Small Scale Military Headquarters

Was browsing the web looking for references for an Italian BF109 I am working on and came across this:


Isn't that a conflict of interest or something?

Here is more information on the fighter. Very interesting.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avia_S-199

Czech variant ( Avia S-99, 199 and 299) was acquired by the fledgling Israeli Air Force and used in the Israeli war for Independence in 1948 where Israeli pilots flew the Czech built German fighter against Egyptian pilots flying the British Supermarine Spitfire.

Yes its a strange but good thing that happened there. Its good to see the German technology used for good and to protect the Jewish people and not destroy them and ironically fighting the same type of planes that were being flown to liberate them before... I hope Adolf is rolling in his grave

The 109 is an amazing airplane, the Spanish Hispanos were still flying them in the 60s! and were used in the Battle of Brittan

I think I see a new Jnewboy custom idea for a BF-109

Israelis also used Spitfires among other donated aircraft of WWII vintage.

If you want something almost trippy, Syria used late-model German Panzer IVs into the 1960s, including using them as static gun emplacements. The French army also apparently used German Panther tanks into the 1950s. An then there's the Czech variant of the ME-262 (the single seat S-92 and two-seat CS-92) which remained in service with that country's air force until the early 1950s.

I think the aircraft during this war are as unexpected in many ways as they were during the Spanish civil war. Both periods are fascinating.

What scale are those?

1/48

Just a little side-light to the Avia S-199s. When the Czechs were building the S-199 shortly after the war was over, they ran into a production snag that became a major problem. The Germans during the war produced the Daimler-Benz DB-605 engines exclusively at their Germany factory....which was destroyed during the war by allied bombers. So...although they were able to build airframes, there were no Daimler engines to be had. However, a Daimler competitor (Junkers) built Jumo engines nearby in CZ and the factory was left pretty intact. A team of engineers quickly addapted the Jumo engines to the S-199 airframes, but there was one problem they never overcame. It seems the Jumo engines rotated in the opposite direction of the original Daimlers and had to be modified to rotate opposite of design. That meant that all the off-set angles for the tail and stab were well off. The S-199 was murder for departing controlable flight when rudder input was too severe and too fast....no matter if you were slow or fast. They say that more S-199s were lost in the first Arab/Israeli War from accidents than from combat.

Spanish airframes were made from Messerschmidt plans and were identical copies....until the war ended. The Spanish also had to find a replacement engine for the Daimler...guess what they picked? Same general size and power and it even rotated in the same direction.....the Rolls-Royce Merlin engine straight off the Spit and Mustang. They also adopted the Merlin to power the Spanish copy of the HE-111 bombers. All of the CAF birds are Merlin equiped Spanish built copies.