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| Pearl Harbor torpedo bomber Kate | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Nov 5 2017, 08:39 PM (322 Views) | |
| Ham | Nov 5 2017, 08:39 PM Post #1 |
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Beast
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Greetings friends, Like many of you I have several projects going at the same time. In addition to my current Battle of Britain collection, I started working on a Pearl Harbor collection. I already built a Fine Molds A6M2 Zero in Pearl Harbor markings. In the stash I have the excellent Mania/Hasegawa B5N2 Kate. Can you believe that kit came out in 1973? It still holds up very well. On doing research at J-Aircraft.comhttp://www.j-aircraft.com/ and other sites, I concluded I wanted to do a torpedo bomber Kate from the attack. The torpedo carriers were only in the first wave and from the four veteran carrier air groups, Akagi, Kaga, Soryu and Hiryu. The other reason for a torpedo carrier is that the Mania boxing of the kit does NOT include the 750KG bomb that was used by the high level Kate bombers. Hasegawa has done a limited edition boxing of the Kate with the 750KG bomb, but I didn't need to add another kit to the stash just to get the bomb. I have since bought the new-ish Airfix B5N2 Kate and it appears to have both the torpedo and the 750KG bomb. In the Pearl Harbor 75th anniversary boxing I have, markings are only for a high level bomber. No decals are included for a torpedo bomber. Crikey! Anyway, I soon found out it's very hard to finds decals for Pearl Harbor torpedo carrying Kates. I have the two vintage Aeromaster Tora, Tora, Tora sheets, but all the Kates on those two sheets were high level bombers. The only aftermarket sheet I could find that was available is Print Scale 72-172. It includes three Pearl Harbor Kates, but two of them are high level bombers, one each from Akagi and Shokaku. The torpedo bomber is AI-307 of Akagi and has light grey undersides and green on the top of the fuselage, wings and tail surfaces. It is really hard to find clear photos of the Pearl Harbor attackers. This site has some nice profiles Clickyhttp://japanese-aviation.forumeiros.com/ The instructions on these decals are not very good, it's pretty much left to the modeler to figure out what colors to use. Since the documentation is so limited, I guess that gives the modeler a lot of license to build it to their own interpretation. Has anyone else built a Pearl Harbor torpedo bomber Kate? What did you do for markings? |
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Salt Lake City, Utah, USA | |
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| John Thompson | Nov 5 2017, 09:47 PM Post #2 |
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Hero
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Sadly, I know almost nothing about Pearl Harbor or about Japanese dive bombers, but I do know a little about Print Scale decals - frequently their "research" seems to consist of reproducing what they find among the profiles on Wings Palette. With that in mind, I went to the WP site and found this page, where pilot Shigeo Suzuki's AI-307 can be found about 2/3 of the way down the page: http://wp.scn.ru/en/ww2/b/1035/65/1#30 The profile is credited to Sidnei Eduardo Maneta, who (IIRC) posts occasionally on HS Plane Talking in the context of the Pearl Harbor attack and the aircraft involved, and who has also written books or articles about it. Perhaps he might be approachable on this topic? Good luck! John Edited by John Thompson, Nov 5 2017, 09:49 PM.
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| i cant brain today - i have the dumb | |
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| Starfighter Decals | Nov 7 2017, 02:14 PM Post #3 |
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Hero
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If you get the Bert Kinsey book, or the E-Edition you will see 2 profiles of torpedo armed Kates. |
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| Steve N | Nov 9 2017, 02:07 AM Post #4 |
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Hero
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This forum has profiles and details of pretty much every aircraft used in the PH rais (plus many others.) It's my go-to for PH taid markings info. http://japanese-aviation.forumeiros.com/f2-color-profiles SN |
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| MDriskill | Nov 9 2017, 11:45 AM Post #5 |
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Hero
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Well, this is not really responsive to your question about finding markings, but for what it's worth, my best reference for Pearl Harbor aircraft colors, is the old Model Art Special No. 378. It has no less than 33 profiles of Kates from the first wave (including "AI-307"), and 11 from the second, along with an excellent selection of photos.
Edited by MDriskill, Nov 17 2017, 11:16 AM.
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