Yakkety Yak After Action

A pair of Yak-7s, nicely painted by Misc. Minis

Yesterday for the Check Your 6! Southwestern Ohio group I ran a strictly hypothetical encounter, which featured the Yak-7 vs. the Heinkel He 100 (and found on the Downloads page and entitled Yakkety Yak). 

The scenario calls for five players, but since this encounter is a figment of my imagination, one could remove two of the Yak-7s, or add a pair of Heinkels, just to have a little fun or to adjust to the number of available players (we usually give a pair of planes to each player).

It is a bit of a bounce on bounce scenario, with four Heinkels closing on a pair of Yaks. A few random turns later four Yaks drop down from the clouds practically on top of the Germans.

The first game's initial setup

We ran the scenario twice as the first game was a rather short affair. The aircrew quality really showed through, but also the poor robustness rolls led to the destruction of three Yaks within the first handful of turns. So we changed the aircrew qualities with random die rolls, which yielded a result of all crews being skilled. This, on top of the Soviet "rabbits" changing tactics in the second game from running to turning into his foe, made for a heck of a game. The German players really danced about the board, and they had to due to being outnumbered 3:2. One turn saw the Yaks clustered together, and I thought the Germans would have a tough time the next turn. I took my pair of Heinkels and dover through and below the reversing Soviets, which also brought the other pair of Heinkels into a pair of perfect firing solutions. Our dice were fairly meh, but it did scatter the Yaks, and caused some damage. After seventeen turns, with one Yak shot down and another suffering an airframe damage (and one other running out of ammo) we called the game. No damages to the Heinkels resulted in a German victory.

The "rabbits" - my pair of Heinkels, have dove through the Yaks...

...setting up a pair of nice opportunities for the remaining Heinkels

And then the dance really begins with a decent amount of separation

Jamie obtains another great firing solution, but Mr. Robusto (Matt) makes his rolls

I tweaked the aircrew ratings a bit and have uploaded the revised version of Yakkety Yak. It was a fun game (both games for me - I had three kills in the abbreviated first game).

Yak-7s - Raiden Miniatures painted by Misc Minis.

He 100s - Table Top Flights painted by me, decals are Scale Specialties.

Mat - Deep Cut Studio.

Heinkel Completion

Ready for the table, my hack job on the never used in combat but a really damn cool plane: the Heinkel He 100D!

A schwarm of Table Top Flights Heinkels are painted and decals applied. I am happy with the end result for the most part - the color choices worked well for the schwarzgrun and the hellblau, but the Vallejo dunkelgrun seems a bit off (the planes are slightly less dark in person). The Army Painter Satin sheen is a bit much, so I will hit the planes with some matt varnish. The decals are all Scale Specialties, sourced from I-94, and intended for early war Bf 109s, but they did the trick rather well on the Heinkels, although adding the swastika on the tail was a pain in the arse as there as not a lot of room to work with.

I have two additional Heinkels that are nearly completed, but one has a bent wing to straighten out, while the other has a less than smooth engine cover from the original print. But all they need is to have the badge insignia added, a bit of decal softener, then a coat of varnish, and then my Heinkel He 100 project is complete. Oh wait, I need opposing aircraft as well! UPDATE (11/4/25) - I completed the last pair of Heinkels - the wife's hairdryer did the trick on the warped wing.

I now have created two scenarios to use with the Heinkels, the latest being "Propaganda Jager" which can now be found on the Downloads page that features some French planes my gaming buddy Matt has. Look for some after action reports in the future.

I-94 Decals

For my next batch of decals I ordered a few sheets from I-94 Enterprises. I believe I am turning into a decal hoarder, but that's another post....

For my order with I-94, I was looking to pick up some items to help complete some projects and move forward on others. I have used I-94 decals before and they are quite good, and quite affordable. From what I gather what I-94 offers is mostly from the older Beacon range. I-94 also carries the Scale Specialties range, which includes some very unique and useful items, at a higher price point, but the sheets contain markings for numerous aircraft in most cases.

My first sheet is simply blue lettering, which also includes blue numbers. The blue letters are needed to complete my Swedish J 29s for my 1950s Baltic Encounter scenario. Not certain how much additional use I will get from this sheet, and while I could have simply left the letters off the miniatures, I wanted to have a "more complete" looking set of Tunnans.

The second sheet, having black lettering and numbers for United States naval aircraft, pushes me closer towards my Operation Torch project, the sheet also having some letters and numbers for Coral Sea USN aircraft. One of the items I have been working on is a small scenario book and guide to the American Atlantic portion of Torch and have about eight scenarios in mind.

A number of planes can be decaled with just this one sheet

The next two sheets are Scale Specialties offerings. The first is one I need for Japanese naval aircraft for Wake Atoll - I went with the Hiryu/Soryu sheet as that will work for both the Pearl Harbor Second Strike scenario and a few scenarios I have put together for my Wake scenario book. The sheet includes insignia and aircraft marking for Zekes, Vals, and Kates.

While not having a lot of Spanish Civil War decals, there are plenty for the early WWII period Messerschmitts

The second Scale Specialties sheet I ordered is catered to Bf 109s for both the Spanish Civil War and early WWII. However, I will be using these for my half dozen Heinkel He 100s. As these planes were never used in combat, taking a few oddball squadron insignia from the 109s doesn't really feel that off to me.

Heinkel He 100 - Part II

Some months ago I posted a bit about the Heinkel He 100, including some rough stats for Check Your 6! You can see that post HERE. Also, I have created a scenario, titled The Factory Defense Unit, which utilizes the He 100, that can be found on the Downloads page. 

A beautiful replica at the Planes of Fame Museum

I finally pulled out some planes that needed a coat of primer, including the Heinkels. The details on the Table Top Flights planes really pop once primer has been applied (in this case I used Tamiya Fine Surface Light Gray). 

With primer in place...

...and with a thin coat of Vallejo Air Schwarzgrün.

I need to do a bit of cleanup of a few nubs on the planes before adding more coats of paint. I have found that I like using the Vallejo Air series - while the Air line is intended for airbrushes, I have found that using this thinner paint with a brush works well and avoids some of the issues of a thicker acrylics, if one does not mind doing a few coats. 

Above we have a second coat of Schwarzgrün applied, and a couple of relatively sloppy coats of Hellblau applied to the undersurfaces. A third coat of Schwarzgrün will be added and at that time I will clean up the delineation between the upper and lower surfaces.

Now the third coat has been applied to the upper surfaces, and ready for the RLM71 Dunkelgrün splinter pattern after some touchup.

I am not enamored with the Vallejo Dunkelgrün from a color perspective - it is barely discernable and the color seems "off" a bit. My splinter pattern is fairly random and probably not very historical in appearance, but as one needs to look closely to even notice, I am not overly concerned. I have painted the exhaust pipes in natural steel, and have added a bit more touchup to the undersurfaces, while adding in my typical light blue canopy (Foundry Bavarian Cornflower Blue Shade 73C).

Next step is to order decals. I do want to obtain white numbers along with some sort of squadron insignia. I might go full on hypothetical by using some Sieben Schwaben Spiele Decals from their Dockfighters range. 

The Heinkel He 100

One of the more intriguing "what-if" aircraft of the Second World War was the Heinkel He 100, also known, albeit incorrectly, as the He 113. The Heinkel company, having been denied a large production order for its He 112, was determined to capture the world speed record and prove that the company could make a competitive fighter for the Luftwaffe (some would argue that the He 112 was superior to the Bf 109 but political considerations prevented the He 112 from going into mass production). The result of Heinkel's determination was the sleek, and for its time, extremely fast He 100. 

The He 100 had some innovative features, such as a reduction in parts to ease production, a fully retractable tailwheel to reduce drag in flight, and a wing evaporation cooling system. Performance was promising, being faster than the Messerschmitt Bf 109, the Heinkel being equipped with a Daimler-Benz DB601M engine, but having thinner wings and less drag meant a much higher speed as well as a greater operational range than the Bf 109. The He 100 was purported to be more maneuverable than the Messerschmitt as well. The He 100 production series (the D model) was intended to carry one 20mm MG/FFM and two 13mm MG131 (one source indicates the 15.1mm MG151) or two 7.92mm MG17, but the vulnerable wing cooling system was not used. I would give the He 100, in Check Your 6! terms, a rating of A5 + 2, R1, and armed with 1xLVC and 2xHMG or 2xLMG. The Heinkel had a slower climb rate than the Bf 109, which, in looking at the historical data, yields the He 100 a climb rating of 28. 

The Heinkel 100 did go into production, albeit in very small numbers - twenty-five total machines were built, including prototypes. The planes were at one point painted in standard Luftwaffe colors (RLM70 Schwarzgrün and RLM71 Dunkelgrün upper surfaces in a splinter pattern with RLM65 Hellblau undersides) and given fake squadron insignia and heavily photographed in an effort to fool the Allies into thinking that the Germans had yet another sleek fighter in its arsenal. There were at least three squadron insignias used - A lighting bolt type of arrow (as illustrated above), a shield bearer a sword stuck through "Churchill's hat," and a crescent moon character smoking a pipe, the latter used for the fake night fighter squadron (seen below). In fact, all three squadrons were the same planes - the squadron markings were used in rotation to give the impression that at least three squadrons existed. In reality, the He 100 was used mostly for factory defense, flown by Heinkel pilots, and did not see action during the war.

Looks a lot like the Kawasaki Ki-61 Hien which took its design from the Heinkel He 100

The Heinkel He 100, much like many other promising German designs, did not reach a greater status due to the lack of foresight from German leadership, who preferred to limit their single seat fighter production to just the Messerschmitt range, and later the Focke-Wulf. The Heinkel's advanced cooling system was also a concern from both a maintenance and vulnerability perspective. Regardless of its limited production run, it would make an interesting what-if aircraft to put on the tabletop, which is why I have six Table Top Flights Heinkels awaiting painting!