1:72 TBF-1c Avenger

The version with guns in the wing

The US Navy reserved the designation TBF for machines that left the assembly hall of the parent firm Grumman, while the letter M belonged to license production. The 1c subversion brought a pair of heavy machine guns built directly into the lifting surfaces, which turned a torpedo carrier into a machine usable for attacks on vessels and ground targets by gunfire as well. The possibility of hanging auxiliary fuel tanks was added too, extending the range on long patrols over the open sea. The folding wings, which the type had from the start, stayed unchanged and allowed the machines to be stowed on the hangar deck close side by side.

Four machines, two decks

The set offers two aircraft of a composite squadron serving on the escort carrier Natoma Bay and two machines of a torpedo squadron from the deck of the Hornet. Both pairs come from the year 1944, that is from the period when the American formations were working their way through the central Pacific. The internal numbers of the individual machines differed within a squadron and the sheet carries them in both sizes needed, so a pair of models of the same unit can be built side by side without improvising. Escort and strike carriers differed not only in size but also in the make-up of their air group and in the tasks their aircraft carried out.

The camouflage base

All four subjects carry the three-part naval finish of the day: a rich blue upper surface, a transitional tone on the sides and light lower surfaces. The sharp boundary between the bands is best sprayed against a hard edge and the clear coat left to cure properly before the markings are applied. The decals will then settle with no risk of the soft surface moving under them. In the package there is the printed sheet only; the set claims neither paints nor a model.