Having had the pleasure to read the opus on the “Hellhawks” unit of P-47’s in the European theatre in WWII (“Thunderbolts of the Hell Hawks - 365th” FG) – so I am pretty stoked to see this – a large – and I mean large - set of 48th scale decals from Barracuda studios about to hit the market to match the aircraft featured in the book – With all of the seamless research conducted in making the book and the quality of Barracuda’s releases together this could be one of the decal releases of the year.. We have all of the profiles of the concerned aircraft here for you now...
Direct from
Roy at Barracuda studios comes this announcement of their new decals in this
special release…
Barracuda Studios are proud and excited to announce
the impending release of the long promised decal sheet featuring 21 subjects
from our recent book "Thunderbolts of the Hell Hawks", the history of
the 365th Fighter Group in WWII.
BC48036 Thunderbolts of
the Hell Hawks 1/48th scale
This special
decal release will be a limited run and will not be reprinted. Once they are
gone, they are gone. All but one of the subjects, Coffee's Pot, have never been
done in decal form before. Coffee's Pot was released a number of years ago by
another deal manufacturer, but this new sheet has the complete and accurate
markings, due to new photos not seen before.
Don Barnes
spent 2 years digging through almost a thousand unpublished photos and piecing
together the markings for these Thunderbolts. All aircraft feature complete and
accurate pilot and crew names, as well as all mission markings and serial and
data blocks. Nose art has been meticulously recreated from original photos,
often with the help of the pilots that flew the actual aircraft. Twenty one
pilots were interviewed and many were very helpful in putting together the
story of these brave men and their P-47s.
The 365th
were part of the 9th Air Force, and they did a lot of the down and dirty ground
attack work that took such a heavy toll on the men and machines of the 9th Air
Force. The Hell Hawks were often the first combat unit into the area, sometimes
taking over airfields that the Luftwaffe had left mere hours earlier.
The Hell
Hawks were the unit that discovered the breakout at the Falaise Gap, and were
instrumental in raining destruction down on the armored units attempting to
escape there.
The sheet
contains 21 aircraft from the book, ranging from the early days of the 365th
and their OD/NG Razorbacks, until the last days of the war, when they had the
time to adorn their aircraft with extravagant and colorful nose art. The sheets
are printed by Cartograf, one of the
best in the business, and features over 14 spot printed colors and full color
process as well. This means that the nose art will be fully shaded like the
originals. The sheet is also supported with full national markings and stencils
to build two complete aircraft. Given the huge range of star and bar sizes
carried by P-47s, this is a sizable sheet. We may make extra P-47 national
markings and stencil sheets available separately later on.
A word about
the cost. The price for this large format sheet will be about $22.95 in the US.
Outside of the US, it may cost more due to duties and VAT. Yes, this sheet is a
bit on the expensive side. Some thought was given towards breaking it up into a
number of separate sheets, but with so many colors, plus the 4 color process to
render the shaded noseart, the regular sized sheets would have been in the
17-18 dollar range. For a few dollars more, why not get them all?
Once you
read the book, I think you will want to build more than one 365th FG P-47, as their
exploits are really quite amazing and inspirational.
We have more previews here of the aircraft profiles on this sheet
This sheet will very soon be is now available to purchase thru Barracuda Studios directly
In addition, the new F4U Corsair sets and the new Tempest
wheels (all to 1/32nd scale) are now up and available for pre-sale on their website.
