L-4 Grasshopper ‘From Africa to Central Europe’ 1/48 It quite soon became clear to the US military, as well as the British RAF, that the rather large and complicated types such as the O-47 or Lysander which had been designed in the pre-war days for army co-operation, close support, artillery observation and liaison roles were in fact ill-suited for real operations. Lighter types with the ability of very short take offs and landings proved much more successful. And arguably the most famous of all types of this category is the L-4 Grasshopper, developed from the originally civilian J-3 Cub which had done really well during US Army pre-war exercises. The first of our boxings captures the Grasshoppers’ combat journey beginning with the Operation Torch, the Allied landing in Africa, through the landing in Italy, Normandy, to the US airfields in western Bohemia, Czechoslovakia, where the Grasshoppers ended their WW2 combat service.