Friday 20 December 2013

New Rising Decals Trio


A veritable cornucopia of colourful decals for Japanese aircraft in 1/72nd scale is provided by these three new sets from Rising Decals. First up is RD72059 with the continuation of Japanese Naval Carrier Bombers Part II containing markings for four 'Kates', two B5N1 and two B5N2, and three B6N2 'Jills'


  • B5N2 of 601st Ku, Zuikaku 1944. A torpedo carrier in standard dark green finish.
  • B5N2 of Zuikaku at Peal Harbor in Dec 1941. A second wave bomb carrier with command markings and 'sunray' stripes on the upper wings.
  • B5N1 of Yokosuka Ku Maintenance Training Unit in Summer 1941. Silver with red tail and fuselage arrow marking. Although described as natural metal finish some B5N1 were painted aluminium so check your references carefully.
  • B5N1, another Yokosuka Ku maintenance trainer in silver with red  tail and fuselage length red stripe
  • B6N2 of 653rd Ku, 263rd Hikotai off Zuikaku in June 1944 with the curious character 'naka' (中 middle, centre, sometimes used for China) positioned on the fuselage Hinomaru.
  • B6N2 of 210th Ku at Kushira, Japan in March 1945 - a torpedo carrier.
  • B6N2 of Okinawa Ku, April 1945.


A useful set offering some welcome alternative markings for Hasegawa's ex-Mania 'Kate' and especially for Fujimi's 'Jill'. As always with Rising excellent colour printing and saturation. Bear in mind if building the Pearl Harbor 'Kate' that although the colour call out given is for standard IJN Green the matt dark green paint on the aircraft downed during the attack has been reported to be in the range FS 34079-34064-34084. Overall and under surface colours were the amber grey factory colour, approximately slightly lighter than FS 16350.


Next is Part II of Japanese Army Light Bombers as RD72060 providing markings for three Ki-30 'Ann', three Ki-36 'Ida' and three Ki-51 'Sonia'. Very appealing this one, with some colourful and unusual insignia.


  • Ki-30 of the 2nd Chutai, 31st Sentai flown by a named pilot over Burma in early 1942. In green and brown camouflage with command band and victory markings.
  • Ki-30 of Dokuritsu 74th Chutai in the Philippines in 1942. In dark green with the uncommon 'flag' type fuselage Hinomaru set on a white rectangle. This might have been related to or reflected by the Naval General Staff Order No.162 of 21 August 1942 regarding the Army-Navy agreement for distinguishing markings on aeroplanes  which stated at III.B that "the red roundels on the fuselage of camouflaged airplanes will have a white rectangle or roundel as background."
  • Ki-30 of the 6th Sentai in Manchuria in plain grey-green scheme. Curiously Rising suggest GSI Creos (Gunze) # 35  IJN Grey for this and other aircraft on the sheet. That is a definite blue-grey, slightly more bluish in appearance than FS 36373.
  • Ki-36 of an unknown unit, said to be in the China area circa 1939. The square marking on the tail is a stylised Katakana character 'ro' (ロ). Other aircraft in the same unit were marked 'i' (イ), 'ni' (ニ), and 'ho' (ホ). The aircraft is depicted in a tri-tone scheme* with green and brown added to the basic grey-green but it is probable that three colours were applied on the upper surfaces, either khaki, olive green and red-brown or khaki, olive green and indigo. The  interesting wing leading edge line of sight bearing markings are included as decals too.   
  • Ki-36 of Dokuritsu 74th Chutai at Baguio in the Philippines in 1942. A companion to the Ki-30 in dark green with the same rectangular 'flag' fuselage Hinomaru and a yellow fuselage band.
  • Ki-36 said to be of the Dokuritsu 73rd Chutai in the China area circa 1941. A colourful bird in grey-green with red tail feathers and blue and white fuselage bands.
  • Ki-51 of an unknown unit, said to be a Tokko unit during the Okinawa campaign of Spring 1945. In a reticulated green mottle with colourful cherry blossom and wings marking on the tail.
  • Ki-51 of 3rd Chutai, 26th Sentai at Dagua, New Guinea in 1944. In an interesting worn and hybrid scheme that will provide a satisfying challenge to paint.
  • Ki-51 of  2nd Chutai, 26th Sentai at But, New Guinea in 1943.



A very colourful set!

As usual with Rising all the schemes on this sheet are interesting and well-chosen, providing lots of opportunity to model something different from the kits suggested. Hasegawa's ex-Mania 'Sonia' is still the only game in town but a good one. Fujimi's Ki-36 is an enjoyable classic with ripe poential for enhancement and AZ Models has issued a revised and improved version of Pavla's Ki-30. I doubt we shall see 'Ann' from Fujimi or Hasegawa any time soon but one can live in hope and these decals certainly sharpen that aspiration.


Last but not least is another set to cover Japanese historical civil aviation subjects as  RD72062 J-Birds Part III with markings for a Douglas DC-3, a Junkers F-13 with sea boots and a Tiger Moth. There are bonus markings for DC-2 too!

  • Douglas DC-3 Dakota J-BDOL 'Kashiwa' of Dai Nippon Koku Kabushiki Kaisha circa 1940 in overall natural metal finish with large black codes, the airline logo, aircraft name and Douglas trademarks. Alternative finishing details for this aircraft are provided at the Rising website together with photos of the original.
  • Junkers F-13 J-BAZG 'Dai Nana Giyuu' of Nippon Koku-Yuso Kenkyusho om the early 1930s in natural metal and black with black and white codes. Rising offer a separate resin modification set for this subject.
  • De Havilland DH.82A Tiger Moth J-APAE 'Hayabusa' of the Kwantung Provincial Police, Manchuria circa 1930s in overall aluminium dope finish with black codes and two options of police 'sunburst' insignia in red and yellow or black and yellow.
That Japanese Police Tiggie has to be one of the 
more unusual options for the classic biplane!


A very nice set filling another gap in options for anyone looking for unusual and off-beat schemes for classic aircraft. Fortuitously Airfix have a newly-tooled DC-3 and Tiger Moth scheduled for 2014 and if they are anything like their recent new tool releases they will be worth waiting for. With special thanks to Mirek for providing the opportunity to preview these excellent decal sets.

*The Arii (ex-LS) kit of the Ki-46 depicts a similar tri-tone scheme but shows three distinct upper surface colours (as opposed to two colours combined with the overall grey-green). These are described in the instructions as 'deep green colour' (nou ryoku shoku or ko midori iro 濃緑色), 'tea brown color' ( cha kasshoku 茶褐色) and 'light brown colour' ( unusually written as  usu cha iro 薄茶色 - the first character 薄 usually means weak or diluted and I have seen this colour term described as 'buff' in an old Japanese dictionary, whereas a more common term for light brown is tan kasshoku - 淡褐色. I think there is a distinction to be made here between a light brown per se and a genuine buff colour or true khaki). All three colours need to be mixed from various combinations of the basic Gunze (GSI Creos) colours green, yellow, brown and black. This is not to suggest the descriptions or mixing ratios are correct but only to note and record it for information. The colour term cha kasshoku is an interesting one as I have seen it translated variously as tea brown, yellowish brown, dark reddish brown, liver colour and brown slightly tinged  with black!

Image credits: All © 2013 Rising Decals



4 comments:

Mark Smith said...

Nick,

These look superb and are great choices; hope at least some appear soon in 1/48. As to the 'naka' character on the B6N fuselage hinomaru, I had thought these were for training purposes, with pilot's initials in temporary paint to judge deck landings, etc. Whether accurate or not,this memory probably came from reading about this practice being used in 653rd, an example of which was seen in a Model Art foldout showing A6M5 653-67, which had the katakana character on the sun disc underwing also.

Merry Christmas to all who enjoy this blog, and to its Executive Officer - you've brought us a lot to enjoy this year, Nick. Thanks.

Straggler 脱走兵 said...

Thanks Mark!

Best regards
Nick

Jacob Terlouw said...

Hi Nick,
These new decal set Light Bombers part-2 look very interesting. I'll certainly buy them! (The kits are not that easy to find anymore.)

Best Seasonal Wishes to you and all of the readers of this fantastic blog!

Jacob Terlouw

Ken Glass said...

Thanks for the notice on these sheets, Nick.

Regards,
Ken Glass