Pair of 1/72 Defiants

[Peter s]

Given a magic wand and a choice of any career I could pick I'd be a historian not an immunologist. I'm not in the least bit put out that Dan Snow married my former colonels daughter (My CO was the richest man in England just to rub salt in the wounds...... ) I build models depicting subjects that interest me & as I read up it encourages more model building. Having built a JU-88 A4, Do-17 and He-111 P2 in the past few months you realise how poor their defensive armament was. Practically no protection against beam attacks and the guns that are provided are limited by the small number of crew. The flight engineer was expected to be a very busy man. The Germans made up for it to a degree by clever formation flying. A staggered vertical formation allowed the rear gunner on the He-111 to cover the belly of the plane above and behind and that one in turn could fire down on any plane attacking the lower one from behind. The idea of a turreted fighter which could fly alongside the bomber stream and fire a burst into the cockpit seems pretty sound to me.... clearly it did to the Air Ministry too. 

The defiant has a truly awful reputation, largely due to the insanity of using it as a day fighter in 11 group airspace. It was easy prey for 109s (what wasn't?) but when used as a nightfighter and withdrawn to 12 and 13 group airspace outside of 109 range it did well. The defiant shot down more enemy bombers during the Blitz of 40-41 than any other type. There's a myth it had no forward firing guns. This isn't quite true.... the turret could be locked forward with the guns at 16' angle to just clear the prop. The pilots stick had a fire button (although no gunsight was provided) so it was possible to approach an enemy bomber from behind and below and rake the underside of the fuselage. Very similar to the Luftwaffe schräge musik set up on their later war night fighters.

The airfix 1/72 kit is a truly lovely model. So much so that I bought two. I wanted to do a night fighter to represent the Blitz end of the battle of Britain but felt the day fighter version was the other half of the story. All over black doesn't really suit my style of painting so doing them as a pair made for a better project. All photos to follow.......

[Peter s]

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Same basic paints as used for the Whirlwind. The day fighter wasn't going to last long so little weathering. With the night fighter I tried to dull it down to make a black distemper effect as if day cammo had been overpainted. This ended up a bit too matt and I had a rare case of decal silvering. Not too bad but annoying. Lesson learnt. Dull it down AFTER the decals.

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Here's the finished day fighter:

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Turret locked forward as described earlier

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I went with the Airfix decal options for both builds although with the night fighter I added a red prop spinner and changed the side roundels to one without white simply because both made for a more interesting end result.

One problem with trying to make a night fighter look realistic is that they tend to fly around in the dark.... thats hard to mock up in a photo:

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I've done a few that should be photographed like this  😆

Here's take 2:

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The silvering behind the DZ is horrible in this pic. Trying to do exhaust staining on a black plane wasn't hugely effective either

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I have a bigger night fighter project lined up to start ASAP and the lesson learnt is to NOT try and weather than one. A semi-gloss finish is probably going to work out better for me. The hard matt does give a contrast with the shinier prop though so I'll call this one a partial success.... you learn by practice and mistakes.

[dogsbody]

When the Defiant was first thought up to Air Ministry  Specification F.9/35, the concept of escort fighter hadn't been thought of yet.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boulton_Paul_Defiant

 

 

 

Chris

[T2B]

And when the defence plans were drawn up in the mid to late 30's it was expected the Luftwaffe would be flying from bases in Germany and therefore unescorted, and why most of the Fighter Command airfields were around the south coast of Kent, anticipating they would have sufficient warning to gain height etc.

 

The sudden collapse of France and Luftwaffe airfields on the coast of northern France and a mere 30 or so miles away was totally unexpected. Thus the Defiant was not a success as a Day Fighter!

[Peter s]

Both very true. Its crazy how fast things moved.... I quite like putting the airfix models in historical context. I've a MkIII meteor to do ASAP which can be put side by side with a Gladiator: same company 4 years apart. Likewise I can put the Fury, Blenheim 1NF and soon-to-be back dated Beaufighter 1 side by side and say "1937, 1939, 1941". The only real fault I can find with the defiant is that it was never going to be practical for the gunner to escape. There should have been a floor hatch or some way of blowing off the top half of the turret roof for him. 

[Dark Earth]

Nicely done Peter !

And nicely photographed as well.

One suggestion for correcting silvering after-the-fact.  I have had some success brush painting thinned down acrylics on top of the decal with a very fine brush.  In some cases I was able to mask the silvering completely, and in other cases I have at least been able to make it less noticable.  

Chris

[Kenneth ONeill]

Well, exhaust staining in period would be black on engine start, but pale grey (from the lead salts) once the engine was up to temperature.

[peebeep]

The silvering behind the DZ is horrible in this pic

 

Using the tip of a sharp craft knife or scalpel (actually I use a sharpened compass point in a pin vice), jab some holes into the silvering. You then have various options in terms of treatments to get rid of it. I use old formula Klear, but a decal setter such as Micro Sol or Mr Softer should work, also Humbrol decal fix. It may need more than one treatment. After treatment to surface may be a little rough with jab marks, rub it back very gently with fine abrasive then reapply your finishing coat. 

[peebeep]

Trying to do exhaust staining on a black plane wasn't hugely effective either

 

Does this help?

 

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Exhaust staining is rarely pure black, usually various shades of dark through to pale grey. As PfT (welcome back, where've you been?) says, a lot depends on how the engine is run.

[Peter s]

Thanks. 

I've seen some exhaust staining on a Lancaster which was damned near white. That would have looked really weird on a black plane so I went for a greasy brown colour (thinking oil rather than soot) you can see it along the sides but thats more due to it being a little more glossy than the hard matt black. 

[peebeep]

I've seen some exhaust staining on a Lancaster which was damned near white. 

 

You'd expect to see that on a heavy bomber. They spent a lot of time cruising with the mixture leaned right off for economy. The exhaust becomes very hot and burns white. Rich mixtures leave a sooty trail.

[Peter s]

I've seen some exhaust staining on a Lancaster which was damned near white. 

 

You'd expect to see that on a heavy bomber. They spent a lot of time cruising with the mixture leaned right off for economy. The exhaust becomes very hot and burns white. Rich mixtures leave a sooty trail.

I'll see if I can find the photos. High quality 1940s colour. The staining is extreme.... I wouldn't have gone that far with a model if I hadn't seen the pics. Also very obvious that 6 exhausts stain the upper wing bit the outer exhausts on engines 1 and 4 go under the wing.