Sopwith Dolphin - armament procured

Armament programme under way

My Mini World guns have arrived from Hannants and they look superb. The detail is amazing, and the Lewis guns even have etched brass parts for the sights etc. (this is 1/72nd scale, remember). Mini World is a Ukrainian company, I see, from their instruction leaflet. I don't know what drives the Ukraine to produce so many high-quality WWI scale models, but I hope it continues.

I won't be able to use a lot of these bits, unfortunately. It's a pity, but according to my photographic sources (Windsock 54, конечно, and Osprey Aircraft of the Aces 48)  the sights weren't fitted on the wing-mounted guns, and that's pretty much that. Fair enough, though. You can understand the thinking of 87 Sqn on this point. So the only etched bits I'll be using are the ones representing the little leather handles on the magazines; but this is a nice detail itself. On your typical injection-moulded Lewis at this scale, this feature is represented by what you could only call a blob.

As for the Vickers, they come with a belt of ammo each. Fantastic! I'm definitely going to use those, and have them feeding into the guns from the ammo boxes. And I won't even need to paint them. A bit of fudging will be needed, because the ammo feeds won't quite be wide enough for them (what with the overscale thickness of the plastic card). But I think it should just about work.

Just got to finish those decals first...