The Bf-110 went though not only technical changes throughout its career, but also through a development of its operational use. It entered the war as a heavy escort and attack fighter. By the time of the Battle of Britain, it became apparent that the aircraft, in the role of escort fighter, had been pushing the envelope of its capabilities. On the contrary, as a defensive weapon against British bombers, the Bf-110 made an extremely good showing of itself and remained a deadly foe through the end of the war. The placement of RAF bombing operations within nighttime hours from 1941 brought the Bf-110 into the realm of night fighting on the Western Front. On the Eastern Front, they excelled as fast fighter bombers. Their earlier role as a day attack fighter was still fulfilled not only on the Eastern Front (where they were employed throughout the war successfully even as the originally-envisioned escort fighter), but also on the Western Front into the depths of the summer of 1944, where the role was abandoned primarily, and finally, due to the effectiveness of American fighter escorts. As a night fighter in the G-4 version, thanks to a heavy forward firing armament and radar, they soldiered on literally until the very end of the war. As such, it was the night fighter role that would prove to be the most significant for the Bf-110 during the course of the Second World War.

Eduard did it again. Really, they never stopped doing it. That is, making awesome kits, as if you didn’t know that. Eduard scaled down their awesome 1/48th kit and the 1/72nd scale version is top of the line. Released in an attractive profipack box with art depicting a plane from JG 1.at.Trond, France, with a warship in the distance, this is definitely a eye-catcher. Inside, you will find 7 green colored sprues, a clear canopy sprue, a PE fret with ample cockpit details, a canopy mask sheet, a decal sheet for 4 different aircraft, and a 16-page color instruction booklet with color call outs for Gunze/Sanyo and Mr Color paints and their RLM numbers. There will be a lot of leftover unused parts. This tells me that Eduard will be popping out a C/D version soon. Eduard does not number their steps in the instructions, but rather provides a lot of linear drawings to follow, which work fine for me.

Cockpit assembly is easy and straightforward. There are PE seat belts to make and bend. The radio faces look good in plastic, but would look better with the PE ones. The instrument panel can be the biggest problem – deciding to use the provided decals or the 3-piece PE. I went with the photo etch so I could use the decals somewhere else. Other PE included throttle levers, rubber pedals, and a gun sight for the defensive rear-mounted Mg15.

Fit for the cockpit platform was a bit tight, but with a little sanding it went well. The fuselage and wings require no special attention, nor do the control surfaces. The only hiccup I had with construction/assembly was page 7. Part B 15, a support on the landing gear strut, appears backwards in the instructions. There are a lot of plastic items that have photo etch substitutions. The plastic looks great, but I tried to use the PE on all substitutions. The only PE I did not use was PE 34, thanks to the carpet monster. These were small antennas on the bottom of the fuselage.

I decided to build the plane depicted on the front of the box, and the color callout says the topside is RLM 72. This did not look right so I chose to use RLM 70 which looked more like the box art. The underside is painted aircraft interior black by Model Master. I messed up applying the shark mouth decal, so I substituted with the 2nd set for the Iraqi version. This was not my only failed attempt with BF-110 shark mouth decals (see my Dragon 1/32 BF110 C/D review). These decals are great – nice and thin. This is an operator error. Hopefully, lesson learned.

Other than these small issues, this is overall a great kit, and not for those who dislike small parts. I recommend this kit to anyone who has some modeling experience and wants to add a superb 110 in 1/72 scale to his collection. I would like to thank Eduard and Steve Collins at the review corps for letting me review this kit. And last, thank you for reading this article.