European Air War - The Gen

Mostly this month, I have still been working on the Polish scenario in the Italy/Balkans/Ukraine Theatre.

And mostly on this plane, which was the most widely produced aircraft in Poland in the 1930s, and still equipped the Polish airforce recce/utility role on the outbreak of war in September 1939:







The Lublin R-XIII.

Worked up from Ray's He46.

Still need some work on the skin and other stuff. The asymetric placing of the national insignia on the upper wings is genuine.

The defensive armament was one machine gun in the back cockpit. The offensive armament was a basket of hand grenades thrown out by the rear gunner. They actually did that in the closing stages of the Polish campaign. Sadly doesn't look like EAW cam model blast down to hand grenade scale.

I don't know about that. The blast scale goes from 0 to 254 with 254 being used for the explosion of an ammo ship or tanker.

At the other end there are 20lb and 10kg bombs already in the mix but I don't recall the scale number used for them. I'd hazard a guess that a 1 would be OK for a hand grenade, although, maybe a BIG hand grenade.

(Next you're going to want to throw kitchen sinks, aren't you?)

I scaled right down to what seemed appropriate for a hand grenade but I didn't get any blast effect graphic on impact.

As to kitchen sinks, I did once throw out the cathedral model from a Wellington.

More or less final version of the Polish Air Force Lublin R-XIII:











Added missing struts, tidied up portruding wires, cleaned up national markings now added by extra or paste-on elements (except underwing), sorted camo on engine surround, made it a mixed squad with variant squad emblems and fuselage caodes.

Turned out very nice.

On the subject of hand grenades, I'd forgotten there is a 3KG parachute bomb already in the mix. Maybe the .dat file for this would give some clues for a grenade.

Thanks, I'll try it out.

Last of the new aircraft for the Poland 1939 scenario, the RWD-8, a sort of Feisler Sorch type army cooperation plane. That's recce, liason, and when push came to shove, attacking German troops with hand grenades:











This model started life as Roy's Czech A104, wings, taiplane, fuselage and engine/nose reshaped. Codes and squad insignia added by extra paste-on elements available in EAW 1.6.

FM adjusted. Guns were a mystery since most sources suggest no defensive armament, and yet I can't believe these planes were sent into action in a hostile environment, by the Polish Air Force, with no means of defence, even if it was the rear cockpit observe armed with a hand held machine gun. So my RWD-8 has got a rear gunner. And he can throw out munitions to attack ground forces.

Produced from 1931 to 1939 Wiki says: In the invasion of Poland 1939, the RWD 8s were used in 13 liaison flights, three aircraft in each, assigned to Armies. Many other aircraft were mobilized during the campaign and used in improvised liaison units. An advantage of the RWD 8 was its capability for short take off and landing on unprepared fields, but the missions of their crews were dangerous. RWD 8s of the Polesie Operational Group were the last Polish aircraft in the sky during the campaign. They were flying reconnaissance missions during the Battle of Kock, and even threw hand grenades.

Sadly no examples of this plane survive.

Very nice. What did you end up doing to the loadout to get hand grenades?

BTW, you have to fix a few of those tire (tyre?) texture mappings. It's a mistake by me that has carried on through a number of aircraft based on the same model.

BTW#2, I just finished a B4Y Japanese torpedo bomber based on the same model. I didn't need to fix those tire elements because I nulled them out and added spatted wheels using the paste on 3dz's.

Also, don't forget to send these my way so I can include them in the inventory.

I'm adopting your suggestion re the loadout - the 3kg parabomb. Nearest I'm going to get to a basket of hand grenades

I'll fix the wheels.

When all is done I'll put a copy of plane and FM in your folder.

Wheels sorted





But I note I need to sort the shadow which isn't black.

.... a few minutes later

Sorted that.

Putting files in your folder

heh, those bombs look like..........................kitchen sinks!

Well there you go. Perfect