Junkers Ju 88 A-5

ICM, 1/48 scale

Reviewed by Brett Green

G.W.H.s 1/144 Victor K.2 will be available online from Squadron.com

The Junkers Ju 88 was a versatile and successful aircraft that served with the Luftwaffe in the roles of dive bomber, level bomber, torpedo bomber, reconnaissance aircraft, night fighter and more. The service of the Ju 88 spanned almost the entire period of the Second World War.

This is not the first time that we have seen a mainstream Junkers Ju 88 in 1/48 scale. AMT released a kit in the 1970s, which was re-released. This kit is best forgotten, as it is poorly detailed and suffers from many accuracy problems.

Dragon kicked off their 1/48 scale Junkers Ju 88 family with a G-6 night fighter in 1993. This was a much better kit, with a high level of detail and crisp, fine panel lines. The night fighter was followed by a G-1, G-10, Mistel, A-4, C-6 and P-1. Revell re-boxed a few of these kits too. The main criticism of Dragon's Ju 88 family is problematic fit, especially around the forward fuselage and wing to fuselage join due to the split front/rear fuselage break. This was designed to allow the many bomber and fighter variants to be extracted from the same set of moulds.

I built the Dragon Junkers Ju 88 G-6 not long after it was released and the memories still haunt me!

Until now, there has never been a Ju 8 A-1 or A-5 offered straight-from-the-box in 1/48 scale.

ICM has reduced this gap in the market with their new 1/48 scale Junkers Ju 88 A-5.

The Ju 88 A-5 actually pre-dated the A-4, first seeing service alongside the Ju 88 A-1 in the Battle of Britain. The A-5 featured longer wing tips and other detail changes compared to the A-1.

ICM's 1/48 scale Junkers Ju 88 A-5 comprises 236 parts in grey plastic, 20 parts in clear and a decal sheet with four marking options.

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Thumbnail panels:

Quality of moulding is very good with few imperfections. Surface detail is mainly by way of crisply recessed panel lines. These look very good.

Sprue attachments are fairly narrow, but some do join on highly visible areas such as wing and tail plane leading edges, so care will be needed when cleaning up the parts.

The fuselage is broken down into two full-length halves plus a lower mid-forward section with the inboard lower wings moulded in place.

This is quite a clever move as it will help to establish the correct wing dihedral and a robust join with the upper fuselage. This breakdown - in addition to the separate tain fin and nacelles - also suggests that ICM might be planning other variants.

The fuselage wing root includes three tabs to support the join of the upper wing - a nice idea.

Cockpit detail is quite comprehensive straight from the box. The canopy offers early and late rear dual machine gun positions and three different nose cones.

The engines and nacelles are all provided as separate parts, once again suggesting the possibility of other powerplants in future ICM Ju 88 releases.

Control surface, including landing flaps, are all separate parts and may be posed to taste.

The undercarriage looks very stout. It is designed to be assembled and fitted to the lower wings even before the engine nacelles are installed. If you prefer, it seems that you could delay installing the legs themselves until the model is otherwise built and painted.

Two full Jumo 211 engines are included. These are nicely detailed and may be partially or fully displayed.

Even if the cowls are buttoned up, you wil still need to fit the basic engine parts to mount the exhausts. The paired cowl flaps are moulded open.

Markings

Decals are well presented, in register and with good colour saturation. The decals are flat (i.e. - not glossy).

Markings are offered for four options:

• Junkers Ju 88 A-5, 4./LG 1, France, August 1940. This aircraft is finished in the standard bomber scheme of RLM 70 Black Green and RLM 71 Dark Green over RLM 65 Light Blue with white spinners.

• Junkers Ju 88 A-5, 5./LG 1, Greece, May 1941. This aircraft is finished in the standard bomber scheme of RLM 70 Black Green and RLM 71 Dark Green over RLM 65 Light Blue with a white fuselage stripe, red spinners and yellow on the engine cowlings and rudder.

• Junkers Ju 88 A-5, 5./KG 30, Finland, Autumn 1941. This aircraft is finished in the standard bomber scheme of RLM 70 Black Green and RLM 71 Dark Green over RLM 65 Light Blue with red, white and black spinners and yellow underside wing tips.

• Junkers Ju 88 A-5, 8./KG 76, Russia, December 1941. This aircraft is finished in a winter scheme of white over RLM 65 Light Blue with red and white spinners and yellow underside wing tips.

Stencil markings are included on the main decal sheet.

It is great to see a 21st Century offering of Germany's best wartime medium bomber in 1/48 scale.

It is especially nice to see that ICM is offering a variant that has not been available as a mainstream kit in 1/48 scale before. Battle of Britain fans will be particularly pleased.

Surface textures, detail and moulding are all delivered to a very high standard, and the parts breakdown should make this an easier build than the Dragon Ju 88 family.

Highly Recommended.

Thanks to Hobbymania for the sample

Review Text and Images Copyright © 2016 by Brett Green
Page Created 11 March, 2016
Last updated 11 March, 2016

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