"1/144 enough scope" Topic

Hi, thinking of moving from 6mm to 10mm gaming, at present I game Battle of Britian and American day time bombing.

So my questions are ; is there enough planes to do these areas of the war in 1/144 and possibly British late war bombing.

jon

usual lack of success on google

I think you are going to have to look at plastic kits.
Blue Moon has some WWII fighters in this scale.
I think that bombers will be the tougher to find although I would think you would see more in 1/144th scale?

Academy Minicraft have 1/144 WWII bomber kits.

Not sorted by scale, but you can find some by browsing here:
link

For BoB you'll probably have to build plastic kits. You may be able to find Bf-109, Bf-110, Ju-87, He-111, Ju-88, Spitfire I as prepaints, but it's been years since they were released, so are likely to prove hard to find and expensive.

For 8th AF prepaints have come from more different sources and more recently. You can probably find prepaints of B-17, P-51, Me-109, Fw-190, Ta-152, maybe B-24, P-47. Kits of all these subjects are also available.

Four-engine bombers in 1/144 scale are huge. You may want to consider using 1/144 fighters and smaller scale bombers, maybe 1/225 (Maisto B-17) or 1/200 (Academy B-17).

Check Ebay for older pre-paints, Hobby Link Japan for current production, Walmart for cheap diecasts.

Most of the major aircraft are available.

Some of the less used ones are harder to find, e.g. Halifaxes and Stirlings can be found, but are usually diecast models, which are heavy, and expensive.

As mentioned, the Lancasters, and other major bombers, B-17s and B-24s are available, as well as most of the more well known fighters.

Sweet Aviation Models make a very nice, if somewhat limited range.

sweetaviationmodels.com

Their Hurricane kits are excellent.

There's quite a bit of resin and white metal out there is 1/144, but you'll pay a premium for it. Academy/Minicraft, Revell and Sweet are probably the 3 easiest to source plastic injection producers, along with Japanese pre-painted Gashapon – I've got a bunch of spare BF109E gashapon if you're interested!

Its a mixed bag – pre-paints are the easiest, but since they are released as limited edition collectibles, you usually have to resort to e-bay and pay a premium – up to $10 USD per single engine fighter and as much as $20 USD for a 4-engined bomber.

For American bombing, I've downscaled the B-17's to the Academy 1/200 models ( link ) so I can more cheaply run 18-36 bombers at a time. It also saves on table space as a 1/144 B-17 has a 10" wingspan. Unfortunately Academy does not make a B-24 in 1/200 scale.

For BoB:
Spitfire – Minicraft ( Mk V ) , pre-paint plastic, True North pewter
Hurricane – Sweet, old Revell, pre-paint, True North Pewter
Me-109D/E – Pre-paint, True North Pewter, old Arii ( mutant E/F )
Ju-87 – Pre-paint, True North Pewter, Eduard
Ju-88 – Academy, Pre-paint plastic
He-111 – Academy, Cafe Reo, pre-paint
Do -17 – Peter's Planes
Whirlwind – Don Schmenk
Me-110 – Academy ( G model ) , True North pewter, pre-painted plastic

-Binhan