Desert Blenheim

[Fitz]

This is yet another of Roman Troyan's 1/200 scale models, up-scaled to 1/144.
It's the Bristol Blenheim Mk.I, and I've painted it in a colour scheme suitable for North Africa and the Mediterranean.

It was very fast for its day, but alas for the crews, its day passed before WWII kicked off, and with its rather pathetic defensive armament and against much faster enemy fighters, losses of Blenheims were very heavy.

[Poiter50]

Same problem in Malaya and Singapore even though they already knew of the defects.

[SJWi]

Not just a problem with bombers in the Far East. Brewster Buffalo fighters vs Zeros. That was never going to end well for the RAF!

[Iain R]

I do love that!

As for their performance in the far east, problem was we had nothing else really to send out at this point, Malaya was fourth priority behind home defence, North Africa and supplying Russia. Even when better stuff did arrive, tactics was a key issue; stuff that worked well against the Luftwaffe didn't correspond to Japanese tactics as well, not to mention the performance of aircraft in hot, humid air differs markedly from how they performed in Europe. Hence the arrival of Spitfires was not the immediate "silver bullet" against the Japanese fighters (which weren't Zeros, which belonged to the Navy, fighter aircraft deployed in Malaya were Ki-27 Nates and Ki-43 Oscars; the latter being visually similar, hence the appelation of the term "Army Zero" at the time) which many assumed they would be...