Small Scale Military Headquarters

The GE Fabbri publisher subscription series being sold in Italy includes a number of 1:72nd scale diescast renditions of WWII Italian warbirds. One of these is the Fiat CR.42, which is quite a nice model with a good fit and a lot of detail. It was rendered in a BOB scheme, which happens to be well done----but wrong. Here's a picture of the Fabbri model, which was made by LeoModels:

And the flip side:

The problem is that actual RAF reports from Fiat CR.42 crash sites describe a "muddy brown" base color with green blotches but no red-brown or yellow-sand. The same reports have the undersides of these planes as "silver" not light gray. And actual pictures show rather different blotch patterns than we see in many kit-makes, artists' depictions or the restored Falco at England's Hendon museum. Here are a couple of pictures of the actual Falco that the LeoModels guys replicated:

And a side view of the same plane:

So, I redid my Falco. Here's a picture showing how it looks now, with some weathering for added realism:

And the silver doped flip side minus those holes:

Decent enough little model from Leo Models, but the original paint looks pretty bad, and not applied very well.

Another good redo, Ed.

great job

Thanks, guys. I thought I'd add a group picture of all four of my LeoModels Italian WWII Italian bi-plane models, so far. There are two Fiat CR.32s---one repainted in a Spanish Civil War scheme---the BOB Fiat CR.42 that is the subject of this thread and a RO-37, which has been modified as to its scheme, with new talian Facsist emblems added and the light gray side windows on the original model redone in blue to simulate depth.