Focke-Wulf Ta 154 Moskito

by Marek J Murawski and Marek Rys

Kagero Publishing

Reviewed by Luke Pitt

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No other Allied aircraft instilled such respect in the German Luftwaffe as the English De Havilland Mosquito. Astonishing reports of it speed and effectiveness quickly spread to the German High Command.

It was decided to fight fire with fire and the task was given to Focke-Wulf’s brilliant designer and leader Kurt Tank to come up with a design that was to better the “Wooden Wonder”. Tank’s designer Ernst Nipp answer was smaller, more powerful and more heavily armed than its English counterpart. It was however lacking in the one essential ingredient to make it a success. The English had developed resin wood glue called “Araldite”. The Germans had no equivalent and had to play catch up and develop a glue with similar proprieties. It was eventually found, but that and a series of crashes virally ended a plane that to all intent and purpose would have been a world beater. 

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I have always liked the look of this plane - the V3 version in particular - with its almost tailsitting stance made it look aggressive yet graceful. 

This new book from Kagero consists of 104 pages. This reference work begins with history and background of the plane and has a concise text with 56 black and white photos. It’s an easy read and moves along quite nicely.

I found the table of ordered airframes to be insightful as I had not realised how few of these were made. A mere 53!

The next 6 pages are devoted to 1/72 scale drawings and covers most of the known versions. I would have liked to see in this section the proposed bubble top versions like the C-2, but that’s neither here nor there.

Pages 46 to 104 cover every inch of the aeroplane with computer generated renderings. The quality of these is first class and with the absence of any real aircraft to photograph they are a modeller’s delight.   

This is a wonderfully motivational book. I say this as I have both the Hasagawa and Dragon kits in my stash and this book makes me want to build them.

It has all the detail I need. I ask you: do you need anything more from a reference book?

Highly recommended.

Thanks to Casemate UK for the sample.

Review Copyright © 2013 by Luke Pitt
This Page Created on 7 November, 2013
Last updated 7 November, 2013

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