- THINGS UNDER WINGS PART 3; USN/USMC Korean War
Following on from previous discussions regarding launching gear and then store selection I want to move on to what is available for the model builder in bringing his or her miniature Skyraider to scale fruition.
This post isn’t going to be a piece by piece breakdown of every single product available in all the scales. Actually, that resource is presently in process and will be forthcoming elsewhere on the site as a scale and product specific matrix, but it isn’t finished yet; keep an eye on “What’s New” for when it shows up.
There are some aspects I will touch on in general however, primarily what is or isn’t out there as go to ready products and others which may require a little more ingenuity to produce in the chosen scale for a chosen product. Some of these do appear in the Reviews section others have not yet seen listing, but again, will do so in time.
In the next few blogs I’ll take things by historic era and delve more into USAF and VNAF service, and, for the time being, with emphasis entirely on the attack/interdiction mission profile.
The Korean War is probably the simplest, yet in some ways the worst represented of any of the historical possibilities.
During this period the AD was strictly a U.S. Naval Service asset, but this does not mean the Navy and Marine Corps always employed their Skyraiders exactly the same. This is an important dynamic for the modeler to keep in mind if this era and airplane are a matter of interest.
The Navy was the first, and for over a year, the only AD attack operator in theater. Indeed, the very first Skyraider combat mission ever launched was on July 3, 1950 when AD-4s and one AD-4Q of VA-55 aboard USS Valley Forge were tasked for strikes against airfields around Pyongyang. Navy AD’s were also a major asset in covering the Pusan Perimeter as well as the resultant Marine landings at Inchon and subsequent UN breakout and offensive that summer and fall.
By late November 1950 Dugout Dougie had, as was his wont, once again shown moronic contempt for everybody’s ideas but his own and hung the 1st Marine Division, the Army’s 31-RCT and the odd Brit or two (41 Commando Royal Maines) out to dry along the Manchurian border. When Mao Tsetse Dung decided he wanted to play too prompting the monumental UN fighting advance back the way they had come, Marine lore has it the “Chosin Frozen” made it down to Hungnam “…by the grace of God and a few Corsairs”. Fact is, the most effective thread of the blue blanket playing it's part in that Divine Intervention provided the mud Marines, Doggies and Them's a’servin’ of ‘is Majesty, the King on the long slog south were Brownshoe Navy Skyraiders launching from 7th Fleet flight decks out in the Sea of Japan. (…and, much as I hate to admit it, a lot of those F4U drivers were swabbies too…sorry, Chesty…)
Actually the Corps did not deploy its first Skyraider attack squadron in-country until VMA-121 took up residence at K-9/Pyongtaek, in mid-October of 1951, well after the initial phases of the War were past.
Once the Wolf Raiders were in the fight however, they made up for any time lost and became the most effective ground attack air support asset in theater; they didn’t earn the “Heavy Haulers” handle by sitting around playing acey-deucy.
Still, being land based as opposed to flying off flight decks, and without fleet wide commitments to other than strictly ground attack/interdiction, Marine attack Skyraiders could and did haul weapon loads often significantly heavier if less varied than their Navy counterparts.
The model builder needs to be careful to ascertain believable loadouts depending on all of these factors.
As far as selection goes, though, for either branch most air dropped or fired weapons utilized by the Department of the Navy in the last half of WWII could and usually would find their way into Skyraider weapons loads.
These would include but not necessarily be limited to:
- All box finned GP, fragmentation and incendiary bombs from 100-2000 pounds (very common)
- Tiny Tim rockets (occasionally)
- Aerial torpedoes (once only: AD-4’s of VA-195, 1951 raid on Hwachon Dam)
- 5” High Velocity Aerial Rockets (HVAR’s) and Anti-Tank Aerial Rockets (ATAR’s) (very common)
- 2.75” Folding Fin Aerial Rockets (FFAR’s) at the time called “Mighty Mouse” (Used toward the end of the war; probably only 7 shot pods at the time. I do not know if these were employed by the Marines during hostilities or not.)
- Napalm in repurposed WWII fuel drop tanks (very common)
- Depth charges (shipboard only, one would assume anyway; you never know, though, these Marines…if some were left lying around loose…well...gear’s gear, right?)
- Kitchen sink. (VA-195 aboard USS Princeton supposedly dropped one on Pyongyang. Actually, though, the photo record shows at least three Dam Buster planes- #’s 502, 507 and 511- with a bomb/sink combo attached. This sort of begs a couple of questions: 1. Was it just a single photo-op prop or had Princeton’s supply officer laid in an overabundance of sinks and was he trying to ditch the evidence? Maybe his mom worked for the Acme Sink Co. Hopefully their unit cost was less than the later USAF commodes @$150,000 per. On the other hand, if there was just the one, didn’t their armorers have better things to do than hustling it from one plane to another? Humph; it figures...officers…it was probably some kind of punishment detail…)
Since WWII is very well represented in all of the major scales the vast majority of these tiny pyrotechnics are readily sourced by us modelers. Many are included in other kits as well as being available via some truly excellent aftermarket castings and 3D printings from a broad selection of manufactures.
It’s not all beer and skittles though; there are some bothersome omissions. For instance:
- A/N M-30 100 pound GP bombs are not to be found anywhere except as aftermarket sets from Brengun. While considered inferior to the larger 250lb GP, both the Navy and Marine Corps did have large stocks of these early in the war and they were used to completion of the inventory. In fact, they formed a major part of the loadout of the very first Skyraider combat mission ever launched from Valley Forge on July 3, 1950.
- Significant by its absence is any representation at all of the ubiquitous 260lb A/N M-81 fragmentation bomb. This is particularly curious because it formed a major part of every USN/USMC/USAAF-USAF ground attack loadout from mid-1944 up to the early part of the Vietnam War. I mean, c’mon, the damned thing is right out in front of God and everybody all over the photo record of all three services during that extended period yet as of this writing no kit manufacturer or aftermarket designer of which I am aware seems to have picked up on this unique weapon. Indeed, to include them in my own 1/32 AD-4 diorama it was necessary to design and 3D print my own.
- Likewise almost utterly non-existent is the common everyday M-47 incendiary bomb. Used in their thousands by pathfinder B-29’s during LeMay’s fire-bombing of Japan and prevalent up through the later part of the Vietnam war where it was the primary “willie pete” marker included in almost every Sandy loadout, modelers are without any at all with one accidental exception: the Eduard 1/48 F6F-5 Hellcat kit. On those sprues are a very nice pair of M-47’s, but I don’t think the designers meant it; I’m suspicious they just grabbed a drawing of the first box finned bomb they saw and went for it. Happy accident perhaps-M47’s and GP bombs really don’t look that much alike actually-but there they are at least in 1/48th. Otherwise, nada.
- According to Navy unit cruise reports of the period, along with the aforementioned M-81 frag, the most employed Skyraider weapon was the 5” rocket of both the HVAR and ATAR style. We’re pretty much lousy with HVAR’s of varying quality in all major scales in both kits and as aftermarket items, but ATAR’s are another matter. There are some nice ones available as downloadable .stl files for 3D printed parts which are scalable for your needs, if you have the equipment to hand. Off the shelf, though, Paul Fisher of Fisher Models and Pattern produced some very nice ones in 1/32nd scale first for inclusion in his F9F-5 Panther kit, and then shortly before his business was lost in the Paradise fires in California he had made them available as stand-alone items. Sadly no longer available we are still waiting for another company to fill in that gap. Paul had also produced a nice set of Tiny Tim’s in his F9F-5 kit as well. I don’t think he ever got around to marketing them separately though. I’m not aware of any others out there; if anyone has a source, definitely let me know.
So, that’s pretty much it for Korea. Stay tuned for the next installment when we’ll talk about the Navy between the wars and up through their Vietnam time with the Skyraider.
Until then, build long and prosper.
