My interest in this game has suddenly sparked. However, in an attempt to prevent myself from spending another load of money (as I'm prone to go all out on a game's expansions/pieces...in this case, miniatures), I'm looking for excuses not to purchase this one...And fortunately (or unfortunately?), I think I may have found it...

Where's my Corsair? I want my Corsair!

Lol!

I'm sure a Corsair will show up eventually, but the Dawn of War series hasn't made it much beyond mid-1942 at this point. If I remember correctly, the F4U debuted at Guadalcanal in mid-1943.

Which means you can either begin now and spread your purchases over a longer period of time, or binge when the Corsair expansion comes out.

Funny thing seeing this thread!

I just finished building a 1/144 scale F4U-1 Corsair by some company called AHM. The kit looked like it may have been from the 1960s?

It came with the "Birdcage" canopy, and it was fairly crude. But what the heck, I won it on E-Bay very unexpectadly for only $10.00 + $4.00 shipping. Seeing as the Corsairs are so hard to come by, and they usually get very expensive (I was soon to discover) on E-Bay, I thought even if it was a poor quality kit, for $14.00 total I'd give it a shot.

To get a pair for play with WoW, I started looking on E-Bay, but the Corsairs usually only come up on the auction side, and that gets pricey. On the "buy it now" side, I think this one is still on there , but the asking price is $110.00!!! The auction prices were going at around $40.00 plus shipping, and I finally won one for $36.50 + $3.00 shipping...ouch.

Anyway, the one I won for $40.00 was by Bandia, and it was a pre-built and pre-painted kit. Super nice too.

So I finally got around to building the AHM kit. I was a little saddened to find that it was fairly crude, but I wasn't entirely put off by it once I got it finished. To me, it was worth the $14.00 bucks, that plus I like building them anyway. I most likely will keep an eye on E-Bay though, and get another Bandai Corsair eventually, but for now, I've got a pair to hunting Zekes with!

It's pretty hard to beat the quality of the newer pre-painted kits, they just have superb detail & painting. Sweet & Platz are about the only two build them yourself kits that you can count on the same type of quality. But in this scale, it is real easy to make errors in building and painting them ( a glue smudge here, a little clouding of the canopy from super glue, loosing the tiny parts and so on). Minicraft has some good kits, I've discovered, but some of those require a lot of extra effort, and they seem to have issues with the canopies. Sometimes the canopies are completely missing from the kit (not a good thing), and sometimes the canopies are not very clear, but rather clouded, like what you get if you're not careful with your super glue (which I am guilty of from time to time)!

Even though I enjoy building them, I'll take the pre-painted, pre or semi assembled ones just about every time, given the option. Sometimes availability, sometimes price get in the way though. I'm suprised I haven't seen the Japanese Tony's that are going to be included in the next box set; come out by one of these pre-painted companies. I have two, waiting for the modeling table, by Minicraft. Same with the British Tempest. So sometimes you have to go "old school" to get some of the planes you want!

I was pleasantly surprised that the decales were in fairly decent shape. I replaced the 4 national ensignias, and added the "victory" decale, but the rest were original! A friend of mine told me that on the early Corsairs, they had some trouble with engine oil leaking out the top of the fusalage, and getting on the canopy!! So they used some kind of white tape to cover the seams where the oil was leaking out. The AHM kit was so crude, that I decided to add on this "white tape" effect (I'd seen it before, but never knew what it actually was) to help the final appearance of the kit. I painted in, following the kits details for panel lines, so I have no idea if how I painted this "tape effect" is even in the remotest way close to what it should have been!

I guess I figured it would be close enough for wargaming! I know, I'm a lazy modeler!! I'm sure I could have stopped and looked up some photos, but it is what it is. It ain't like the kit is going into a contest! I'm just your Average Joe modeler anyway.

I've got a wargaming friend who digs the Corsair, and really liked the old series with Robert Conrad, "Baa-Baa Blacksheep", or "Blacksheep Squadron" depending on whether or not you remember the original title, or read the book. But I can hear him now when we play...

"Ahhh, Boy-ing-ton! I've got you now!"

Oh well, enough of my mindless ranting!

-Cheers!

Wow, looks good! Now you just need to make yourself a deck for the planes Thanks for the report! Love the models.

bsmith...Ya, I think those Corsairs are right around the corner!

You'll get your Corsair about the time I get my Hanriots for the WW1 game.

And the first F4Us were deployed in early August '42 (the first delivered July 31).

Nice models! I've read your other posts on 1/144 modeling in other threads. I was wondering if you ever built any gear-up?

The Corsair was flown into combat for the first time by VMF-124, flying from Guadalcanal on February 11, 1943. You made me dig my books out!

Great looking models.

Now I want to go watch old episodes of Black Sheep Squadron.

bsmith13 said:

Which means you can either begin now and spread your purchases over a longer period of time.

I took your incredible advice and bought myself tDoWW2 Thanks!

I am still waiting for the Curtiss P-40 Warhawk! I see they did a card version, but lets get with the program and get the mini's out when the cards are released!!!

swgod98 said:

bsmith13 said:

Which means you can either begin now and spread your purchases over a longer period of time.

I took your incredible advice and bought myself tDoWW2 Thanks!

So which ones did you get?

LewdDude said:

P-40s... now that's what I'm talking about!!!

I don't know why, but that has always been my favorite warbird.

I'm locked and loaded myself! I've got seven more waiting their turn on the modeling table, and I'm thinking of grabbing another six off E-Bay. A couple British Western Desert ones, a pair of Russian ones, a couple Aussie P-40s...and so on. I mean, you really just can't make enough P-40s!

kaufschtick said:

Man, those look great! Yeah, how can you not get excited about a girl with a jaw line like the P40??? It has always been my favorite Warbird! I even have the original USAAF Intro Flight instructions for the P40. Very Cool! I even have a guitar painted up like an old P40!

LewdDude said:

Oh Man, that's freakin' awsome!

I've got 4 P-40Ns that are going to be; a pair of US "Skull Head" P-40s from the 89th squadron, 80th FG; and a pair of Aussie P-40s from either 80 or 75 Squadron, RAAF.

I've got 3 more P-40Es from FOW (Battlefront), one of which is going to make up my second US P-40 from, I believe the US 64th Squadron's "Black Scorpions".

The other two Es are either going to be Russian, or I'd really like to do them up (and I probably will) as P-40Es from the US 11th fighter squadron, 343FG. The "Aleutian Tigers". I'll have to hand paint both the skull heads and the Aluetian Tiger heads, but they are both pretty basic, and at this scale, shouldn't be too terribly hard to do (famous last words, eh! ) .

I'm eyeing another 6 P-40Ns on E-Bay, of which I'd like to make one pair British Western Desert, probably one pair Russian, and one pair to decide on later. I know that the Russians operated P-40Ms, which was basically a P-40N with the old style cockpit. The British operated P-40Fs in the western desert, which again was basically a P-40N with the old cockpit and a slightly different shape around the the forward engine area to accomodate the Rolls-Royce Merlin engine. No air intake along the top, and the air intake on the underside was slightly different, but at this scale, I'm not sure I'd worry too much about it. I guess the topside air intake could be sanded down/off. I'm not sure that fooling around with the cockpit would be worth trying at this scale though.

The Flames of War (Battlefront) P-40Es are rather pricey, for them being only a one piece mold. No clear cockpit, but they come out nice. In the local shops around my neck of the woods, they run about $40-$45 with tax for three of them, or about $15 each. Someday I may grab another pack (I already have two packs of them) to make a pair of "Pearl Harbor" P-40Es, with the red dot in the middle of the US insignia.