So, with all that resolved more or less, I got on with finishing off these pyrotechnic devices. I decided against a full load out but wanted to do at least one marker (the yellow and red cylinder) and one flare, though the latter does not appear to show up much in period pics. The load out I replicated is basically the one shown in the museum pic posted by Wojtek above, right or wrong. (Logically, it would not seem to make sense to carry a marker which creates smoke on the sea surface seen during the daylight hours and a flare which would be used for illuminating targets at night, though the markers might presumably have been carried on every mission as a default to mark where pilots went down)
Anyway, let's start with some finishing touches on the R/P carriers. Close examination of photos shows an arrangement of the sockets for the R/P trailing cables to be mounted on some sort of conduit on the back of the carrier plate but unfortunately I could not find a clear picture so I used a bit of logic and artistic license. Here's what they ended up looking like. I also drilled holes in the back of the motors to receive the trailing cables that will be added later.
With that done, I got on with painting the marker cylinders with the yellow coat seen being applied here.
The light bomb carriers provided with the kit were modified slightly as I waited for the yellow paint to cure. The right one in the pic below is how the unmodified kit part looks. On the left one, I added a strip of plastic card to represent a part that shows up in actual pics of this unit. Also, I elected to not mount any ordnance on the center carriers so I filed some crescents into these to make them look more realistic.
Virtually all pics of the R/P carrying Swordfish Mk II's that I've seen show that they also carried the Universal Bomb Carrier (UBC), though it always seems to be empty. The kit part seen on the sprue below is designed to look correct with ordnance glued to it so the stabilizers won't look quite right for an empty carrier.
To make these look a bit better, I used a round file to create the proper crescent shape in the stabilizers, though they remain a bit on the thick side.
Skipping a few steps, I did not take any further progress shots on the flare and marker prep but include the below pic of the finished units mounted into the light bomb carriers. Note that on the black flare, I modified the fins a bit by making some very small saw cuts at the trailing edge and cutting away the portions of the fins that extended toward the center of the device. The black strip on the marker and the red one on the flare were sliced from old decals. It took some doing to get these to sit down as the radius is so small and the decals were relatively thick, as they had to be to survive the cut.
Here's the finished UBC painted black and lightly drybrushed in silver to pick out the details.
That's it for today.Getting very close to finishing this project now and will post again when I get some more of the finishing touches done. Thanks again for looking in.