Guadalcanal 1942 in 20mm for Rapid Fire! rules - (Part 1) The aircraft for Henderson Field

 

One of the main hotspots of the Guadalcanal campaign was Henderson Field. In fact the entire campaign (August 42- February 43) is tied to this spot as it started with the construction of a Japanese airfield (Lunga point/Runga point or just "RXI"), so close to Australia and the allied lines of communication, that the US decided to take it over and rename it Henderson Field, honoring a fallen pilot at Midway. 

I´m still very short of Pacific models but the stuff I have (excluding the Tarawa island, SNLF and US LVT´s) fit reasonably to these scenarios as at the shelves there is a Japanese Betty bomber (to bomb the airfield), some Japanese landing craft and the Hoisho aircraft carrier with a number of different Japanese bombers and fighters like Vals and Zeroes used in the attacks. 

Most of the Japanese offensives at the island were destined to take back  Henderson field ( Tenaru, Edson´s Ridge,Matanikau and the October Henderson Field battles) and the airfield with some of its aircraft parked makes a visually nice corner in any of the above mentioned tabletop battles. In fact, small groups of japanese infantry managed to enter the airfield during the battle of Edson´s Ridge. 

The "airfield" was initially a simple strip but in the middle of the battles the americans managed to add a paralel smaller strip for fighter´s usage, before enlarging it at the end of the campaign and later on.

For the Cactus airforce up no now I could find the presence of SBD Dauntless, Avengers and Wildcats at the airfield but others like the P-39 and P-40 were also there at a certain time. 

I already have a Dauntless and an Avenger in parked mode but want a few more so the models at this post had to be made. 

The two Dauntless are (flight mode) Hasegawa and (parked) Testors. In fact they depict in the decals the same exact plane of John Leppla and John Liska, famous for its action at the battle of Coral Sea. Even if these two exact planes were not at Guadalcanal they are famous machines and very close in time, and so are ready for the larger strip of Henderson Field. 

This Devastator was also not at Guadalcanal, as it was put to bomber/torpedo training after the losses at Midway. Even so, one more aircraft on board of the Bogue aircraft carrier. 

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