The SC 50 was a small general purpose bomb used by the Luftwaffe in World War II. The bomb weighed between 48 and 55 kg and was produced in several different variants. It was carried by Luftwaffe bombers and fighter-bombers during the war. The bombs could be equipped with “screamers” which look like long whistles to make noise during flight.

This set provides eight SC 50 bombs and thirty-two very tiny screamers. The bombs are single piece units which are easily separated from the pour stubs. The screamers are provided in sets of 8 on 4 separate pour stubs. After removing the bombs from the pour stubs, I lightly sanded them on a piece of sandpaper taped to a small piece of glass from an old picture frame, making sure to keep the bombs vertical. This removed the remains of the pour stubs. Work slowly as the bombs are small and the fins are delicate. Fortunately I only broke off one of them, but it was quickly reattached with superglue.

The photos I found online of bombs with the screamers attached showed them to be a different color than the bombs, I painted the bombs and the screamers separately. Eduard’s instructions tell you to paint the bombs RLM 70 Dark Green and the screamers silver. However, according to the Luftwaffe Resource Center they could also be sandy grey in color. I found photos online where the screamers appear to be painting a very dark color, perhaps even black, so do some research before you paint. The only other color is a silver dot for the fuse cap on the top of the bomb.

There are 6 decals for each bomb, consisting of a yellow or red stripe between each of the tail fins and two stencils for the top of the bomb. The instructions do not say when to use the red or the yellow stripes, so I elected to make 4 bombs with yellow stripes and 4 with red stripes. The decals lay down very well, however, the stripes are a bit finicky as the end where the fins meet does not want to lie down very well and in general stripes seem to want to move around. They are also very small, so while I thought I had done pretty well lining them up, in my photos I see that a number of the stripes are not as straight as I thought they were. One of the stencils has “Ja” on it and according to the Luftwaffe Resource Center, one of the versions of the SC 50 was the “Ja” version, so I suspect this is what the stencil refers to.

The screamers are very tiny and tend to go flying into the vast unknown when trimmed off the pour stub. I recommend trimming them off inside a plastic bag and using a razor saw to minimize attrition. As I had a few that are now free-ranging on my model desk, I elected to only outfit 4 of the bombs with the screamers. There are little ridges molded on each tailfin to help in placement of the screamers. They are supposed to go on the sides that are 90 degrees to the attachment point, and I managed to assemble 3 of the 4 this way. Number 4 will get redone sometime in the future.

As the screamers are not sealed or blocked off in any way, flying with them mounted externally must have been pretty noisy as the air flowing over them would have caused a racket from the screamers.

This was a fun set to work with and I am looking forward to mounting these on either a Ju 87 or a Fw 190 “Jabo”. Recommended! Thank you to Eduard for the review sample and to IPMS-USA for letting me review it.