Greeting to all the plasticholics out there in model building land! Today we have a review of the Polikarpov I-16 type 17. This was an Edward Profipack kit with 96 parts (some of those are extras), a fret of photo-etch - pre-painted on some parts, and decals for 5 A/C.
The Reich Air Ministry (RLM) issued requirements for a single-seat fighter powered by a single BMW 003 jet engine on September 10, 1944. From the many German aircraft manufacturers interested, Heinkel’s proposal was selected. Heinkel designed and built The He-162 very quickly. The final design was chosen on September 25th and the He162 flew for the first time on December 6th, less than 90 days later.
It was made primarily of wood due to the short supply of metals. In early test parts came unglued in flight with one such event resulting in the death of the test pilot. As a result, parts were strengthened and some redesign was needed. The glue for the wood parts was found to be defective in many cases. The aircraft was the fastest jet aircraft in the air hitting 550 mph at sea level and speeds reaching 562 mph at 19,000 feet.
Model Art has produced many titles and now has started a new series with this first publication; AFV Profile #1 Jagdpanzer IV L/70 “Lang”. While this work mainly covers the Panzer IV Lang (V) (the “V” standing for VOMAG the company that developed this version) it also touches on the Panzer IV Lang (A) (A for Alkett the company that developed this version). If you read Kanji maybe you can help the rest of us who do not. Even so a lot of information can be found in the profiles (color and B&W), the hundreds of photos and the limited use of English with this profile.
Fresh and new Eduard’s “Brassin” name is a welcome addition to the aftermarket world of modeling. A sub-set line from the Eduard Model Accessories the claim of ‘Best Resin Around’ it appears credible with this offering.
Package contents:
After just finishing the Eduard 109 kit I can see where these bits would have been appreciated. They are finely cast with excellent details and would have greatly improved some areas of the kit. Most notable is the tail gear and gearbay.
The set comes in a blister pack containing 11 resin pieces of differing shades of gray and a mask set along with detailed instructions offering a choice of two rims.
Once again, aircraft from “My era”, the early 1980’s, are starting to appear on decal sheets. RAF Alconbury was a busy place; Not only for the RF-4C’s that were stationed there, but the U-2R (TR-1 at the time) was a common sight. And in between all that activity, the dart-shaped F-5E’s of the 527th Aggressor squadron claimed AR as home. They were frequently deployed to other locations such as Deccimommano, Italy, and USAFE bases in Germany and Spain to practice their trade on our local USAFE fighter pilots.
These sheets from Twobobs are excellent historical references. If you are independently wealthy enough to own several of the new F-5’s from AFV, you could easily make an entire squadron of Warsaw-pact look-alikes. I’m certain these decals will work with the Monogram and Italieri 1/48 F-5E’s if you have them in your stash.
The 12.8 cm PaK (Panzerabwehrkanone) 44 was the largest caliber German anti-tank gun fielded by her armies during World War II. It was designed as a final response to the escalating armor/anti-armor spiral which continued right through the end of the war, and afterward. Experiences with Russian 122-mm guns and the heavy armor of the KV and IS tanks had shown that even the vaunted 88-mm gun had its limitations.
The choice of 128-mm was made due to existing tooling being available for this caliber as naval and anti- aircraft weapons.
Contracts for design and prototypes were awarded to both Krupp and Rheinmetall-Borsig, with testing commencing in late 1944. The Krupp design was chosen for series production, and although performance was impressive, a towed weapon weighing nearly 11-tons was simply not practical. Various carriages, both foreign and domestic were tried, with varying degrees of success.
Cyber-Hobby.com has released another kit in their armored train series. This is a re-release of the heavy railcar which mounted a Panzer III Ausf. N. turret with the 7.5cm KwK L/24 gun. These heavy armored rail cars were introduced in 1944 and saw extensive service in Russia and Yugoslavia. After the war Czechoslovakia used them until the mid 1950’s. These rail cars were self propelled and could run independently; however, they were designed to be operated in trains of 20 cars or more. In actuality, due to fuel shortages, they often ran alone or in small numbers. The armored rail cars were built for the Deutsche Reichbahn by Steyer starting in May 1944 and were operational from November 1944 to April 1945. They weighed around 18 tons and had 20mm armor plate. They were powered by an air cooled 76 hp Steyer motor which was sorely underpowered and resulted in terrible gas mileage.
This newest release from Moebius Models the 1/12th scale Creature from the Black Lagoon is a continuation of their popular Universal Studios “Monsters of the Movies” series of famous movie monsters. This kit is smaller than the previous releases of Frankenstein and the Mummy, which were 1/8th scale. This kit is also a Snap-Together kit with only 14 parts. The entire kit only took 15 minutes to clean up and “Snap-Together” the parts. In the past I have never been fond of Snap-Together kits. Usually they are designed for the younger modeler and ease of construction is the underlying factor in these kits.
Airfix’s 1/24 Mosquito is a large model, but is a little lacking in detail in places. One of these is the rather Spartan 0.303-inch Browning machine gun installation in the nose. Master Models has released a fine set of replacement parts for this area.
Each gun barrel is represented by 5 pre-formed brass pieces; the parts simply slot together and are secured with spots of superglue. Surgery is performed on the Airfix machine guns, with the whole of the plastic barrels being removed. The completed brass assembly is then glued to the plastic body of the gun. Simple!
The new barrels stand out head and shoulders above the plastic parts and when glued in place, they form a striking introduction to the aircraft. Highly recommended.
Master Models’ website is located at https://master-model.pl/ and they can be obtained from leading retailers. My thanks to Master Models for the review sample.
The fit on this model had me working very hard from every direction. For example, on the tailplane, there was a locator tab that didn’t seem to have a matching hole. The result was that I accidentally mounted the horizontal stabilizer inverted. I had to carefully prize it off and clean the parts before remounting it and adding the vertical stabilizer and tail struts.
I applied most of the paint scheme before final assembly. A second-line R.A.F. type, (post-1941) called for a medium gray/olive green upper surfaces (Testors 1163 Flat Gray for the gray and my suicide stew bottle of mostly Pactra olive greens for the green) and “Sky” undersides (a mix of Testors 1162 Flat Blue and Model Master FS36375 Light Ghost Gray).
