It's the Museum Miniatures annual 25% off sale at the moment, so I decided to order some 1/300th scale aircraft models that I haven't already got in the lead pile. These are the three variants of Hawker Hurricane - the Mk I, Mk I with Vokes Filter and the 20mm cannon armed Mk IIc. In the past, I've only used the Raiden Miniatures model for both the Battle of Britain and Middle East, so hadn't bothered to get any of the Museum Miniatures equivalent.
The models themselves are lovely and cast in a high quality alloy so that all the details are clearly visible. They are also far less pitted and better cast than some of the Leading Edge models I've received in the past, so I think they have probably been re-mastered at some point. There are still a few blemishes on some of the castings but nothing that a bit of filler and some sanding won't fix, especially as the dinks are mainly on the fuselage and not the upper wings.
I'll be using four of the Mk I's for Finnish aircraft in the Continuation War, as an extension of my planned Blue Swastika Rampant Winter War project. The remaining nine models, a mixture of all three castings, will be used as Soviet Lend Lease Hurricane Mk IIb's, as they were supplied in large numbers to the Russians and operated in the North with the Soviet Red Naval Fleet air force as well as the VVS.
The difference between the Mk I and Mk IIb in this scale are not really obvious, with only the upper wing panels and the Rotol propeller being particularly noticeable. The models have a propeller boss that is near enough not to make a difference, while the upper wing panelling isn't actually engraved on the Mk I models anyway. The Soviets often had aircraft with Vokes air filters too, as the normal ones got clogged with mud and snow, which means the model is perfect for the job.
The Mk IIc was also supplied in smaller numbers but I will be using mine as re-armed Mk IIb's, with two 20mm ShVAK cannon and two UB 12.7mm heavy machine guns in place of the .303 Brownings. This field modification to up-gun the Hurricane was very common and will be easy to replicate by snipping off one cannon barrel and cutting the other one back to a stub on each wing. This will have the added bonus of making the gun barrels less likely to bend or snap off. I'll also sand down the raised lines of the twin 20mm access panels, so that the upper wing is more like a Mk IIb version.
In Bag the Hun terms, I'll rate the Fire Factor of the modified aircraft as a 9 rather than the basic 8 of the Hurricane Mk I but bump the ammo limit down to 12 at the same time. This is a bit arbitrary but it's always tricky to convert firepower and ammunition capacity into basic numbers, especially as there isn't actually an 'official' system to follow. I rate heavier machine guns as FF 2 and 20mm cannon as FF 2.5, so it does actually add up to the right number.
There's a really interesting web article on the Soviet Hurricanes here, which will give more of an idea about their use by the Russians in the Continuation War and World War Two:
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