Hawker Tempest

This Hawker Tempest was on display at RAF London.

The Hawker Tempest is a British fighter aircraft that was primarily used by the Royal Air Force (RAF) in the Second World War. The Tempest, originally known as the Typhoon II, was an improved derivative of the Hawker Typhoon, intended to address the Typhoon’s unexpected deterioration in performance at high altitude by replacing its wing with a thinner laminar flow design. Since it had diverged considerably from the Typhoon, it was renamed Tempest. The Tempest emerged as one of the most powerful fighters of World War II and was the fastest single-engine propeller-driven aircraft of the war at low altitude.

Upon entering service in 1944, the Tempest performed low-level interception, particularly against the V-1 flying bomb threat, and ground attack supporting major invasions like Operation Market Garden. Later, it successfully targeted the rail infrastructure in Germany and Luftwaffe aircraft on the ground, as well as countering similar attacks by German fighters. The Tempest was effective in the low-level interception role, including against newly developed jet-propelled aircraft like the Messerschmitt Me 262.

Land Raider Iconography

I have on my workbench a standard Land Raider. For the basecoat I used Tausept Ochre. I lost interest in the model, so, it got put into storage. However having liked the paint scheme I was using on my Deimos-pattern Rhino, I decided that I would find the model and paint this Land Raider in the same scheme. The first thing I did was spray the underneath of the model with Citadel Zandri Dust. I gave the model a couple of light sprays of Army Painter Daemonic Yellow. I also painted the weapon sub-assemblies.

I started detailing and painting the iconography.

For the skull and the paper on the purity seals I used Ushabti Bone. For the wax seals I used Mephiston Red.

Fairey Battle

Fairey Battle

The Fairey Battle is a British single-engine light bomber that was designed and manufactured by the Fairey Aviation Company. It was developed during the mid-1930s for the Royal Air Force (RAF) as a monoplane successor to the Hawker Hart and Hind biplanes. The Battle was powered by the same high-performance Rolls-Royce Merlin piston engine that powered various contemporary British fighters like the Hawker Hurricane and Supermarine Spitfire. The Battle was much heavier, with its three-man crew and bomb load.

Shading the corner

I got a couple of Ruined Factorum sprues that came with Warhammer 40000 Imperium 34. The ruins are from the The Battlezone: Manufactorum – Sub-cloister and Storage Fane kit. One I decided I was going to paint in the same manner as the first Ruined Factorum, for the second I chose to follow the (white and red) paint scheme as outlined in Warhammer 40000 Imperium.

Having shaded the larger ruined corner, I had used Nuln Oil for the main shade then I went about using  some Agrax Earthshade Shade and Seraphim Sepia Shade.

Airspeed Oxford

The Airspeed Oxford was a military development of the same company’s Envoy airliner. The prototype first flew on 19 June 1937 and when it entered service with the Central Flying School in November of that year it became the Royal Air Force’s first twin-engine monoplane advanced trainer.

As a consequence of the outbreak of war, many thousands of Oxfords were ordered by Britain and its allies, including Australia, Canada, France, New Zealand, Poland, and the United States. Following the end of the conflict, the Oxford continued to achieve export sales for some time, equipping the newly formed air forces of Egypt, India, Israel, and Yugoslavia. It was considered to be a capable trainer aircraft throughout the conflict, as well as being used as a general-purpose type. A large number of Oxfords have been preserved on static display.

Plastic Land Raider Proteus

Back in April I wrote after seeing the plastic Spartan Land Raider Assault Tank I did wonder if we would see a plastic Land Raider Proteus.

With the announcement of the plastic Spartan Land Raider Assault Tank it got me thinking, will we also a plastic Land Raider Proteus? It wouldn’t be too much of a step to have a plastic kit of this Land Raider? Essentially the Spartan is a stretched Land Raider.

Well today we see that we are going to get a plastic Land Raider Proteus with an announcement on the Warhammer Community site.

Land Raider Proteus

Before the Spartan Assault Tank there was one true king of armoured troop conveyance – the Land Raider. Many patterns of these lumbering tanks exist in Legion armouries, but none have the pedigree of the venerable Land Raider Proteus, which now returns to the Age of Darkness with a new plastic kit.

Land Raider Proteus

Dating back to the Dark Age of Technology, these vehicles are no less capable of surviving the harsh realities of civil war than their more spritely cousins, exhibiting uncommonly strong influence from their machine spirits. There are stories of these tanks continuing to blast away as their crew lie dying, or rumbling back to base with damage that would wreck lesser machines.

I do like this model. It will be a few weeks (months) before it is released, but I am seriously considering getting one.

So, now we are returning full circle to the original plastic Land Raider model which was released in 1988, well very close.

Purity Seals on the Repressor

The Repressor tank is often used by Sisters of Battle as transport, and by the Adeptus Arbites in an anti insurgency role. I said  in a blog post back in 2004.

“I do like this model and I am intending to get one to use with my Daemonhunters army as a transport for the Storm Troopers”.

I did get one that Christmas as a present. Though I actually started building and painting this model back in 2007, I recently retrieved it from storage and decided that I would try and finish painting it. I realised I had made quite significant progress.

Having sprayed the model with Citadel Zandri Dust. I started the detailing, using Leadbelcher on the weapons and the exhausts. The next step was painting the iconography and purity seals. For the skull I used Ushabti Bone.

I painted the purity seals using Ushabti Bone for the paper and for the wax seals I used Mephiston Red.

McDonnell Douglas Phantom FGR.2

At RAF London there is a is a McDonnell Douglas Phantom FGR.2.

The Phantom formed a major part of the Royal Air Force’s combat aircraft strength for over twenty years and provided the Service with one of the world’s most capable strike fighters.

Two versions of the Rolls Royce Spey-powered Phantom entered service with the Royal Air Force. The FG1 (the version also used by the Royal Navy) in the interceptor role and the FGR2 in the ground attack and tactical reconnaissance role in Germany. From 1977, all the Royal Air Force Phantoms were used exclusively as interceptor fighters over United Kingdom air-space.

Great Britain bought fifty two Phantom FG1s and 118 Phantom FGR2s.

Initially, the FGR.2 was used in the ground attack and reconnaissance role, primarily with RAF Germany. The superiority of the Phantom over the English Electric Lightning in terms of both range and weapon load, combined with the successful introduction of the SEPECAT Jaguar, meant that, during the mid-1970s, most of the ground attack Phantoms in Germany were redeployed to the UK to replace air defence Lightning squadrons.

With the deployment of Phantoms to the South Atlantic in 1982 an additional order for 15 Phantoms was placed. These were second hand United States Navy F-4Js fitted with General Electric F-79 engines. After an extensive refurbishment and the fitting of some British equipment they were designated F-4J(UK).

The collapse of the threat from the Eastern Europe led to an accelerated run down of the Phantom fleet and the last unit disbanded at the end of September 1992.

There is a McDonnell Douglas Phantom FGR.2 at the Imperial War Museum in Duxford.

Bristol Blenheim IV

The Bristol Blenheim is a British light bomber aircraft designed and built by the Bristol Aeroplane Company which was used extensively in the first two years of the Second World War, with examples still being used as trainers until the end of the war.

As the Allied Ground and Air Forces faced defeat in May 1940 the RAF had to use its light bomber force in desperate daylight raids against German army bridgeheads in France and the Low Countries. The Blenheim Ivs and Fairey Battles used in these attacks suffered crippling losses. In fact no higher loss, in operations of a similar size, has ever been suffered by the Royal Air Force.

The Blenheim IV, with its redesigned and longer nose, superseded the Blenheim I on the production lines in 1938. The original short nose Blenheim I had been developed from a civil aircraft and was one of the first new high performance monoplanes ordered under RAF Expansion Plans.

After the fighting in France was over Coastal and Bomber Command Blenheims began day and night attacks against German occupied ports and installations in frantic attempts to disrupt their invasion plans.

Blenheim IVs also served in North Africa and the Far East.

Undercoating the converted ruins

Back in April I got a Ruined Factorum sprue in  Warhammer 40000 Imperium issue 31. You get two corner ruins, all coming on a single sprue. Following that I got a couple of Ruined Factorum sprues that came with Warhammer 40000 Imperium issue 34.  You get another two corner ruins, all coming on a single sprue.

I did manage to pick up a second magazine and decided that I would convert them. It was a relatively simple conversion swapping over the corners. With the larger sides I needed to cut them down.

In issue 48 of Warhammer 40000 Imperium there was a re-release of the sprue from issue 31. With this repeat release of the sprue in issue 48, I decided I would use them for a conversion again. Unlike the other sprue from issue 34, this, one really isn’t suited to swapping corners. This is down to the differences in height. So, what I decided to do was to use the two different sprues from issues 34 and 48 and swap the corners. This would result in four different corner ruins from what I had already.

Having constructed the ruins I gave them a white undercoat, using a Corax White spray.

The first conversion I did took the largest pieces from each sprue. They fitted with no need to trim any of the ruins. I then used the larger floor pieces, which actually worked well together.

The other sides of these ruins go together as well.

This left the smaller corners.

The final corner ruin is quite small, using the smaller corner pieces.

The next stage will be a basecoat of grey paint.