Tamiya 1/32 A6M5 Zero Tweak List

By Ryan Toews

Notes on the 1/32nd Tamiya A6M5

24 March 2019
Ryan Toews

The Tamiya A6M5 has rightfully garnered praise for the high degree of quality that it exhibits. Alas, it is not perfect, and so the following is a list of some of the details that could be added or changed in order to improve the kit.

In the following the headings refer to the sub-sections in the Tamiya kit instructions.

Section 1

Section 2

Section 3

Section 4

Section 5

Section 6

Section 8

Section 9

Section 12

Section 19

Section 20

Section 22

Section 24

Section 27

Section 30

Section 31

Section 32

Section 33

Section 34

Section 36

Section2 37-42

Section 43

Section 45

Section 46

Section 47

Section 48

Section 49

Section 50

Section 52

Paint

Apart from the references to paint application provided in the text above there are a few additional points to consider.

Mitsubishi built A6M5s had the upper surfaces camouflaged with its variation of a dark green paint given the designation of D-1. This colour was close to FS 4052. Mitsubishi chose to paint this camouflage pattern with a straight demarcation line running along the length of the fuselage from the rear of the wing root to the tail. The undersides of the planes retained the same olive-gray paint (designated J-3) previously used as an overall camouflage scheme. This olive-gray paint had a value of FS 6350.

Nakajima also used a very similar olive-gray paint on the undersides of its A6M5s. However, Nakajima applied its variant of D-1 which was an upper surface camouflage of a dark green with a value closer to FS 4077. Nakajima’s underside colour (J-3) was virtually the same as was used by Mitsubishi.

Some suggested paint matches are:

Decals

The decals that are provided could be supplemented (or replaced) with aftermarket products. The one source for supplemental details is the Tamiya A6M2 kit from which the following decals could be added to the A6M5.

© Ryan Toews 2019

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This article was published on Thursday, March 28 2019; Last modified on Thursday, March 28 2019