An Issue with Clear Flat.

While waiting for various coats and layers to set on my Grenadier, I attempted to be keen and apply a layer of Clear Flat to the whole of the base in order to begin sealing in the pigments and pastels. What I did not realize was that in order for clear flat to properly set it should first be thoroughly shaken and mixed and second be applied with a spray gun. The end result of my mishap was that the base has now taken on a semigloss finish! I will bring the subject to Allan and his spray spray gun as soon as possible to see if another application of flat can right what was wronged. HiCal, James.

Kharkov Warrior details

With all of the fatigues and base coats complete, I moved on to the various details such as metallic surfaces, equipment and flesh. The green for the grenade head, helmet and mess tin was all identically progressed by mixing Catachan Green and Gunship green with a dot of Administratum grey. This was then progressed by adding more of the grey and a bit of bleached bone.

I made the choice to avoid excess wear and tear on the kit such as paint chips because I generally assume that if a Grenadier has a ratty mess tin or a helmet that has shinny metal showing through he will simply discard and replace it from fallen comrades or through logistical aid. I made use of a few sources from Osprey Publishing for the gear and weapons; three volumes of the fantastic Men-At-Arms series numbered 336 (The German Army 1939-45(5) Western Front 1939-45), 415 (The Waffen-SS (3) 11. to 23. Divisions) and 420 (The Waffen-SS (4) 24. to 38. Divisions, & Volunteer Legions). The last book has a particularly interesting figure on plate "F" who is a French volunteer wearing a later version of the same fur lined non-reversible smock as my Grenadier. The interesting part is that while the smock is a similar pattern it is in fact a later version with buttons that go all the way down the front of the coat. These small details make owning a few choice Osprey books really worth while for their unrivaled detail. Hical, James.

A note on the Operational Training Unit

As noted in the last installment, Kittyhawk 877 was with the Fighter Affiliation Flight of 5 Operational Training Unit. 5 OTU was established on April 1, 1944 at RCAF Boundary Bay, British Columbia, which is situated just south of Vancouver. The airfield had been previously occupied by 33 Elementary Flight Training School which was disbanded and 132 Squadron flying Kittyhawks, which moved to Pat Bay. British Columbia, The OTU was tasked with training Canadian and British B 24 Liberator crews for the SEAC Liberator squadrons. The initial strength was 40 B25D Mitchells for introductory training, 3 Bolingbrokes for target towing and 17 Liberator BVI’s. The Liberator B VI was the equivelent to the B 24J. The unit soon outgrew the facilities at Boundary Bay and was divided between two airfields. While the Mitchells, Kittyhawks, Bolingbrokes and a flight of Liberators used for gunnery training remained at Boundary Bay, the majority of the B24’s moved to RCAF Abbotsford, British Columbia. Abbotsford is located 50 km east of Boundary Bay and had been the home of 24 Elementary Flight School, which was moved to Saskatchewan. 5 OTU moved to Abbotsford on August 15, 1944 and the transfer of ground crew included LAC Walter Gates. The OTU continued to grow and in 1945 it was operating 43 Mitchells, 38 Liberators, of which 24 were in Abbotsford, and 12 Kittyhawks. Of note is that all 59 Liberator BVI’s delivered to the RCAF would serve with 5 OTU. With the end of the war in Europe, 5 OTU was to become a Lancaster training unit to supply crews for the planned invasion of Japan. The first aircraft arrived in Abbotsford from Europe on July29, 1945. The final Liberator course, course 29 was made up of the instructors who were veterans who had completed their tours of duty as well as Liberator ground crew from 5 OTU. Walter Gates was trained as a flight engineer. Although the nuclear option ended the war with Japan, the final course was completed on August 20, 1945. Following this, 5 OTU was disbanded and Abbotsford became a storage site for the Liberators until their disposal.

Kharkov Warrior Part II

The stages I take when approaching this point in a build are to plan out how to marry the weathering of the boots, gear etc. with the base. For this Kharkov base I began by using a greasy looking mix of Tau Light Ochre, Machinarium Standard Grey and Burnt Umber. This was built upon with various levels of intentional randomness and deliberate blanket drybrushing. The successive mixes included; for the drybrushed blankets, an increase in Ochre with a decrease in burnt umber and an addition of Light grey from citadel and Iraqi Sand from Vallejo. The intentional random streaks and spots were added using various amounts of burnt umber, greys and browns in no apparent order except that they all related to the base coat in some way thus keeping the look subtle and harmonious. The bricks were base coated with a mix of Light Ochre and a deep red from Citadel. They were given a light highlight with the addition of light grey. Once all of this had set I applied a thinned brown ink to the areas around the details such as bricks, pits and wood. The final and most enjoyable part was the application of pastels. I used various independent tones from Mig, CMK and Warpig and began by dusting pu the bricks and applying detailed stroked to the wooded sections so that they could have some independence from the muck. These first strokes consisted of browns while the next phase used a dark burned looking brown to add some more depth to the shadows and pits. The final and smallest application was a dust colour added to the bricks and some of the barren patches to give them some character. Hical, James.

KittyHawk Build Part II

There has been a change of plans. The next series of articles were to center on the 1/32 Fw 190 A5 modified to a Fw190 A5/U11 using Eagle Parts conversion. An aftermarket interior was completed but was significantly too small and the project has taken a temporary trip to the shelf of doom pending conversion of a new fuselage using the excellent Eagle Parts interior. Stay tuned. Instead, this will be the first of a series related to units in Western Canada in I944 to 1945. The connection is LAC Walter Gates who was transferred from Ferry Command to 5 OTU at Boundary Bay, British Columbia in 1944. The history of this unit will follow but as a starting point, two LAC’s including LAC Walter Gates were assigned the task of scraping paint off the Kittyhawks which had arrived from Patricia Bay, British Columbia to form the Fighter Affiliation Flight. One of these aircraft was P40N, serial 867, code PN. I have not been able to determined its squadron code while with 132 Sqn. However, “AviaDossier 1” by Carl Vincent does give a side view of 877, code PV with 5 OTU and I suspect these two LAC’s were also responsible for it’s paint loss. The kit will be a 1/48 Hasagawa P40N and depict 877 in camouflage with 132 Squadron and coded black “T”. First pictures show the initial wing work with CMK wheel wells. Progress will be shown with the upcoming articles. As a point of interest, Walter Gates served 31 years in the RCAF and retired a Warrant Officer. Although he has passed away, the P40N, serial 867 still exists 68 years after he applied scraper to metal. P40 N-5CU, serial 867 is C/N 29629, USAAF serial 42-10567 which is under restoration by the Commemorative Air Force in Texas. P40 N serial 877 may also still exist on the US register as N1009N. Hical,Allan.

Kharkov Warrior 1/16th

This figure by S&T is easily on of my favorite in the scale but is unfortunately out of production. With that in mind they should be considered as real a real prize for any collector. I began with the solid coats of Humbrol flat black enamel over the entire figure. Most of the figure is clean and free of air bubbles but for the few that do appear, I simply filled them with small drops of body fill and scraped them clean once they had dried. A good tip when sanding down any body filler is to have the surface already enameled so that when you go to remove the excess filler with sand paper you can see where the surface becomes even by how the enamel is cleared away. The trousers were the first area to be given an undercoat and I did so using a mix of Vallejo Gunship green and a Citadel dark grey. I then left this area alone and moved to the great coat, I do not have any clear references in colour of the exact coat that this figure is wearing so I went by eye and used the box art as a guide. The base colour of the coat was a mix of Vallejo Iraqi sand and Citadel dark grey at a ratio of 3:1. The successive layers were achieved by adding more of the sand, less of the dark grey and including in progressively increasing amounts a Citadel light grey for the highlights. Once these highlights had reached a sufficient but not final stage I applied a thinned down Citadel black ink wash to all gear and recessed areas in preparation for the detail and final highlights. The gear and buttons were then undercoated with Citadel Chaos black. Once this was finished I moved on to the trousers which were to be highlighted with the base colours plus the same light grey used on the coat. This continuation of mixed colours is a good way to make the figure look unified in his universe instead of having had his coat weathered in a different time zone from his trousers. I then applied to the lower portion of his trousers a similar mix as the highlight but with Burnt Umber and progressively through the stages some Iraqi sand as well. This physical weathering through painting will help provide a grounded base for the subsequent pastels and washes that will provide the main weathering later on. Hical, James.

Alpine Sniper Part III

The minimized MARPAT was covered by a solid few layers of pastels from CMK, WarPig and MIG pigments; all of which were sandy in tone. I applied them liberally in the usual weathering areas such as pant legs, knees, sections of the plate carrier that would become grimy when set down in country. The boots and knee pads were painted in a unique pair of colours under coated to have a slight Vermin brown twinge to them, the highlights were applied using a medium grey and Iraqi Sand. The divergence between the two pieces of gear came when the boots reached their appropriate shade, the highlights continued past that for the guards. I have seen various kinds of pads worn by army and marine units in various theatres over the past decade. I considered using the outdated “woodland” backing with a dark grey plate. This was out of character considering I wanted this particular Marine to be operating in Operation Moshtarak or around that time period; a simpler coyote/khaki brown pad and accompanying plate. This seemingly superfluous decision went hand in hand with the decision to keep the Interceptor Plate Carrier a similar brown and his various privately purchased MOLLE fittings a gunship green in order to provide solid, Marine-like uniformity and a bit of contemporary contrast. The Barrett .50cal was given a tiger stripe pattern in order to illustrate spray painted Duracoat done in country. I looked through various sources and noted the different Marine Designated Marksman Rifles in arid camo. There were a few different styles, whole coating, whole coating with small squiggles in dark brown and the slightly more characterful tiger pattern. I thought that the tiger pattern would be a good choice as it would keep the rather large weapon from looking like a rotting piece of wood rather than a solid piece of steel. The pattern would I assumed be enough to obscure the length of the barrel and the general shape of the shooter/weapon at a distance. The flesh was a simple layering exercise. That being said I wanted to have the shooter sporting a 5am shadow. This was achieved by applying small vertical ticks to the concerned area with a thinned WarPigs faded Panzer grey. This leave his face looking sooty and once the pastels set I applied a thinned wash of darker flesh tone. Hical, James

KittyHawk build

Pictured is the 1/48 Hasagawa P40 E painted to represent an RCAF Kittyhawk. Suffice to say, the kit is accurate and a pleasure to build. The only aftermarket additions were the wheel wells by CMK and the wheels, seat and exhausts by Ultracast. Markings are from the excellent IPMS Canada decal sheet of Canadian P40’s. Paint is from Hannant;s Xtracrylic range. These paints spray and brush equally well, dry in minutes to a rock hard finish and are semi-gloss to aid decaling. Inspite of this, I still used a coat of Future before decaling. The colors chosen were an attempt to emulate the Curtis export colors. These colors were previously discussed in a booklet by Dana Bell called ‘Aviation Color Primers No.1: US Export Colors of WW II” which was available from Meteor. A more extensive and thorough discussion of Warhawk export colours is available on the internet at ratomodeling.com/articles/AVG_cammo/ and is well worth a look. Although open for interpretation, the undersurface of these aircraft appears to have been painted light gull grey FS36440 while a good match for the brown is FS 30219. Some export P40’s may have actually been painted British dark earth. The green is problematic and is said to be similar to FS 34079 or FS 34092. In the September, 1942 issue of “Flying” are a good number of contemporary colour photos of RAF aircraft and a 2 page colour ad by Curtis showing a Kittyhawk in export finish. The brown and grey are good matches to the FS numbers quoted and these were the colours I used. The green in the ad as well as green used on other types of aircraft appears to have been quite varied and not to match the green FS numbers quoted above. I used a variation of FS 34102 which appears closer to the greens pictured but is still not totally accurate. Hical, Allan.

95 Rifles in 1/32 scale

This Rifleman from the 95th regiment of foot is depicted in the Peninsular War (1808-1814) and is currently reloading his Baker Rifle. The battalion which served on the Peninsula was attached to the Light Division and participated in various engagements. The Rifleman wears his telltale green jacket but has substituted his green trousers for regular infantry greys. His Shako bears the light infantry brass in the shape of a bugle and above that is his Regiments own green badge. He is shown in the act of tearing the cartridge paper with his teeth in order to access the powder within. The main difference between the Rifle regiments and standard regiments was that the Riflemen carried Baker rifles which were shorter than the Brown Bess and had a rifled barrel. This rifling meant that individual shooters could be relied upon to mark and drop individual targets at will as opposed to the typical mass volley of the era. The prime disadvantage with this weapon was that a complete reload was a comparatively more arduous process to that of the smooth bore counterparts because of the need to wrap the ball in a small felt or leather strip so that it could grip the rifling which would allow the projectile to spin. The wrapped balls were significantly more difficult to ram into the barrel, this could however be circumvented by simply spiting the ball into the barrel without a patch, occasionally the loss of accuracy was made up for with volume of fire. Hical, James

P40 Part II

Pictured is Hasagawa P40E in 1/48 marked to represent TM-N, serial AK863 of 111(F) Squadron, RCAF. There are at least 13 ex RCAF P40’s still in existence, including P40E, AK987 in the USAF museum and P40E AK875 in the National Air and Space Museum in Washington. Both are painted to represent USAF machines. AK863 has also survived. The aircraft is Curtis #15244 and it was delivered to the RCAF on November 3,1941 as RCAF #1044. It is pictured in “RCAF Squadrons and Aircraft” as TM-N nosed over at Patricia Bay, British Columbia in March 1942 and was later pictured in Alaska with 111 Squadron in “440 Squadron History”. The aircraft was struck off charge August 16, 1946 and noted to be in Manitoba in 1947. It was subsequently recovered from Alberta in 1976 and registered N7205A. Made airworthy in 1997, it suffered right undercarriage failure on its delivery flight and is still listed as under restoration. Hical, Allan.