Accurate Miniatures 1/48 SBD-5 (A-24B)

"The American Stuka"

     While the story of the Douglas Dauntless as the great shipboard divebomber of the Second World War, the airplane that sank more Japanese naval tonnage than any other, the airplane whose pilots single-handedly changed the outcome of the Pacific War, is well-known, the story of its adoption as a land-based dive bomber in a role similar to that played by the equally well-known Junkers Ju-87 Stuka, is less so.

      In 1940, Army planners saw the shape of the war to come in the form of the German blitzkrieg defeat of the western Allies and destruction of France in a six-week campaign.  The use of the Stuka as "flying forward artillery" for the armored formations was not lost on George C. Marshall and his staff.  How close American participation in the war was no one knew; whatever it was, it was not sufficient time to develop a distinct dive-bomber of their own.  The Navy was now taking delivery of the new Douglas dive bomber, and it appeared to easily meet the known specifications for such an airplane.  Accordingly, the Army Air Corps obtained a Dauntless and tested it, with the result being an order for 500 de-navalized Dauntlesses, to be known as the A-24A "Banshee."

      While several bomb groups were equipped with the A-24 in the next two years, and the subsequent SBD-5 Dauntless was also ordered as the A-24B, the only known combat use of the A-24 occurred in the spring of 1942, when the 3rd Bomb Group arrived in Australia and was thrown into the battle to slow down the Japanese advance through  the Dutch East Indies and New Guinea.  Unfortunately, the Army fliers had never learned to use the aircraft correctly; the kind of strike they flew was more glide than dive-bombing, little different than what might have been achieved had they been flying P-40s.  They were certainly incapable of the kind of close air support of ground troops Marine Corps Dauntless pilots routinely performed.  Additionally, the A-24 - like almost all dive-bombers -required a modicum of local air superiority in the form of escorting fighters.  By the time the Dauntless became immortal at Midway, its combat career with the Army was over.

      There was the problem of what to do with all these dive-bombers coming out of the Douglas factory.  They ended up as squadron hacks and target tugs at training fields around the country. This was still underutilization of a combat airplane.

      Following the invasion of North Africa and the surrender of the Vichy French forces there, it was decided to re-equip the French Air Force for participation in the coming invasions. As anyone can tell looking at photographs of the American types provided the French prior to the arrival of the P-47 in the fall of 1944, the P-39s and P-40s that equipped French fighter groups was not exactly first-rate - it was a good way to get rid of airplanes that had been supplanted by better designs in the USAAF.  The same was true for the Groupes Bombardement, many of which were equipped with the A-24B Banshee.  For more than a year after receiving these airplanes, the French crews were able to devote themselves to training - unlike the American Army Air Forces, the French learned to use the little dive bomber correctly, in vertical dives that insured accuracy.

      Following the invasion of Southern France in August 1944, the French Air Force returned to metropolitan France.  While the Allies drove north up the Rhone Valley to connect up with the forces that broken out of Normandy and go on to confront the main German enemy, the French were left with the responsibility of driving the rest of the Germans out of France.  This struggle - fought between September 1944 and the end of the war in May 1945, is little-known outside of France.  The Germans were not pushovers and the French armed forces were not that well-equipped and supported.  Hitler ordered the German forces holding the Atlantic ports that had been used as U-boat bases to hold their positions and turn them into fortress cities.  These ports held out to the final surrender in May.

      Among the French Air Force units supporting this struggle was Armee de l'Air d'Liberation Groupe de Chasse-Bombardement 1/18 "Vendee," equipped with 16 A-24Bs.  The group provided effective close air support to the Maquis in the plateau region of southwestern France, and undertook bombing missions against the Germans at Bordeaux.

      Eventually, in early 1945, the Groupes de Chasse-Bombardement were re-equipped with the P-47D Thunderbolt, capable of carrying a heavier load of bombs and guns than three A-24s combined.  The surviving A-24s ended their days at places like Meknes, in Algeria, performing target towing and other utility missions.

     It's doubtful there is a modeler who in the past five years managed to miss seeing the series of Dauntless kits released by Accurate Miniatures.  The kit is arguably the best one of the 2 best plastic model kits ever produced (the other contender being the Accurate Miniatures Avenger series). Other than some aftermarket decal sheets, I have never seen any other aftermarket sets - such as corrected engines, cockpits, etc. - created for this kit.  That's because they're unnecessary!  One can take this kit, and - assuming you can read the instructions (a necessary thing with A-M kits) - produce a show-stopper.