More Planes! More Messerschmitts!

While preparing the Western Desert book, the airfield raids came back to my mind. I already have bought an Airfix Dogfights Double and have a couple of the Dust huts, so set up the matching terrain.

Daniel bought himself a Messerschmitt Bf109 G-10 by Revell, and after I saw how cheap you can get this (8-12 EUR per box), I decided to get my hands on two kits to fill up on my squadron of 3. These kits are in 1:48 scale, a popular scale for aircraft modelling.

The kit by Revell has quite some years on him, a stamp on the horizontal stabiliser shows it. Made in China in 1979! Fit is rather good for such an old kit. Scale is okay with 28mm. The scale discussion is a looooong one, and a recurrent topic in many groups. It depends on what miniaures you play. With 28-32mm heroic scale, 1:48 might work, 1:56 would be more appropiate. If you're using 28mm true scale miniatures, 1:56 is definetively the way to go. And that argument is not just going on with historical wargaming groups, 40k players have argued for decades how 10 marines fit in a Rhino.

Long story short, with tanks I go for 1:56 like Warlord Games and Rubicon provide. With Airplanes, as they are rarely seen, used as terrain etc. I go with 1:48 as that's the only broadly available ressource. For modern combat scenarios (no platoon sized combats, only skirmishers), I tend to use 1:43 to 1:48 die cast cars, they are cheap and easy to get your hands on.

Here's the Revell BF109 G-10 next to the Airfix BF109 F-4, both made in 1979. Fit on the Revell kit was better, but the details on the Airfix kit bolder.

I want to do the paint scheme, that I covered in the last article Aviators, start your engines!, have to see what is the least time consuming, using a combination of airbrush and maybe spray cans. I think if I use VMC 70816 Luftwaffe Uniform and mix in a bit of off-white or light grey for the bottom and use 922 Uniform Green and 979 German Camo Dark Green for the camo on top, I should be on a good way. Have to see, which yellow would be the best choice. A great, very extensive video on painting what I have in mind can be found here: Plastic Models - Video on the paint job on a Ju-88 A.

And after I'm quite satisfied with the products by Sarissa Precission, after assembling the temple in the Gangs of Rome starterkit, I truely have to put the hangars on my shopping list for Crisis.