Small Scale Military Headquarters

Not sure if this has been mentioned before but i did a little research and it seems that the S1 Avenger due out soon (in Atlantic scheme) served on anti-uboat duty aboard the US escort carrier Block Island from mid '43 until it was sunk in May of '44. Here's a model of one of the sister planes from the squadron:

http://s96920072.onlinehome.us/Gal2/190 ... al1954.htm


I also learned that the Avenger sank more U-boats (35) than any other aircraft of the war except for the Catalina (37) and the Liberator (72). It sank more than the Sunderland (27), which i was quite surprised to learn. Here is some info on the various aircraft types and which and how many u-boats they sank:


http://uboat.net/allies/aircraft/types.htm

Thanks for the info! I hope the 21c Avenger retains the blue on light gray (as the 21c promo model shows) as opposed to the dark grey on light grey that the model on the site you posted. Then again, we may just get a completely different, but more familiar, Pacific scheme!

21c bring it on.
My pre-order is gathering dust. A place of honor is all ready for one of the very few planes I am looking forward to. With the Stuka, the P-51, the B-25 and of course the B-17. My list of favorite planes is short.

Question:
Is the S1 21c Avenger going to have a torpedo or depth charges? Or both?....Be still my heart.

TTT

torpedo and rockets as far as i know. Dont think there will be depth charges..

I was really hoping for a Pacific theatre version of the Avenger..

You don't think we'll get one? You know we will .

You bet your bippie, we will.

After all, 21C has said in the interview on their website that one of the criteria for putting out a plane is the repaint potential.

I've also been waiting for the Avenger since I first saw it advertised about a year ago. The photos from the toy show convince me that it'll be worth the wait! The detail and authenticity (for a 'toy') is amazing. And you can definitely see an improvement over time. The later offerings exhibit much more attention to detail than the earlier examples.

I have to keep reminding myself that these models are marketed as toys. I, for one, can and have mentioned some inaccuracies with the 21C aircraft. But hooray for us that they continue to offer these beauties for a very reasonable price.

I'm sure that 21C will go ahead with the Atlantic ASW paint scheme first as has been promoted. I wasn't familiar with the paint scheme when I first saw it. But I had visited uboat.net like Aferg and was surprised at the important role of the escort carrier based Avengers in the Atlantic.

As far as follow-on repaints go, I would expect to see the Pacific mid-war tri-color scheme. And the 'Lost Patrol' is a great concept, too. These five aircraft had the late war all-blue scheme, plus four of the five were the TBM-1C version (same as the 21C model). From what I understand, the flight leader was flying the later TBM-3. The Brits flew Avengers and this would be an interesting repaint to top it all off.

The Atlantic ASW Avenger should indeed have either four Mark 54 depth bombs or two Mark 24 homing torpedoes, not the single large Mark 13-1A 'ringtail' torpedo in the 21C model. These are small details that I feel do not detract from the excellent work on the 21C Avenger. Some of us can probably scratch build the correct ordnance if we really want to. The HVAR rockets in the toy show photos are a pleasant surprise, that is an accurate detail for 1944 and after. The first US rocket attack against a U-boat was in Jan 1944 by a Block Island Avenger.

(My sources for the Avenger information: "Avenger in Action" by Squadron/Signal Publications, and "TBF/TBM Avenger Units of WW2" by Osprey Aviation publications.)

Actually (tongue firmly in cheek), I wish that 21C and BadCat would stop the repaints. If they do several good repaints of the Avenger, I want all of them, and the model looks BIG!

A bit more rambling... OKAY, now that 21C has done (from all appearances in the toy show photos) a fine job with the wing folding mechanism on the Avenger, will we eventually see a Wildcat and a Hellcat???? (Although the Wildcat's landing gear mechanism would be hard to duplicate.) Wildcats and Avengers were paired together in Atlantic ASW operations with the matching Atlantic paint scheme. That would make a great pair!

Thanks!
JimBob

I would certainly like to see both of those ships. But we also need a Zero for them to duke it out.
Aaron

I've been able to resist getting WWII aircraft up to now...

The Avenger I WILL buy, as soon as it comes out.

A Wildcat would be a MUST buy as well...