Arado Ar 196
A Detailed Guide to the 'Eyes of the Kriegsmarine'

by Richard A. Franks

Valiant Wings Publishing
Airframe Album No.7

Reviewed by Mick Evans

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This publication is the seventh title in the much acclaimed Airframe Album series from Valiant Wings Publishing.

The album is soft copy publication that contains 106 pages of text, photographs and colour plates.

The Airframe Album series runs alongside the popular Airframe & Miniature books. The Airframe Album series differs in that it focuses on the physical aspects of specific types.  It has all the elements of the Airframe & Miniature books including a section dedicated to model assessment and build of some of the current kits available.

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This book goes into some detail on the development of the Arado AR-196 through the prototype stages including the single float V-3, ill-fated V4- variant and the replacement V-5 and V-6 single float variant which would have led to the AR-196-B version. 

This section is followed by a description of the operational us by Germany, Bulgaria and Romania.  Fascinating is the amount of close detail drawings and walk around photographs of the NASM unrestored A-5 aircraft and the restored Bulgarian A-3 aircraft.  Much of the detail is original manufacturers' component drawings and illustrations, many never seen before.  There are many black and white plates from the manufacture’s original flight and maintenance manuals along with some excellent in service photographs during World War II including a few rare colour in service photographs.  The Technical Description area is broken down into 7 sections:

• Fuselage

• Floats

• Tail

• Wings and control linkage

• Engine, Cowling and Propeller

• Weapons

• Miscellaneous

The amount of detail contained in this section is amazing given that most of this detail is now over 70 years old.

The 3D Isometric line art of all the variants has been produced by Wojciech Sankowski including the prototype V series.

For the modeler there is also an extensive listing of Arado AR-196 kits in all popular scales plus accessories and decals.

Some very nice colour side profiles are provided by Richard J. Caruana depicting the various schemes the aircraft flew in including the prototypes and the odd captured aircraft.

Four builds of current kits are included as follows;

• 1/72 scale Heller kit converted to the prototype V4 by Libor Jekl.  A 1/72 scale Sword kit also build built by Libor.

• 1/48 scale Italeri kit built by Steve. A. Evans

• !/32 Scale Revell AR-196B kit built by John Wilkes.

All are very nice builds with the modeler presenting all the highs and lows of each kit during the build, with tips and guides along the way.

With the availability of the 1/48 Italeri and Revell 1/32 scale kits, this publication is a must have for the serious model builder.

Thanks to Valiant Wings Publishing for the sample.

Review Copyright © 2016 by Mick Evans
This Page Created on 14 January, 2016
Last updated 14 January, 2016

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