Richthofen and Snoopy a kit bashing fun adventure | O Gauge Forum (2024)

Richthofen is one of the best examples of a 19th century romantic and noble gentleman to fight in the "Great War." And with a recent trend in military aircraft diesels, I was inspired to pay tribute
to my childhood hero, the Red Baron. Of course, one cannot forget Snoopy and his famous Sunday comic adventures in dealing with the "ace of aces." After searching Ebay, a Lionel TMCC GP-20, an animated bobbing head boxcar and a MTH N5C caboose arrived and were given new decoration and purpose.

Interesting model, but I would whole-heartedly disagree with the assessment that Richthofen was a "19th century romantic and noble gentleman". This was a guy that used to land near his victim's crashed aircraft and retrieve bits to go with his collection of silver cups he had made, engraved, and displayed celebrating each of his victories. He was a ruthless killer that made his reputation taking down near-defenseless two-seater observation planes. He made an art of it, I'll give him that, but when Roy Brown killed him, the Canadian did many Allied airman a great service.

The Germans marked their aircraft with variations of the cross during World War One. The decals I used are two examples from 1915 to 1917.

From Manfred, "It is a pity that my collection of trophies contains not a single Russian." Not to lessen the honor, he did stop at sixty due to a wartime silver shortage.

Yes, Roy Brown is given credit as the air victor and maybe so, but ballistic studies give merit to those Australians on the ground with their AA guns. It is a single bullet which just adds to his legend.

Thanks for your comments.

Well, I think this is a classic example of "One side's terrorist is the other side's freedom fighter."

You can find a similar diversity of opinion over Robert E. Lee, or, more recently, the January 6th insurrectionists and/or the current Presidential contestants. I firmly believe everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion . . . as long as they are willing to similarly tolerate the opinions of others. While I would not personally choose the historical Red Baron for honors, I can certainly understand why one could view and credit him as an exemplar of that era . . . or as a bloody-minded killer best left to a supporting role in the comic strips. YM(air or railroad!)MV . . .

I would certainly agree that everyone is entitled to their opinion. This is also not the forum for discussion of the vagaries of military history, so it would be best to just keep my yap shut. Apologies to all who I may have offended.

You did good. As one that has flown War planes and met many, many former aviators and crewmen who flew on these and hearing their stories.
Air war was different then ground warfare. In the air, one didn't meet the enemy face to face, rather one saw vehicle, the aircraft, and it was their aim to disable it or knock it out of the air. One kept the thought of a human person(s) also downing out of their thoughts and it was "aircrafts" shot down that were symbolized on their planes, both Allies and Axis did this. Bomber crewmen also kept the thought out of civilian casulties from their dropped loads.

As to the Baron, there are many stories out there, some false. Remember its easy to make up false stories with no survivors to tell a different and true story. The Baron rather then paint planes he had downed along his fuselage since he also flew various planes, new introduce fighters and many times going back to previous planes. So he collected Goblets, but lost is that it was also to honor the pilot that had gone down. He was highly respected also, many times he peeled off when his quarry ran out of ammo. Upon his death, British pilots gave him a respected burial attended by many. They respected his ethics, and skills.
After the war when Germany and his parents wanted his remains returned, they were returned by a Honor Guard.

Air Warfare is different, the enemy is the machine. On the ground, its the human you encounter. In Nam, from a chopper or on the ground one took a different approach.

Based on an Illinois Professors writings that these come from. Always easy to write this stuff when no one around to contratict. One would never, even a skilled piloit attempt to land his plane in the rough landscapes of WW1 and then hopefully no one seen him and attempt a takeoff and that they didn't have to re-start their engine.
I read years ago his writing and many aviators disagreed heavily on much of this professors writings.

I should add. the trophies he had of downed planes came from ground pounders and civilians who witnessed the downings.

Uh, Snoopy and the Red Baron.... The Red Baron wasn't a Brit...