Curtiss A-12 Shrike, my first 3D print in 1/72 scale in Chinese service against Japan

 

 

I finally found a Chinese aircraft in an interesting to paint scheme and just look at those spats!

       After cleaning up and prepping my 3D prints I went looking for an interesting paint scheme, Nationalist Chinese aircraft usually came in monochrome schemes but I found this sweet (and easy, unlike the Dewoitine D-501) scheme. The usual Americana colors and Acrylic floorwax provided the colors and glossy surface for decals while Vallejo matte spray knocked the shine down. 

 

       The Curtis A-12 was part of a series of attack aircraft that Curtiss designed for the USAAC during the thirties. It was proceeded by a similar aircraft (coincidentally all named Shrike) with an in-line engine the A-8  and followed by the twin-engine A-18. The links will take you to the corresponding Wiki articles

 

scaling up from the 1/100  to 1/72 left the pilots head a primitive block

 

in the future crew figures will be replaced with more detailed models

 

of course the real reason I wanted this aircraft is.....

 

...spats, huge freaking spats, bonus on this aircraft there are four machine guns hiding in there!!!!

 

while these were USAAC's  attack aircraft (for a short while)

 they only saw combat during the 2nd Sino-Japanese war

       From a gaming perspective the only problem I have will be including a steel slug in the model to utilize my magnetic flying bases. This may be as simple as drilling a hole and sticking a shortened roofing nail into the underside of the model. The only addition to the models was the provision of the wing-struts behind the cockpit which are nothing more than bent bits of florists wire.