One-Oh-Four

Uhhhhhhmmmmm, Rick?.... Look what the dog dragged in?...... Got it at the IPMS UK Kit Swap for GBP 70,-, about $110... Not hideously expensive, but then again, I didn't sell any of my models for it (much to the chagrin of Yvonne!)

AFAIK, the Tamiya Sherman is an M4A3, which means it has the welded hull, not the cast one. The A3-bit means it's equipped with a gasoline Ford V8-engine that was used (almost) exclusively by the US forces. It has differences on the engine deck. What you can use for a British tank is an M4, which is the original welded hull version equipped with the Wright air-cooled gasoline radial engine. Or, the Sherman II; the M4A1, the same as the M4, but with a cast hull. Sherman III, the M4A2, a welded-hull Sherman equipped with a diesel engine. Those would be your choices for an accurate Brit Sherman. Oh, wait a minute: If you have this kit: Or the re-issue with infantry: This is a late M4A3, to be used for a US Army model, Normandy and later. Although Normandy is maybe even a bit early for this hull-type?.... If you have this kit: That could be used for British tanks - I think.... Point is, the British got some of the earliest Shermans around because they needed proper tanks badly to be succesfull in offensive actions against the Germans, and the M4A1 was earlier off the production lines than the M4, El Alamein, anybody?... I think that the Brits got many, many more M4A2's than M4's after the M4A1's as the US Army needed the M4's themselves next to the M4A1's... The US Army had no use for the diesel powered M4A2's so they were issued under Lend-Lease to the UK and the Soviet-Union, and of course the USMC as they always got (and get) the hand-me-downs... Sherman II's and Sherman III's were very wide-spread in North Africa and the Mediterranean.

http://forum.largescalemodeller.com/topic/3166-arado-ar-234b-2n-nachtigall/ So, the slightest bit of history from Wikipedia: it was intended to modify upwards of 30 Ar 234B-2 airframes for the night-fighting role, from a proposal dated September 12, 1944. Designated Ar 234B-2/N and code named Nachtigall (Nightingale), these aircraft were fitted with FuG 218 "Neptun" VHF-band radar with the appropriately reduced-length dipole element version of the standard Hirschgeweih transceiving AI radar antenna system, and carried a pair of forward-firing 20mm MG151's within a Magirusbombe conformal pod on the ventral fuselage hardpoint. A second crew member, who operated the radar systems, was accommodated in a very cramped compartment in the rear fuselage. Two of these jury-rigged night fighters served with Kommando Bonow, an experimental test unit attached to Luftflotte Reich. Operations commenced with the pair of 234s in March 1945, but Bonow's team soon found the aircraft to be unsuited for night fighting and no kills were recorded during the unit's very brief life. I don't know if the nightfighter actually used the RATO-packs, meaning I haven't seen photos of it, but seeing how much extra drag the radar antennas caused (look how they degraded the performance of the Ju 88 and Bf 110G), it would've been sheer madness for the Germans NOT to use the RATO-packs... Cheers, Erik.

Thanks guys!!

The Hornet never really showed up on my scope, but I must say that this review has got my juices flowing!

Wow, don't know where to start.... I love the extra detail, the shading on the landing gear, detailing, rivets and weathering of the whole airframe. I don't know if keeping the raised panelling would've been a better idea as the DC-3 had a lot of overlapping panels.... I like the restrained NMF finish, very realistic!

That is a great story, Colin! Great to have that memory still around, appreciate it that you shared it with us!

That looks magnificent! Did you use the CMK resin flaps or did you scratchbuild them?

Wow, this looks sublime, Adrien! I have the Berna decals to do a French AD, although an (admittedly) more boring Korean War USN bird keeps tugging at me too!

Hey Danny, beautiful build, great painting and weathering, I love it! Never thought that Feuertaufe really did mean "Baptism of Fire"! Thought it was like my "Steenkolen Duits" (Pidgin German) But I checked.....

Ow! That's a piece of scratchbuilding!!! Great work! And such a weird aircraft....

Wow!! Great looking Flogger, Paulo! I like the camouflage colours and the weathering, I hope I can have as nice a finish on my 1/48 MLD and my 1/32 MF!

Whahahahaha!!!!!!! Great one!

Welllllll..... I'm off to build Fly's 1/32 jetted cigar too! Like Jim Hatch I chose the Nachtjäger version. Something different and besides, I already have the bomber/aufklärer-version in the stash from MDC. That one always intimidated me a little, to be honest... Anyway, I nicked the box-art from Jim's SPAR-review to head off my build: So, the slightest bit of history from Wikipedia: it was intended to modify upwards of 30 Ar 234B-2 airframes for the night-fighting role, from a proposal dated September 12, 1944. Designated Ar 234B-2/N and code named Nachtigall (Nightingale), these aircraft were fitted with FuG 218 "Neptun" VHF-band radar with the appropriately reduced-length dipole element version of the standard Hirschgeweih transceiving AI radar antenna system, and carried a pair of forward-firing 20mm MG151's within a Magirusbombe conformal pod on the ventral fuselage hardpoint. A second crew member, who operated the radar systems, was accommodated in a very cramped compartment in the rear fuselage. Two of these jury-rigged night fighters served with Kommando Bonow, an experimental test unit attached to Luftflotte Reich. Operations commenced with the pair of 234s in March 1945, but Bonow's team soon found the aircraft to be unsuited for night fighting and no kills were recorded during the unit's very brief life. It's also very hard to find any photos of these nightfighters, so there are lots of things I'm unsure of... For example T9 + NL from the box art seems to be Bonow's W.Nr. 140146. It seems that this aircraft is fitted with bot the FuG 218 Neptun radar (see the "antler" antennas) as wel as a FuG 350 "Naxos" under a plexiglass bubble on the spine. Maybe the FuG 218 was used by the radar operator and the FuG 350 was to be used by the pilot as the last system is known to also have been used on single-seat fighters? Furthermore, the box art shows the aircraft to be in the regular bomber scheme of RLM76, 81 and 82 while the painting directions show 140146 in overall RLM82 with RLM76 undersides.... The gun pod in the kit is also different than I see on many profiles... And lastly we have the 1/48 kits from Hasegawa and Revell that direct the modeller to paint these Versuchsmaschinen in regular nightfighter schemes, complete with painted out lower halves of the nose canopy. Maybe all true, but it seems a bit much for only 2 aircraft that were flying some operational testsmissions in March 1945 and were very quickly to be found unsuited for nightfighting, scoring no kills whatsoever... Therefore I'll be building scheme 2, W.Nr. 140145, SM + FF, flown by Hauptmann Bisping and Hauptmann Vogel in the standard bomber scheme. So work commenced with separating the resin parts for the radar operator's station from their pouring blocks as we want to have as little weight in the back as possible... It doesn't happen very often, but it seems that I tried to sever my left index finger from it's pouring block too! Of course, the pouring block uttered some swearing at that point but persevered with the resin. So after some time I was rewarded with the basic parts of the radar operator's station, some pouring block remains and a nice heap of resin dust! *Cough!* Did you BTW notice that they're quite mad in the Czech Republic? Since it's quite late, I'll stop for today.

Great looking project, Adrien!

Oh, that's a very good point! I was planning on leaving most of it on, being intrinsically lazy, but didn't take tailheaviness into account! Thanks! Oh, BTW, wouldn't they have left the bomb aiming set between the rudder panels out, also to save weight, seeing that those antler-antennae did cause massive amounts of drag?

Yeah, it's great that HK includes them in their moulds. The big Airfix Mossie didn't have them....

And even here on the forums!!! Okay, okay, I know the drill....... *Sigh!...*

Great start, Jim!

Wow, great model! No subscriber to SMN, so I'll have to survive on this pic! Good job!!

Very spiffy looking Warhawk, indeed!

Although this subject looks like masking it oneself doesn't seem too much of a problem? At least those candy-stripes....

Very good show Adrien! And if Jeroen saw your model at SMW 2013, I know who / what inspired him to build his Reichenberg Re 4A on a railroad car! BTW, was the woodgrain painted by yourself or decalled? Beautiful finish!!