Rapid Fire! Dieppe 1942 in 20mm (part 1) - First group of RAF aircraft

On the 19th of August 1942 a  pair of Spitfire MkVb escort a Boston light bomber on the way to Dieppe. 

I'm starting here my series about Dieppe by mere chance. This week a new brand of 1/72nd diecast aircraft showed up in the tobacco shops. Its name is Luppa and quite nice they are. As usual the first one is quite cheap at less than 5€. Others will be around 10€, even so quite cheap as half of the collection is made of big bombers (not sure if in 1/72nd scale though) with examples being the British Wellington, the Japanese  Betty or the B-29 the rest being fighters. Even a giant Kawanishi H8K Emily is part of the collection. Well this one made me think what will I do with the same Hasegawa model stranded in the shelves for years, this of course if the big ones are 1/72nd scale. 

The Luppa models made me also build this Revell Boston MK III from the stash.

 As usual all glasses are painted from the inside which saves time as you dont need to paint or build the interiors or the pilots  but I like to leave the firer of the double 50 cal. to be seen.

Dieppe saw the introduction of the Spitfire MK IX, the only Spitfire model of the day that could rival with the FW 190 but there were still plenty of these older MK Vb. The idea of the RAF, besides bombing and laying smoke screens in the defences and landing area, was to lure the Luftwaffe for a big dogfight and reduce its numbers dramatically, something that was not achieved.  On the other hand this  battle is still the biggest one-day air battle in history. The RAF lost 106 planes (including 62 Spitfires) to Luftwaffe's 48.

The Luppa models comes in flying mode with a small base, perfect for wargaming, on the contrary of Altaya models which need a little assembly. The quality of the two brands is similar.

Next: the M-18s Hellcat of the 705th TD Battalion.