Nomandie, France - late 1944. While the bulk of Allied forces have pressed on East towards the Low Countries and the German homeland, French forces have been left to deal with bastions of resistance, particularly in the fortified port cities such as Brest, Dunkirk and Le Havre.
One a wet autumn day, ground crew of the GCB 1/18 load bombs onto an A-24B Banshee (the land based SBD-5 Dauntless) ready for another mission against the coastal redoubts.
This project began back in Summer 2023 as a quick and easy build™. Just a little olive drab, what could go wrong?
Well the build didn't - a really good kit, easy to assemble with minimal fixing required. Definitely improved since the earlier Brengun injection kits. In fact I ordered two more boxings after putting this one together.
Unfortunately for some reason the brush painted drab did go wrong - normally a very forgiving colour, it just wouldn't take properly on one wing root and any attempts to overpaint resulted in inconsistent finish.
So it flew onto the Shelf o' Doom® for a few months until I got some paint remover, completely stripped and repainted the wing and managed to get a nice smooth finish.
Then it was on with the decals. Although the paint scheme includes partial 6" identification markings, these are not included as decals (which for many 144th planes they are).
I did set out with the intention of using decal stripes for them, but the curved wing edges and fuselage shape made it much harder.
So to avoid this model going back on the shelf, I went down the hack route and used decal stripes for the fuselage part, running down until out of sight, and for the wing tips, I hand painted specks of black and white that will be just visible when viewing.
The Brengun decals went on nicely and a green patch was added per the paint profile.
After a matt varnishing, I decided to chip away at the drabness. This isn't based on any specific reference photos, but as a type used in a neglected campaign it is easy to imagine it getting neglected.
Added and similarly chipped the Hamilton prop and the aerial mast so the aircraft build was complete.
An unplanned moment of bench synergy with two US types in French markings.
Then the polite banshee ended up sat aside for several more months awaiting a vignette.
My research did not unearth many photographs of this obscure campaign, so the scene was conjecture, but I figured that equipment would be at a premium in this stage of the war, particularly in this side-show theatre, so manpower might well be the most common option for bomb loading.
I was perhaps a little optimistic with the load bearing of my first figures. I would change the armament to a smaller bomb and add a third man.
The figures themselves are lovely 3d prints from 3djson on eBay. These are Red Ball Express Loaders, with their crates carefully cut away to give nice carrying poses.
Although I don't have a specific date for the scene, the campaign lasted through into 1945 so I went for a wet autumnal look for the airfield as an excuse to try some muddy textures.
So eventually the scene all came together and for this year is touring the UK show scene with SIG144, including SMW Telford. Do come and say hello.
