'Flight' from MilesR: Zero's and Wildcats

Initially, I was a bit stumped on what to submit for the Flight Bonus round and then I remembered I had some 1/300 WW2 Early Pacific aircraft miniatures to paint up.  These were some of the first mini's I purchases when getting into this crazy hobby way back in 2009.  The models are from Heroics and Ros.

I've always been interested in the early war pacific, especially carrier operations so purchased aircraft that were carrier based.

 The Japanese force consists of three Zero fighters and 2 Val Dive Bombers.  The Zero was a legendary fighter in the early Pacific war.  It's edge came from it's maneuverability but that required an experienced pilot to really exploit.  As the ranks of those experienced pilots thinned so did the edge the zero had on it's US opponents.

For the US, there is a similar force consisting of three Wildcat fighters and 2 Douglas TBD Devastators.  The Devastators were torpedo dive bombers that were viewed as deathtraps for their crews - very slow and not maneuverable.  They also had the additional handicap of using the Mark 13 Torpedo, which proved to be ineffective - only 1 in 3 actually ran after being dropped and of those only a handful ever detonated.

I really enjoyed mining this "ancient" vein of ore from the lead pile and may even get them out for a game of "Check Your Six!"

That's 10 total aircraft in 6mm scale.