Our club decided to do a “Big Bomber Build” of the 1/48th scale Monogram Bombers, and since a local museum wanted something for their displays I agreed to make this one.
The Subject
Six Luftwaffe aircraft predominate the Battle of Britain, which for the Luftwaffe also included the night blitz (as Britains call it) that lasted into the Spring of 1941. These are:
- Ju-87 Stuka Dive Bomber
- Me-109E Fighter
- Me-110E Heavy Fighter
- Do-17Z Bomber
- Ju-88A Bomber
- He-111 Bomber
But the He-111 soldiered on; survival improving with the shift to night operations albeit at much reduced effectiveness. This particular subject is from KG-55 Greif (Griffon) in the early Spring of 1941, just before operations over England ceased for them and they transferred to the East to begin Barbarossa.
The Model
This kit reminds me why I don’t like 1/48th scale. For starters it’s a big model; larger than anything on my shelves in 1/72nd! Additionally, unless I were to paint over the cockpit glazing the cockpit is quite visible even at arm’s length. So that means the cockpit is a MUST for details or the aircraft just won’t look right.
Luckily the kit comes with some pretty good details, and given the vast majority of people who will see it won’t be able to discern accuracy versus details I elected to keep the details to what was in the kit. I can easily see a modeler insisting on PE and/or resin improvements, plus lots of wires as the real one would have. I spent quite a bit of time painting the interior, I used a lighter off-the-shelf gray than RLM66 in order to make the interior a bit more visible.
I decided from the beginning to make this one in flight. A member of our club mainly builds in 1/48th and is very excited over using Prop-Blur PE props to give it that in-flight look. Those were the first things for me to construct as I wanted to see how well they looked and I do think they look pretty sweet. I’ve since purchased a few in 1/72nd scale for some future subjects.
While the cockpit bits were drying I acquired some crew figures from a fellow modeler. Two of the three visible crew members needed surgery to make them fit, and this was surprisingly easy. I kept telling myself that this kit will be on a display shelf at an adult’s arm’s length so tried not to spend too much time on the figures. I quite liked how well they came out with acrylic base painting and oils to highlight / shadow.
I spent quite a bit of time on the wings, ensuring the seams were not visible on the landing gear doors and the shapes were blended properly. In fact, it appears the engines are a different scale than the wings, as they don’t quite fit properly with some gaps. Plastic card and filler fixed it.
Most of the painting was done separately, the fuselage and wings coming together as part of a final assembly. I then touched up the joints between the wing-fuselage with some careful masking and painting. Speaking of the wing-fuselage joint…don’t look underneath! The wings were warped enough that no amount of squeezing or filling would correct it so I aligned the wing tops and the dihedral, then just applied superglue. Once it had set I then applied liquid cement to help with blending in the visible areas, and underneath where the gaps were I filled with clear resin. I quickly realized the bombs would actually hide the wavy structure and given it was black I simply painted and called it “done”.
I used the kit decals, which did not include a swastika. Since I was able to find a photo or two that did not show them (either units painted them out or a censor edited the photo) I decided that would work. The decals had a milky film on them that actually dried clear after a couple of days, but I was a bit concerned at first.
Paints used were all Tamiya.
Summary
This took me over 9 months from start to finish, and distracted me to no end from my preferred subjects because of the deadline. Ah well, I can now display it in the museum and try to get through a year without another distraction.
Thanks for looking…
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