From SylvainR: 6mm RAF and Luftwaffe airplanes (64 points)

 

Bonjour,

It has been a while since my last Challenge, in 2017. I am back and my goal is to clean up a few of my boxes of unpainted miniatures. About 10 years ago, a friend of mine sold me part of his huge collection of WW2 miniatures in 6mm scale. If many models are painted, and quite well, the majority are not and I also decided to re-base everything. Anyway, the first project of this new enterprise is to paint the British and German airplanes from the lot and use them to play aerial combat. I tried “Watch Your 6" with my group, but the rules did not feel very intuitive nor fluid. I am looking for a fun set of rules for WW2 aerial combat and suggestions are welcome.

I already painted (or refreshed) 30 airplanes before the Challenge, so what I am presenting today are models I painted since December 21st, 2021.

Here are 10 airplanes from the RAF collection.

First, there are 4 Spitfires. The planes are from different manufacturers (and most of them are quite old models) and I can’t identify the origin of most of them with certainty. Except for CinC because assembling all those minuscule parts on those tiny flimsy models always make me swear a lot. The Spitfires in the background are painted in the livery of No. 144 Wing, which was made up of Canadian pilots.

Now 3 Typhoons. Please note the “D-Day” pattern on the under part of the fuselage, to help Allied AA gunners avoid friendly fire. Since the models are so tiny at this scale, I decided not to add numbering on the wings or fuselage. I just used decals for the roundels, that I got from GHQ. The Typhoons are from CinC and just a nightmare to assemble.

The larger plane in the back is a Fairey Battle, a single engine bomber that was soon relegated to training duties. The other plane is a Hurricane with markings for the Belgian air force. Only 18 such planes were ready when Germany invaded France in 1940. 

This is an Avro Lancaster in night bombing colors and the model is a very, very  old, with sparse details. I had to “suggest” the various canopies and turrets with light blue paint. This model is also made of pure lead. I hesitated for a while about throwing it away, but finally decided to keep it and paint it. It’s not like I’m going to lick it or ingest bits of it. Hey, a model is a model and it looks good in the game. Now in regards to points, I would like to suggest that a single engine plane is worth 2 points, a twin engine plane be worth 3 points and a tri- or quad- engine plane be worth 4 points. So the 10 RAF planes would be worth 22 points.

Sorry about this photo, I did not realize when I took it that it was so blurry. I just wanted to show the planes of the Luftwaffe collection together.

 

 First are six Focke-Wolfe 190, including four “Dora-9", also known as “Long Nose”. I decided to paint my planes in pairs of the same color. Note the tank in the background, mounted on a now obsolete Canadian penny, for scale reference.

Next we have four Messerschmitt 262. Note how the too large decals on the darker planes, in the background, make them look like toys. Oh well, lesson learned. I should have kept the larger decals for larger planes.

Two Messerschmitt 410 and one Junker 88 P-4, with a ventral 50mm gun. I decided to use Citadel colors for camouflage on the Junker, but immediately regretted my decision. It turned out way too bright. Almost all the colors I used are from Tamiya, because their color palette, although very dark, is well adjusted for military models.

Two Messerschmitt 110. I really like how the camouflage turned out on these ones.

Two DFS 230 gliders. With these, I now have 12 German gliders completed, and I will have to design a scenario involving paratroopers on a voyage gone bad.

Two Ju-52, also tenderly known as “Aunt Ju”. Big models made of lead, again. I chose for these guys the camouflage used for the assault on Crete. Now for the count, there are 12 single (or no-) engine planes worth 2 points each ( I will count the Me 262s as single engine planes, because of their small size), 5 two engine (3 points each) and 2 tri-engine (4 points each), for a total of 47 for the Luftwaffe, and 69 points for this whole project.

That’s it for today. Thanks for reading!

***

Hello Sylvain, and welcome back to The Challenge! I still fondly recall your "Viet Cron" from back in the day...

Anyone undertaking 6mm aircraft is either very committed, or maybe should just be committed? Very tricky stuff that - very tricky. And there are some favourites here as well, from the crackers-looking JU-52s to (my favourites) the Typhoons - such a fine ground attack craft! Points-wise, there is a slight adjustment, as most all of these will score as 6mm vehicles - however, for the super big ones I count each as two vehicles, giving a total of 64 points. 

Looking forward to more!

Greg