History

The Messerschmitt Bf-110 was an early attempt by the Luftwaffe to develop a long range strategic fighter for deep penetration missions. It was also intended as a long range escort for bombers, as an interceptor against enemy bomber formations, and as a light bomber and ground attack aircraft. The first prototype flew in 1936, but protracted engine development kept the Bf-110 from entering service until 1938 as the Bf-110B. In 1939, the Bf-110C went into production, and this was the first version produced in large numbers. The Bf-110C appeared in fighter, ground attack, reconnaissance, and “destroyer” versions. The Bf-110C was used to effect in the Polish campaign in 1939, and this gave Goring the impression that the type was unstoppable, the ultimate air weapon. After success in shooting down unescorted RAF Wellington bombers, the type was committed in Norway and Denmark, and later during the Battle of France.

The Kit

The kit is cleanly molded in 154 pieces of multi-colored plastic. These parts are the same parts used in constructing many of the other 1/72 offerings from MiniArt. No flash is apparent and detail is very crisp on all parts. A new part that I have not seen on this model was the introduction of a stone foundation.

Construction

Assembly of this kit was straight forward as all of the offerings before it. However, I took a different approach. On many of the other kits, I found that doing each wall with the end connectors tended to produce minor gaps at the corners. This time I decided to pre-build the corner assemblies and then add the walls. Also, I decided to paint parts separately before assembly. This approach offered a much cleaner look to the house, a departure from the worn down structures I had built in the past. The result was by far my favorite work of all of these kits I had done.

The Kit

Nearly 100 injection molded parts in tan plastic plus 2 black plastic treads. All parts exhibit crisp detail and are flash free. The muzzle of the main gun is not slide-molded so will need to be drilled out. Being a snap kit, all parts had a number of locating pins. All of them fit together without modification.

The Kit

The kit consists of 110 injection molded parts in the standard MiniArt colors; orange, maroon, black and white. All parts are relatively free of flash (some may have just a small bit around the attachment points) and are very crisp in detail.

Construction

As with the kits before it, the Country House is very well made. Being a smaller kit, assembly should not take much longer than an hour or two. A few points worth mentioning on this kit centers around the roof. As with prior offerings, the thin roof pieces seem to have a slight bow to them. Given that all of these meet in the middle, there may be some considerable use of cement or CA to get them to remain. I was able to resolve this by tacking them with a little cement and then gap filling with CA.

History

The Do-335, like many German aircraft of World War II, had a checkered development. It began its life, at Hitler’s insistence, as a high speed bomber, and only later, when Hitler was told that the Me-262 would be a better high speed bomber, was the plane’s basic mission changed to that of heavy fighter and reconnaissance.

First, Dornier used a scaled down (1/2.5) Do-17Z airframe (Goppingen Go.9) to test the feasibility of the rear mounted engine with a prop behind the tail unit. Tests showed the usefulness of the arrangement, so design began on the full size airplane. Featuring a tandem engine arrangement (which was not new to Dornier), the aircraft was a large, single seat, twin engine aircraft with two DB-603 liquid-cooled engines. The type began as a high speed bomber (Nov. 1943), reconnaissance fighter and night fighter (Jan. 1944), and ended finally as a heavy fighter (Mar. 1944). In July, 1944, the first prototypes were delivered as bombers.