request: Bolton Paul Type A turret reference

Turret model progress pix

As promised here are some progress renders of the turret model so far, still some work to do with texturing etc. Some things may be slightly out of proportion due to having little or no comprehensive scale reference to work from, so a lot of things were just done by eye. There are a few things that I just had to guesstimate as there were a few gaps in my reference – colour for one thing as most of the interior details were modelled from stills of a black and white film.

cheers
alex

Cheers for that Mike – I found that half the problem is finding out what these missing bits are called so that you can ask what they look like 🙂 Have found some evidence of the soup can solenoid and think I’m on the right track, have been busy building the rest of the turret in the meantime, nearly got it right, as soon as its in a state to do a decent render I’ll post some more progress pix. One thing I’ve realised is that a lot of the gun details will be hidden or distorted behind the glass and panels of the turret so I’m less paranoid about getting the guns 100% as I was at the start

cheers

Hi Alex,

Very nice work!

More on sear release types can be found here:
http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?t=58434

The BP Type E turret uses a side mounted electric solenoid sear release at the rear of the weapon. It looks like a soup can and might be the same type might be used in this turret.

The casings and links are ejected through the bottom of the breach.

Happy Holidays,

Can anyone decipher this writing?

My Boulton Paul turret modelling project is slowly starting to come together – will post pix in the next fews days once I iron out a few things. In the meantime I wonder if anyone would care to hazard a guess as to what the writing on the side of the turret in the attached photo says? Its a detail from a still of an old air ministry training film showing an early, daylight version of the Defiant. I’ve tried every photoshop trick I know to enhance the image but cannot make out what it says. Anyone know if there was a standard warning or something stencilled onto the turret at this point or have any other examples – I know the one at elvington has a sticker on it saying please don’t touch but I assume that’s a recent addition 🙂

Happy Xmas BTW

cheers
alex

Browning 303s modelling WIP

Had a bit of a lull this weekend so thought I’d make a start modelling the Boutlon Paul type A turret. Decided to start with the guns, after spending a whole day looking at a ton of photos of Browning 303s I realised that just about every image was slightly different, even those images that I could be pretty confident where correctly labelled as 303 British air pattern it was still more like a spot the difference competition. Here are a few renders of the model so far. Obviously once the rest of the turret is modelled very little of these guns will be visible, but I thought I may as well make them as detailed as possible as they may well come in handy for other projects. Any obvious errors in these models please let me know before I go too far, always better to fix thnigs at this early stage rather than further down the line.

The reference I have for the ammunition feed is a few screen grabs I made from the air ministry film, operating the Boulton Paul turret. It’s obvious that the ammo is fed through some sort of chute with what look like toothed spindles that grip between the bullets but it’s too indistinct to make out any details. I have so far not been able to find any better reference of this system. Anyone got any photos or drawings that better show what is going on here? Also I have no idea what happens to the spent ammo and links, assume there is another chute that carries them away but can’t see what it is.

I realise that there is some sort of pneumatic trigger that fixes to the gun. I have seen photos of it elsewhere on this site but would really like to see how it is attached to the gun. In the film footage it looks like they might attach to the sideplate rather than the bottom of the gun. Can anyone enlighten me?

Thanks Cees had a look at that site and found a nice image of the turret I hadn’t seen before that was pretty helpful, also found several Air Ministry publications on the turrets but, and I may have just misread the site or not found the relevant info, it seems that the only way you can get to read these documents is to physically go down there. I would have assumed that there was some way you could order photocopies of documents or something but can’t see any facility for that. I’ve probably missed it though and will take another look at it, a bit distracted by work at the moment.

You can also try the RAFMuseum, try the navigator search function on their main site, they have some manuals I am sure

Cheers

Cees

BTW Does anyone recall if there was ever one of the comics like Air Ace Picture Library, War Picture Library, etc, that featured the Boulton Paul Defiant? They are often a very good source of inspiration for dynamic compositions and camera angles and often show surpising little details.

Edit:
Ok found one already Commando No 572 (and reprinted as 1604) Upside Down Ace.
Bidding for one on ebay right now (think I may have become an ebay addict)

Edit: on second thoughts I have removed the image as I don’t want to infringe DC Thompson copyright

Hi Mark, I had intended to contact you once I’d got all my ducks in a row – I’ve ordered a load of 2nd hand books and magazines from Ebay after reading the publications list at the BP assoc site and thought that once they’d all turned up I’d have a better idea of where the gaps in my reference were and would be able to be more specific in my requests.

At the moment it’s looking like I will have enough coverage of the airframe to be able to model the defiant itself – thanks to the Pat McCaffery drawings supplied by John, however it’s the turret that is proving elusive. I had a few ideas for illustrations based on a finished BPD model (a daylight shot from an angle above the pilot looking back down the fuse as a 109 tries to sneak up behind it and the turret opening fire on it, and a nightfighter shot of it taking on a bomber from below) but the one that most excites me is a closeup on the turret, looking down the barrels into the eyes of the gunner with a 109 or two coming up behind him. In order to do this I’m going to need to make a pretty decent model of the turret. From all the reference I’ve accumulated so far – thanks to everyone here who have been so helpful – I’m still not confident that I have enough coverage of the turret to be able to model it accurately enough. I really need a better understanding of how the cupola is put together, the gun mount and sights. I was really hoping to find some engineering drawings – similar to the lambert ones above that would show more detail or progress photos showing stages of a turret reconstruction that might give me a clearer idea of some of the parts in isolation and how they fit together. I suspect that the controls will not really be visible from the angles I’m thinking of rendering the model so I’m less concerned with them. The fact that everything inside the turret seems to be painted black makes things even harder – all the ref photos are black and white so it’s difficult to distinguish the true shape things when trying to plan the model, but when it comes to rendering these details may all get lost in shadow anyway. However in my experience it’s always better to have more detail in a model than you think you’ll need than get to rendering time and wish you spent more time detailing an obscure part that is suddenly very prominent due to your exciting new camera angle.

If you could help in locating any reference images/plans of the turret I’d be most grateful.

BTW I love the idea of the Beaverette, never come across that before, might have to look into that one as well when this is all over.

cheers
alex

Hi,
Seems I’m a little late to this. Will help if I can, please ask.
As already mentioned, there were various versions of the A turret for aircraft, gunnery training on a static rig, or mobile on a Beaverette scout car, and the shipping example, as above.
I can contact the Boulton Paul Heritage Project for you if you need to, though patience will be required waiting for a reply.
I run their website at www.boultonpaul.com

Mark

Sorry James had already committed to buy the book from ebay when I saw your message. Not shy per se, just acutely aware that I’m pretty dense when it comes to all things aircrafty and therefore slightly overwhelmed by the depth of knowledge displayed by everyone else here and wanted to make sure I had a better idea of what specific reference would be most helpful to me before reaching out to an author. When I do an illustration job I always try to read up as much on the subject as time will allow before getting my reference together and so approach this ‘non job’ in the same way.

Sorry that last bit was confused, was just wondering if the scale drawings in the book ‘1/48th scale plans set 1’ were effectively the same as the ones in the mushorom 6117 BPD book, in which case no point in getting hold of both. Sorry I tend to use the word pix for both photos and drawings.

cheers
alex

Have just managed to order a 2nd hand copy of the mushroom book from Ebay Germany, think I got slaughtered on the xchange rate though, ouch.

Well, if you will use e-bay rather than talking to the author or publisher… :rolleyes:

Can’t remember which site I found the BPD 4 views on, might have been a russian site, I googled ‘boulton paul defiant plans’ on google images and the same two sets of images come up in several places, the better ones seem to be from your mushroom book as they look exactly like the ones on page 16 and 33 of the pdf ‘taster’ on the mushroom website.

We had an ISP take down a page offering our material. If anyone sees more, we’d like to know. It’s theft.

I will definately get in touch with Mark, although think I’ll wait for his book to arrive so I can do some homework beforehand.

Why so shy? You are just making work for yourself. Being here’s no different to talking to the author/s. Often the same thing.

What publication is the air ministry diagram of the turret in? Is it the 1/48th scale plans set 1 or are they just the same pix as in 6117?

Not in the plans set, there’s a copy in our book. The original we got to is at the RAF Museum. You’ve lost me at the end there. The photos are in the book – there are no photos in the plans set. Which photos are we talking about?

Drop me a PM with your e-mail, and I may have some high res pictures for you.

Regards,

Mike. These days I’m using Cinema 4D for 3d modelling & rendering although looking at maybe getting modo if I’m going to be doing more aircraft as I hear good things about its modelling and rendering. I do a lot of digital painting as well in Corel Painter and photoshop. Usually my illos end up being a mix of everything, depends on the client and what style they want.

My Gloster Gladiator (and a rather sad looking mammoth) at CGportfolios.
http://alex-tomlinson.cgsociety.org/gallery/

my blog with a mix of editorial and film stuff – scroll down for a couple of aircraft bits.
http://alextheillustrator.blogspot.com/

What program do you use for your illustrations?

Have just managed to order a 2nd hand copy of the mushroom book from Ebay Germany, think I got slaughtered on the xchange rate though, ouch.

Can’t remember which site I found the BPD 4 views on, might have been a russian site, I googled ‘boulton paul defiant plans’ on google images and the same two sets of images come up in several places, the better ones seem to be from your mushroom book as they look exactly like the ones on page 16 and 33 of the pdf ‘taster’ on the mushroom website.

I will definately get in touch with Mark, although think I’ll wait for his book to arrive so I can do some homework beforehand.

The lambert drawings are quite simplified (and without the clamshell doors)but they are at least orthographic which makes them easier to get basic proportions right, whereas every other drawing I’ve seen has been vaguely isometric and the bit you really want to see is always hidden. Also the first decent side and top view drawings I’ve seen of the brownings, much easier to model from than dark photographs of matte black metal which is all I could previously find.

What publication is the air ministry diagram of the turret in? Is it the 1/48th scale plans set 1 or are they just the same pix as in 6117?

Ian, I had intially tried to get the mushroom book but found it was out of print, then decided that must of the drawings in it were already circulating online so decided it was less of a priority. I’m still trying to get a copy second hand for the good colour profiles and background info though.

PM Mark Ansell here on the forum, and he might be able to help.

If anyone is circulating our drawings online, they’ll be in trouble.

The photos of the turret, including a couple of the interior are not available online, except in my thread here. 😉

http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?t=31021

Mark, I’m sure, would be delighted to hear from you, and don’t be shy. I have some material, but not as much as Mark.

Were you to make a genuine attempt to get a copy of our book, I might be able to send larger .jpgs of any pics I might have to hand. 😉

The Lambert plans here are crude in detail, the cupola is presumably ship type, not the usually misunderstood Definat type with the camshell rear doors.

Best Defiant drawings are Pat McCafrey’s, as John’s said, published in Scale Models several times. The set includes a cutaway, very good on the turret, as I recall copying it for a drawing exercise.

We (MMP) also published the Air Min diagram on the turret, best single source.

I’m one of the MMP publishing team.

Turretboy, thank you so much that is exactly the sort of thing I was hoping to find and I can already see it answers a lot of the questions I had – and raises a whole load more 🙂 I definately need to go back and redo the browning 303’s that I’d tentatively made a start on.

I will post wips once I get properly underway on this project.

cheers
alex

Ian, I had intially tried to get the mushroom book but found it was out of print, then decided that must of the drawings in it were already circulating online so decided it was less of a priority. I’m still trying to get a copy second hand for the good colour profiles and background info though.

Linrey – I hadn’t heard that but it does seem strange that there isn’t the same volume of info as freely available on British turrets as there seems to be on American stuff. As an illustrator I have often found it easier to get obscure reference on American stuff than British, I think it has a lot to do with the American attitude to ‘freedom of information’, they seem to be much more open and conscious of the need to record info and make it available to the public as a right. Probably something to do with having a constitution, lots of stuff like USGS geographical data etc is freely available but similar stuff (from the ordinace surevey) in the uk you have to pay for.

Hi John, I checked the book/magazine list at the BP association website and have been been going through ebay etc trying to locate various copies of the more usueful looking publications with mixed success. I have managed to buy a copy of Scale Aviation Modeller Internation vol 3 issue 1 which I’m hoping is the right one, although it hasn’t arrived yet. I was hoping to source enough reference without having to pester the heritage museum – to be honest I wasn’t sure of the best way to approach them. At the moment this project is only a personal one and I’ll have to find the time between commission deadlines to fit it in, there is a chance it’ll come to nothing so didn’t want anyone to go out of their way and think me a time waster.