There comes the sound of the guns sending flak
Out for the scramble, we've got to get airborne
Got to get up for the coming attack
- Iron Maiden: Aces High
I really liked painting my Star Wars: Armada squadrons, so when they were done, I went looking for something similar. Games Workshop recently came out with Aeronautica Imperialis, but it's eye-wateringly expensive, the models aren't very pretty, and the scale matches Adeptus Titanicus, which is probably the ugliest game GW has put out this millenium. So I'm not interested.
On the other hand, Warlord Games has Blood Red Skies, by Andy Chambers, no less. A 1/200 scale game of World War II aerial combat, meaning lots of cute little planes to paint and very fond memories of Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe. So I ordered the starter set.
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The starter set comes with a veritable fleet of aircraft: six Spitfires and six Bf 109s. My only problem is that it's based on the Battle of Britain, and I'm just not that into Battler Briton and all that. So the thought occurred to me: I've painted Soviet Lend-Lease Shermans, so why not make my Spitfires Soviet? While reading up on Soviet air force paint schemes online - a touchier subject than I expected! - I came across a claim that the Soviets used Spitfires on the Finnish front. Intriguingly, Flying Squadron 24 of the Finnish Air Force claims to have shot down several Spitfires in 1942-43, aces Ilmari Juutilainen and Jorma Karhunen claiming multiple kills. I don't know if it's true or not, but it seals my decision to paint the Spitfires in Soviet colors.
I went with this online guide for the paint scheme, as it seemed to fit with my general impressions. The undersides are done in Deep Sky Blue, with appropriate stars on the wings. For the top side, I went with Flat Green as the base color, and German Camo Dark Green camo stripes. The whole thing came out a bit darker than it perhaps should have, but I like it.
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Of course, I could also paint the Bf 109s in Finnish air force colours, but I'm not really a big fan of swastikas. And besides, Bf 109 ace Erich Hartmann seems to have been quite a character; he was "reprimanded by Hitler's adjutant for intoxication and for handling Hitler's hat", which is easily one of the best things I've ever read on Wikipedia.
I wanted my Messerschmitts to look clearly different from the Spitfires, so I decided to paint them grey. I've at least seen several pictures online of Hartmann's JG 52 planes being a very light grey on the underside and a darker grey on top, with yellow identification markings, so I'm going for something along those lines. Slightly to my surprise, Green Grey turned out to be the best-looking underside color! I did the top side in Light Grey with Neutral Grey camo stripes.
I'm pleased with the result. But there's another reason for painting the Messerschmitts in German colors, and it's strongly related to Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe: the Me-262. How could I refuse to add the first ever operational jet fighter to my collection? All the 262's I've ever seen depicted anywhere have been in dark green, but as I understand it, they will originally have entered service with a grey color scheme like the Bf 109s had, so that's what I'm going for here.
I did the upper fuselage the same way as the Bf 109s as well, but I felt like making the camo stripes a bit more cubist.
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Warlord did an end-of-year sale, and I picked up a couple of Soviet aces for the heck of it. First, here's Lydia Litvyak's Yak-1:
And Maria Dolina's Pe-2 bomber. This was actually a slightly disappointing model: it's made out of a resin that feels more like soft plastic, and unlike all the other aircraft, it won't stay on its flying stand! I ended up having to glue it on. I supplemented the Flat Green - German Camo Dark Green scheme with Burnt Umber to approximate the Soviet three-color bomber camo.
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Finally, I did end up painting an RAF plane after all: Warlord Games very kindly sent me a complimentary Boulton Paul Defiant with one of my orders. I painted it as a No. 264 Squadron aircraft, later named the Madras Presidency squadron after money donated from India to buy aircraft - another reminder that the British patriotic notion that they "stood alone" against Nazi Germany was, even in the Battle of Britain, nonsense. We tell similar lies about the Winter War.
I've taken a shot at something like the early war RAF Temperate Land Scheme, with the completely mad black-and-white underside, apparently a WWI relic for easier recognition from the ground.
I painted the upper fuselage Khaki and added camo stripes in US Olive Green; I think I did okay with the pattern, but maybe the base color should have been a bit lighter?
But I'm quite happy with the end result! This was a fun model to paint, but it's a completely mad aircraft. The Defiant had no forward-firing guns: its weapons are in a turret behind the cockpit which can't fire straight forward. It was a product of the Douhetian bomber mania of the interwar years, when military strategists imagined that bombers would fly so fast and high that they couldn't be stopped. The idea was that the Defiant would be able to match speed with the bombers and approach them from below, where the turret gunner could engage them. Given what World War 2 air combat turned out to be like, it's perhaps most surprising that the Defiant wasn't a total failure, but it was soon moved to night fighter duties and then retired altogether; 264 Squadron transitioned to the (plywood!) de Havilland Mosquito in 1942.
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Anyway this was all a lot of fun to paint! The hard plastic models were excellent; the resin ones took a bit more work, but I feel they were worth it. This very exactly scratched the Rebellion / Armada squadrons painting itch, so I don't know, maybe I should get some Il-2s in case it strikes again...
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