Triton said:
I found this model earlier on eBay. I am suspicious of it because the base reads "Grumman A2F Intruder." A2F-1 was the United States Navy designation for the Intruder prior to the United States Tri-Service aircraft designation system of 1962 that re-designated the aircraft the A-6. If it was indeed a United States Army concept/proposal prior to 1962, would Grumman have printed "A2F Intruder" on the base?
Further, wouldn't the United States Air Force have objected to the United States Army operating the A2F-1 believing it was a violation of the Key West Agreement of 1948?
All of these arguments are valid indeed. However:
1°) It's not because the USAF would have objected that the Army wouldn't have tried. Remember that they repeatedly tried to add fixed-wing aircraft to the roster.
2°) It doesn't harm for a company like Grumman to make a spontaneous, unsollicited proposal to the Army.
3°) We have seen cases of desktop model bases being swapped: either by mistake or because the original one was missing and they picked the next best one.
4°) Grumman could also have chosen to use the "A2F" designation because that's how the Intruder was known then, and also maybe to insist on the fact that it was similar to the Navy variant and required minimum changes (and therefore costs) to be turned into an Army model.