Easter Activities

Some while since the last post... It has been Easter, and little time for blogging - without further ado, here's the Easter in review!

First of all, a closer look at the Bf110c miniatures from Raiden. Though I might well be repeating myself here, it is no secret that Raiden is one of my favourite manufacturers due to their propensity for capturing the feel of an aircraft in 1/300, despite the occasional slight symmetry issue and other, detail-oriented concerns.

Nice lines!

The Bf110c was designed on theoretically sound principles that were learned during the first world war and reaffirmed during the the Spanish civil war - namely that in air superiority combat, maneuverability was subordinate to speed. The more nimble radial-engine biplane fighters of both WW1 and the Spanish civil war could easily out-maneuver more modern designs of both conflicts - though this helped little. The more powerful, modern designs of both conflicts were unable to out-turn the opposition, yet had enough engine power to pick their fights - and this proved a desicive advantage. If the situation was favourable, the faster fighters could "boom-and-zoom," diving down on the opposition, make a high speed attack and then use velocity gained in the dive to climb rapidly out of retaliation range to repeat as required. If the situation was unfavourable, the faster fighters could quite simply avoid combat altogether.

Symmetry issues - at the least to me, it appears like the wings are not quite alike. Never mind, it will never be noticed during a game...

The Bf110c was designed to both have long range and to use superior speed to win air engagements. The only problem was that, like for many other inter-war "fast" designs, aircraft design evolution overtook the 110 before the war broke out. Designs like the Hawker Hurricane and Supermarine Spitfire pushed the envelope on what was thought possible performance-wise, and heralded a new age of high-speed, single engine monoplane air superiority fighters. During the first year of world war 2, the concept of the "fast" multi-engine bombers and fighters was buried by the merciless evolution of powerful single engine fighters by all air forces.

Though the Hurricane and Spitfire fighters gave the 110s a run for their money over the Channel and England in 1940, I find it interesting to note that the design principle was proven very sound in other theatres where the opposition lacked high-speed fighters. On the eastern front, the 110 proved a fearsome opponent for the slower opposition.

Before and after images. Due to the size of the model no doubt, there are lumps of metal on both engine spinners and the nose, where the air has been allowed to escape the mould. It cleans up well, though I must say it was less than ideal to have this lump right below the finely detailed nose machine guns. Although the poor maneuverability of the 110 may make tailing the more nimble RAF fighters tricky, the four 7.92 mm MGs and two 20 mm cannon should have good effect in fly-by and boom-and-zoom attacks.

At any rate, early war + 20 mm cannon = win...

So, what can be said of the models themselves? Like all the Raiden sculpts I have received, they are fine models indeed. After making an effort to compare the sculpts to photographs of the aircraft, I am satisfied. Except for the less than optimal placement of the metal lump remaining from the casting right below the four nicely made 7.92 mm MGs, there is one other detail that bothers me - the etched lines on the canopy were quite subtle, meaning painting the multi-pane canopy will be a right bitch, pardon my french...

Due to these details, I'd rate this model as a 4 out of 5. A fine model that I am very much looking forward to painting up and gaming with.

As a side note, the Bf110c is a huge aircraft, nearly rivaling the Do17zs for size!

Coming soon to a fjord near you - undercoated Zerstörers ready for painting

Being at my father-in-law's cabin, I had brought only the Bf110cs for udnercoating. Having some available time later that week-end, I sat down with my children's crayons and paper to draw a little something for my office wall. As I have previously said, the Bf110c fascinates me no end. That being said, the nazi regime does not, so I was happy to find a photograph to draw after that had the swastika obscured due to exposure.

By clamping a straight piece of material onto the plywood, one can saw uncannily straight using just a normal hand saw.

 

Finally, I started work on a project that has been lying in my basement for ages - a full size gaming table, which will be required to get the gaming mat fully unfolded. The "table" will consist of a 4-by-8 foot plywood plate, cut in two, stiffened with wood beams and fitted with hinges and latches for stowage. Work was cut short when it started to snow like mad, preventing outdoor carpentry work.

The table will not have legs, instead I will stick on felt pads so it can rest on any smaller table without scratching it. Latches will secure it in a locked, unfolded position. It will likely be unpainted, as I intend to use felt mats whenever gaming on it, though I might paint it for some added durability, in that case in any neutral colour.

And that was that. Well, there was one other matter, though I'll return to that later...

Dorniers Done

Finally!

This project started december 13th last year, with the painting of the prototype model. Since then, a lot has happened which has delayed the completion of these miniatures. Much time has been spent making quick reference charts for Bag the Hun 2 and designing cards for the game deck, damage and aircraft status. Some time has also been eaten up by the assembly of additional flight stands, the making of bogeys, as well as other gaming and storage aids. Last, but not least, the five Gloster Gladiators of Jagevingen took their sweet time to complete.

Last night only the rudders of the Dorniers, as well as varnishing, remained to do. The rudders have been used as hand-holds for the duration of painting, to ensure that paint was not rubbed off other parts of the miniatures prior to varnishing. Finishing these was quick and easy, and as the varnishing progressed (I use paint-on varnish) I realised that this was the night.

Admittedly, I stayed up far too late - though I thankfully could not tell today - yet after burning the midnight oil the last aircraft was done and I could look down on a squadron of twelve Do17zs, ready to cross the Channel!

After tidying up and introducing the Dorniers to their new abode, the storage box, and being the kind of bloke that I am, I immediately moseyed over to Raiden Miniatures to order the next project for the queue - twelve Junkers 87B 'Stukas'. The new(ish) Raiden Online Store impressed me with a very good and easy to use interface.

Though I intended to say that the Stukas are some of my favourite aircraft, I'll have to rephrase that - every time I start another project from this period, it seems like all of the aircraft I paint are some of my favourites! The aircraft designs of WW2 are all very fascinating to me, being in that border period between the historic and the modern where design was still a matter of experience and aesthetics more than equations and computer simulations. The early-war period fascinates me even more, as guesswork can be added as another desing factor, leading to some very interesting concepts being aloft for the initial battles...

Can you imagine why the Norwegian defenders 9th of April 1940 believed the Germans were deploying Do17zs to attack Oslo, when no such airplane was part of the main effort?

Afterwards, I laid out the next project - The Bf110c 'Zerstörers'. As these are really similar to the Dorniers, I will forego painting a prototye - they will even be using the same colour scheme. The four 110s on top have had their molding lines filed off. The next update on this project should hopefully contain some sort of review of these models.

Before I start painting these in earnest, though, I have to assemble bomber flight stands and make aircraft status cards for the Dorniers - I really can't wait to get in the first bomber-centric game!

Two-In-A-Night

Last Sunday, I got together with Tor and decided to try out how well scenarios written for Check Your 6! would translate to Bag the Hun. The scenario chosen was "Four-In-A-Day" from the "Over the Channel" scenario book for the Battle of Britain. The scenario recreates a combat from August 18th 1940, where Oberleutnant Gerhard Schopfel's schwarm bounced a formation of Hurricanes of 501. Squadron. Schopfel shot down four of them within five minutes.

In hindsight, the choice was fortunate, as gaming space was limited - my experience is that once fighters have converged in a pure dogfight scenario, our combats have tended to evolve into twisting furballs that revolve slowly across the game mat. The one bomber chase we have done (http://persprojects.blogspot.com/2012/02/tally-ho.html) really stretched the game out.

This was also the first time we tried the altered movement budget that I have been thinking about. This sytem eliminates the last oddly shaped dice from the game, the D4 (the revised damage chart for BtH Lite already removed the D10). This is a subject that I will return to in my next post, as it threatened to de-rail this after action report completely.

Enough chatter, here's the report...

Initial set-up - forgot to take the picture! Schopfel was rated a Top Ace and led Gelb Rotte.

A while ago, I downloaded the free layout program Scribus (http://www.scribus.net/canvas/Scribus), with the intention to use it for redesigning my Bag the Hun Lite cards and tables. This is the first time that I used it for image annotation, and I though it worked very well!

As you can see, I have made the mistake of writing Schwarm in the images rather than Rotte - though that is a mistake I (and you) will have to live with :)

Hurricanes of Blue Section move to spot Gelb Rotte as the Luftwaffe fighters successfully spot all the RAF sections.

As I had managed to forget the bogey markers at home, we used flying stands for bogeys and placed wingmen as the bogeys became spotted. This worked well with our limited formations, and as Tor pointed out the 3D-feel became much better than when using bogey tokens on the game mat. This means I will have to move the new bogey counter project up to the head of the queue...

 

Sprogs coming through from two o'clock, and Jerry on the six!

The RAF dropped in altitude to get a spotting bonus against the high-flying Emils, a gamble that turned out well as the last bogeys were identified. The Luftwaffe, not having the "Vic" penalty of the RAF, had no problems spotting the English bogeys.
Schopfel now maneuvered in to get on the tail of Red Leader, the RAF's only Veteran Pilot in this scenario. Red Leader pulled a quick reversal to shake the Messerschmitts, yet failed against the massive bonuses of the German Ace Pilot. Both English and German wingmen were on the ball and managed to stay in formation during the difficult maneuver.
Meanwhile, Blue Leader pulled a hard turn to get behind Grün Rotte. The inexperienced wingmen failed to keep up, and moved straight ahead, plowing through Red Section - though no collisions occurred.
Note that there is a mistake on this image that was corrected later - Blue Leader should be 1 ALT up and is not tailing Grün Leader.

Red Leader desperately tries to shake Schopfel, who efforlessly remains on the RAF Veteran's tail. They obviously did not teach tight chandelles in flight school, however, as the Vic breaks up and Red 2 and 3 fail to stay in fomation.

Got you, Engländer!

A fortunate string of activation and bonus cards now came up that allowed the German Ace three rounds of shooting at the RAF fighter before it got to move again. The shooting was not exactly flawless, and the Hurricane's legendary robustness keeps it in the air for the first burst - though on the second and third attempts, the Emil's 20mm cannon made its presence felt. First, a shell smashed the Hurricane's instrumentation - though the RAF pilot barely had time to worry about this before his aircraft was blown out of the sky in the next salvo!

Grün Rotte swings around and latches on the tail of Red 3, who has barely gotten his wings. Easy prey...

Looking to claim his second victory of the day, Schopfel tails Red 2. The Hurricane pilot has other plans though, and the wily bugger exploits a rulebook definition to escape!

What happened was that according to the rules, when two aircraft end the movement in the same hex, a roll for collision is made - then the aircraft that moved last into the hex is moved one step forward. As Schopfel was in the hex immediately behind Red 2, he would have had to roll for collision with Grün Leader, then move forward, roll with Red 2, then move forward--- straight into the Hurri's sights! Needless to say, the Emil remained where it was.

In hindsight, "playing the period, not the rules," we might have moved Schopfel to the no. 3 hex hehind Red 2 and allowed him to stay on the tail, though at the moment we were both to amused at this obvious exploitation of the rules to worry about this!

Auf Wiedersehen! Grün Leader places an accurate burst onto the hapless Sprog, and the 20 mm cannon does the rest.

In my "Lite" version of BtH, I do not really worry about what becomes of an aircraft once it is no longer combat worthy. Finding out whether little Billy manages to crash-land his stricken machine and pop in for a pint at the local pub while waiting for a lift to the airfield is really not the kind of detail I require of my games! Therefore, in the "Lite" rules, the  "Engine Destroyed" for a single engine fighter is counted as a shot down aircraft, and the model is removed from the game mat. It was desicions like this that allowed me to condense the damage table down from six to one column.

Red 2 opens the distance to Grün Rotte. Schopfel moves onto Blue Leader's tail, as Gelb 2 gets on the tail of the last RAF Sprog, Blue 3. At this point, we called the game due to time.

An exciting scrap, although I felt somewhat bad for Tor - at the end of the game, the Hurricane gun ports were still all sealed! After the early demise of the only Veteran RAF pilot, the agile Me109Es flew in circles around their opponents, easily getting on and staying on the tail as required. On the one occasion where an RAF fighter found itself in a position to shoot, the fire card failed to materialize before the Luftwaffe Ace pilot had activated and moved off. While Schopfel's ammo was running low, the Luftwaffe still had plenty of ammunition to spare and the next turn would likely have seen one or more RAF fighters badly damaged or destroyed.

The BtH Lite rules are certainly offering the right balance of speed and detail for my taste, and now another period of consolidation will take place as I attempt to improve on the design and layout of my quick reference sheets using Scribus.

Another pleasant surprise was that the Over the Channel scenario seemed to translate really well to BtH, giving an entertaining game. Skirmish Campaigns offer well-written books, and I would reccomend them to anyone starting to game in a new theater, as they offer a good historical overview, supplies a list of relevant aircraft types and quantities - and detail scenarios that seem to easily translate into good Bag the Hun games.

Skirmish Campaigns:

http://www.skirmishcampaigns.com/

Transport solutions

Finally starting to get some steam up again after the one-month hiatus due to refurbishing the kitchen. Got in another game Sunday, and will post about that later when I get time, hopefully this week.

Meanwhile, a short glance at my new transport solution for the aircraft models. Previously, I stored the fighters in a small, sectioned plastic box, though as soon as I got the Dorniers I knew this solution was doomed. With these large, two-engine aircraft, I realised I would need something bigger, more flexible - and cheap!

This is the solution I decided to go with. 13 cm tall storage boxes. 10 euros for two is not bad (in Norway at any rate). The foam is from a car supply chain and originally intended for noise dampening in self made/self assembled speaker setups. 18 euros for five sheets, two sheets requred  per box. Total cost of around 14 euros per finished box is about as cheap as it gets over here.

Marking the foam for cutting. The first layer is made up of leftovers and glued into the bottom of the box. The remaining layers are cut slightly too small to make for easy removal from the box.

Ground floor: RAF Fighters - Spits and Hurries for the Battle of Britain.

First floor: 'Emils' and Norwegian Gladiators.

The box is now less than half full, and I have another one I have not started on yet. Likely, I will be able to fit all the aircraft I plan to buy for the Battle of Britain into these two boxes. That is the good thing. The bad thing is that this makes it painfully obvious how pitifully small my collection is - though it should be bulked out fairly quickly, as the majority of the remaining aircraft will be large two-engine aircraft!

Also, I have purchased the bits required to transport my gaming mat in style. Or, style... Well, more on that later!

Gloster Gladiators of Jagevingen

This is a long post. As I have currently posted about the modelling and painting of my Do17Zs, I have been unwilling to make a mess by putting the following updates "in between" the other posts, rather I have been writing a little after each session with this project and post it now as it is complete.

Knowing that this project would involve a lot of tricky modelling and painting - to the point of tediousness in some cases - I ran this project in parallell with the Dorniers so as not to discard it in disgust halfway through. At some point, the project got a life of its own, however, and in spite of myself I found that the project had become an obsession. The Dorniers were left aside as all my spare time and effort - which was not much, as we started a major refurbishment project in our house at a point - was devoted to finishing these aircraft.

Hopefully, the length of the post will not put you off. Enjoy, and, particularily in this case I must say, comments are always welcome!

***

A couple of years ago, a Norwegian military history magazine had an article about the air combats near Oslo, the Norwegian capital, on the 9th of April 1940. Ever since, I have been determined to write a scenario about one of the episodes, when five Gloster Gladiator biplanes of the Norwegian Air Force squadron 'Jagevingen' (sic) bounced eight Bf110cs over Oslofjorden.

The Gloster Gladiators were ordrered (along with their opponents, eight Bf110cs) on November 24th last year, and delivered January 25th this year. Although Christmas undoubtfully caused some delay, this was not the first time it took weeks to get items from this UK based supplier, Raiden Miniatures.

As usual, the miniatures arrived in individual ziplock bags, along with an unexpected bonus - assembly instructions! Though the line drawings did not clearly show the positioning of the underwing gun pods, the written instructions were deeply appreciated.

Despite long delivery times, I keep ordering from Raiden for a number of reasons. First, their web site and web store is easy to use, the prices are good and the quailty is fabulous. Second, while not all the models are perfectly symmetrical - the Gladiator falls into this cathegory - Raiden's sculptors have a knack for carrying an aircraft's lines and personality into 1/300 scale. Their sculps inevitably feel right when you look at them.

When ordering from Raiden, expect very good quality at decent prices - though do count on it taking some weeks - or months - for your miniatures to arrive. Having learned my lesson, I now place orders while I still have one or two unstarted projects in queue.

Raiden miniatures:

http://www.raidenminiatures.co.uk/

Cor blimey, what a lot of bits!

Each Gladiator is made up of the main body, the upper wings, right wheel, left wheel, two gun pods for the lower wings and (oh joy) a piece of wire - to be cut into struts. 

My first attempt at air combat wargaming was with World War I some years ago. The painstaking work required to assemble lumpy 1/300 biplanes was what turned me decidedly away from that hobby and straigth into the wondrous world of World War 2 streamlined monoplanes. Thus, the assembly of five Gloster Gladiators was something I regarded with a fair bit of trepidation...

The struts, one piece of wire per plane to be cut into eight struts. Fortuneately, the fellow who wrote the instructions seemed to know his trade well - by using flexible wire, the struts can be fixed with superglue in roughly the right positions to begin with - then they can be adjusted by dry-fitting the top wing and bending the wire once the glue has set. The strut holes are actually clear and present, something which could not always be said for the WWI castings I fumbled with back in the day.

The instructions, along with the high quality of the Raiden castings, meant that I now only felt scared of assemblying all five models - as opposed to feeling scared of assemblying even one, like I did when they arrived.

Day of delivery: Project start - Dremeling out the hole for the supermagnet.

Due to the bulky nature of my flight stands coming in conflict with the fixed landing grear, I had to drill the magnet hole further back on the fuselage than the hole in the casting.

Five days after project start, and I sat down to spend 30 minutes of my life cleaning this? It was clearly nature's way of telling me 1/300 scale biplanes are not good for my health. The tiny bits are landing gears and gun pods. Seriously, I carved larger pieces off than what remained in the bowl...

Probably due to the very small, fiddly and oddly shaped components, these were the Raiden castings I have received that required the most cleaning up. That being said, the amount of flash and molding lines was not exactly daunting, and the time required was due to the size and shape of the components rather than casting deficencies.

The next evening: Silent before the storm. A few minutes with soapy water and the old toothbrush, and the Glosters were ready for assembly...

...and every little bit of terror I imagined suddenly turned to reality. Let me just guide you through the process, and you can see the full horror of it yourself. Assemblying wing gun pods - 35 minutes.

 Cutting struts. 25 minutes. What??

Most of the assembly work required tweezers due to the tiny components. In order to hold the struts until the superglue set, I found that small blobs of green stuff squeezed into the holes worked well.

 Mounting struts. 55 minutes!

A moment of respite. Greenstuffing the original flight stand attachment holes from the casting. 3 minutes...

The mind-numbing tediousness of it all made me forget to take a photo of the wheels attached stage. That took 30 minutes. This image is the end of day status, after spending yet another 30 minutes to reinforce the landing gear using green stuff.

Total time for this assemblying nightmare marathon: Nigh on 3 hours. That is for five aircraft, and I had yet to attach the upper wings! Yup, I will definitely think twice before assemblying another biplane in 1/300 again! Still, my spirit was unbroken, and I'd have forged right ahead the same evening had it not been for the need to let the superglued upper wings cure completely before trying to align the struts with the lower wings. To paraphrase our king, anything for Norway...
Some days later, the shock had worn off. It was time to attach the top wings! A little careful bending of the struts later, and...

Fcuk.

As it turned out, while the long struts remained flexible enough to adjust carefully, the short struts were too stiff due to their short length (2.5 mm) and snapped when I tried to nudge them into position. "Well," I thought, "This seems a bit wobbly, and I intend to game with the dang things."

So who you gonna call?

Green stuff!

Scoring the area in front of the canopy to provide better hold, I resorted to a trick used frequently by less reputable manufacturers of 1/300 biplanes. If you can't make struts, bugger the things and fill the gap with a nice, solid chunk of stuff instead.

Now that was more like it! From the "gaming view," the blob was hardly visible. Furthermore, the miniature was made more robust (necessary when gaming blokes are to fumble with tiny planes perched on flying stands) and my sanity preserved. This was a rather calm and composed evening, even though it took me around an hour to attach all five top wings. After all, not only did I have to smooth over the green stuff work on the landing gear  before attaching the top wing, I also had to remove all the superfluous centre struts and superglue as well!

Yes, it might be an ugly lump once you turned the plane onto its side - though in hindsight, this was the only practical solution for me, what with the model being intended for gaming after all.

Even though I did not manage to attach the centre struts like the assembly instructions detailed, I still have a special place in my heart for whomever wrote the instructions:

"Once in place, add lots more super glue to make it as secure as possible."

One cannot fault logic like that!

Jagevingen flies again!

It was extremely pleasing to be done with assembly of these models, something that I had been dreading ever since I placed the order for them - and rightly so, as it turned out.

All in all, assembly ran to a mind-boggling 5 hours for 5 miniatures!

That being said, I did not regret it at all - the miniatures looked smashing, and I could not wait to get them undercoated.

After the last image, we started refurbishing the kitchen - so it was a week before I got another opportunity to sit down with the miniatures again. Additionally, now that the worst bit (assembly) was out of the way, I felt like I could afford to step down the intensity of work with these aircraft. Strictly speaking, they were intended as a side project to run parallell with whatever other project was ongoing at the time, and at the time that was the Dorniers. Thus, after the primer was applied to the Gladiators I turned to the Dorniers for the time I had left that evening.

Side project. Right. The very next night I sat down and gave them all a coat of Citadel Colour Boltgun Metal, painted the engine cowling in Citadel Colour Brazen Brass and the tires Citadel Colour Chaos Black. Some seldomly used paints just seem to last forever, I still have a pot of Citadel Colour Ultramarines Blue that I got when I was 12...

Here you can see the canopy, painted my "standard" Vallejo 943 Grey Blue and Vallejo 907 Pale Greyblue. Also, before hitting the sack, I just had to give one of the planes a dry(ish)brushing with Citadel Colour Mithril Silver to get the "final" colour - here is a before and after picture, with after being to the right. Admittedly, Jagevingen used a matte silver to avoid reflections - yet the images I have seen looked quite bright and the satin varnish I persist in using would ruin any matte effect anyway.

Seeing as the area was hard to get at and would at any rate never be seen in a game, I chose to not brush the underside of the top wing silver. The colour difference was not so marked when not in the camera flash, all it really ended up doing was to leave the area appropriately shadowed.

All that would remain after brushing silver on the other aircraft was to add national colours and aircraft ID numbers! That is, with the exception of Gladiator 433...

 Several days later, I got to sit down with the planes again. The first thing I did was finish the silver coat on the "regular" Gladiators. Then I painted up Gladiator 433.
433 had been at the forefront of my mind ever since I ordrered these miniatures. While 11 out of 12 Norwegian Gladiators were painted in the peactime matte silver and national colours, in January 1940 Gladiator 433 was painted in an experimental camouflage pattern suggested by a Norwegian Army Air Force staff officer.
Very little information exists about this pattern, so I was left with guesswork.

In addition to two black-and-white photographs showing the aircraft from the same side, this was the only written description I was able to find:

"On the experimental aircraft, Gladiator 433, areas of the wings and fuselage (the dark areas) are partially covered with brown-green (khaki) and grey, wavy lines that blend into one another. The remainder of the fuselage sides and bottom (the light areas) are painted in a mix of matte silver and light blue, intended to make the aircraft as inconspicuous as possible when seen against the sky. Areas of the top of the wings (the light areas) are instead painted grey or grey-green." (Cato Guhnfeldt - Fornebu 9. April, published by Wings, Oslo, 1990).

Leave that description with a roomful of model kit builders, and I would dare you to find two similar models once they were done...

One week later, a lot of fiddly painting ensued. First, the inner line was painted using Cidadel Colour Regal Blue. Then the middle lines were painted using Vallejo 907 Pale Greyblue, before finally the outer lines were doine in Citadel Colour Mechrite Red. This took a while, let me assure you...

Though my freehand technique is hardly perfect, I was extremely pleased with the result. The effect of the national colours was striking, and completely transformed the planes.

Gladiator 433 had the national colours as a band around the fuselage only.

A picture of the aircraft of Jagevingen in "sveit," the contemporary Norwegian word for formation. As you will hopefully agree, the aircraft look smashing when viewed together (and at "gaming distance!").

Next day: A picture of the finished sveit, complete with aircraft identification numbers. Note that Gladiator 433 (in camouflage) has tiny numbers at the rudder only. These aircraft are now accurately marked like the aircraft in action over Oslofjorden April 9th 1940. The sveit is set up on the cover of the book that has served as my primary source of information and motivation, in the formation used prior to the attack on the German aircraft.

From left to right (of formation):

433 - Fenrik Thorsager (=2nd. Lt.)

425 - Sergeant Waaler

429 - Lieutenant Tradin (sveit leader)

427 - Sergeant Schye

423 - Lieutenant Krohn

 Well, this was some project all right! The aircraft have taken time completely out of proportion to their number, though I am extremely pleased with the result. Colour palette will be posted later, and the aircraft used in the April 9th scenario I am planning.

Whether I can finish the Bf110Cs in time to run an anniversary game this year remains to be seen, there are 11 unfinished Do17z in queue before them... and for the scenario I would really like to have a squadron of He111s available as well, which looks kind of unrealistic at the moment, really.

It has been a quiet period, blogwise, as my updates have been bundled into this post and my spare time consumed by refurbishing. It looks like this migh hopefully be done soon, though, so look forward to some -hopefully more regular - updates on the Dorniers in the near future!