Saturday, 22 January 2022

French air support

 Morane Saulnier MS406

A single engine fighter with retractable undercarriage. Armed with a 20mm cannon mounted in the nose and two 7.5mm machine guns, one in each wing. Besides France, other countries bought this aircraft: Turkey, Finland, China and even Switzerland (who also built two versions under licence); Croatia also received 74 though I`m not sure if this was after 1940.

This is a SMER plastic kit, but all the sprues and the inside main body is clearly marked Heller so I assume SMER have bought and re-released the old Heller kit. Frankly the mould is showing signs of age, but with a little patience it went together OK, I added a pilot. The decals were really good and included and interesting set for a MS406 in Turkish service too. 

I picked it up in a nice little model shop in Franklin Road, Gillingham, Kent which I discovered during our trip home just before Christmas.

This will go to support my Vichy French in Syria/Lebanon and against the Torch landings







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6 comments:

  1. La Familia Es Todo22 January 2022 at 07:24

    Nicely done. Great to see the Armée de l'Air take flight once more.

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    1. Richard Baber22 January 2022 at 08:39

      Very kind i do have a bit of an obsession with all things French :)

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  2. Unknown23 January 2022 at 08:47

    Didn't Vichy paint the tails rather garishly?

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    Replies
    1. Richard Baber23 January 2022 at 09:52

      Yes bright yellow in Syria/Lebanon and red & yellow stripes over Morocco/Algeria. But I just used the decals from the kit :)

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  3. Pete.24 January 2022 at 09:20

    That is rather nice.

    Cheers,

    Pete.

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