the B-339 Buffalo (essentially a de-navalized export version of the F2A-1). With guarantees of prompt delivery the Estonian government ordered 16 aircraft in May 1939. The first eight B-339's arrived in Estonia during the early Spring of 1940 and equipped the 1st Aviation Regiment based at Otepää in southern Estonia but could do little to defend the country at the outset of the Soviet invasion on June 16th, 1940 and all Estonian forces were ordered to stand-down on the following day. The remaining eight B-339's for Estonia were still in the U.S. and were eventually delivered to the Nationalist Chinese Air Force for use by the American Volunteer Group.







"Tubby or not tubby - that is the question"

My decision to give the stumpy Buffalo to Estonia is purely because the original skin has NEI markings so I wanted something to cover the orangle triangles! A couple of things: my backstory has been used before on my Estonian P-40B and I don't have any WW2 Soviet aircraft in my install so a German Do-17Z stood in as the enemy bomber.

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Taking a break! Hoping to be back in April.

[ericr]