Spitfire MkIXC fuel tanks

[49thStateRT]

Hi I am working on the famed Tamiya 1/32 kit. It has an underbelly "fuel tank" which seems like an option but they don't describe it that way. It is used to hold the nut if you are using their display stand, but I am not. It blocks half of an underbelly light of some kind. I am building Option A. Was the fuel tank usually installed in WW2 on this variant? On a similar note, the instructions say to cut out a little square near the front of this tank for Options A and B, to the side. This tank almost overlaps that hole. That hole is never mentioned again in the instructions and serves no obvious purpose. Does anybody know why they said to cut that out? I put a little patch of thin plastic over it from the inside, before I installed the cowling fairings. Now I am filling it with putty.
Thanks

 

[Jakko]

I'm not familiar with the kit, but I've just been looking through the instructions for it on Scalemates.

The underbelly tank, in step 65, is a drop tank, so it would be released when empty. Which probably means it's not important that it half-block a light, because it wouldn't be on the plane anyway during landings.

The little square hole you have to cut seems to be just that: a hole. At least, there's a little, square black area just there in the painting diagrams for option B (oddly, there appears to be none for option A).

 

[VegasAWACER13]

Was the fuel tank usually installed in WW2 on this variant?

A tank of that kind was called a "slipper" tank. More often than not they flew without such tanks, but it would be appropriate for any Mk IXc to have used one.