Macchi C.205V Part II
Italian Aces

Stormo Decals, 1/48 scale

Reviewed by Graham Carter

HyperScale is proudly sponsored by Squadron.com

This Canadian company has produced a very nice sheet to suit either the Hasegawa or Italeri kit in 1/48. The decals are © 2020.

They are beautifully printed with great colour density and featuring a bare whiff of clear trim to worry about. The background sheet is a pale blue which is a bit darker than the last sheet I reviewed to help delineate the large number of white markings.

The clear and well-written instructions fill both sides of an A4 sheet and each subject is illustrated with a colour port or starboard profile and a set of generic top and underside views at the end of the sheet. These drawings are clearer than the last sheet I saw and the location of all decals and stencils is very clearly marked. There is also an additional sheet giving the background to the system of application and some hints re the proprietary decal application materials to use, although I do object to the use of ‘allot’ rather than ‘a lot’ ( but that is probably just me). 

It is very pleasing to see the use of the correct Italian mimmetico colour numbers to acknowledge that Italian aircraft producers often used different paint manufacturers; references are provided as well. Macchi used a specific group of tan, green and pale grey paints which differed from those used by FIAT, CANT, Reggiane, Imam Ro and Savoie-Marchetti - it can get quite confusing. FS numbers are given for these colours.

The subjects are all later versions (series III, V and VI) of the very attractive Macchi C.205 and each subject is given a most  helpful description of its use, pilot, time and colour notes. The nine aircraft are all in a variety of schemes, a couple of them are quite delicious ( particularly number VI - I would love to see this one in 1/72, hint hint!) . The first four and seventh are in Nocciola Chiaro 4 and Verde Oliva Scuro 2 ‘Smoke Rings’ over Grigio Azzuro Chiaro 1 (that’s light hazelnut and dark olive green over light bluish grey), with the ANR red/white/green rectangles bordered with yellow on the fuselage sides:-

I.   C205V Serie III MM92212, at Campoformido, March 1944

II.  C205V Serie III MM92271 at Campoformido, March 1944

III. C205V Serie III MM92273 at Campoformido, March 1944

IV. C205V Serie III MM92264 at Campoformido, March 1944

VII. C205V Serie III MM92214 at Lecce-Galatina, October 1943, this one has the red/white/green roundels of the RA/Co-Belligerent forces.

Choices V and VI are in Luftwaffe camouflage of RLM 74/75 spinner on upper surfaces with the same colours mottled over RLM76 on the fuselage, and 76 undersides again with the rectangular ANR markings:

V.  C205V Serie III MM92287 at Campoformido, March 1944

VI. C205V Serie III MM92302 at Campoformido, May 1944 with some sandy coat over the fuselage and a yellow nose undersurface.

Choices VIII and IX are also in the Nocciola Chiaro 4 and Verde Oliva Scuro 2 over Grigio Azzuro Chiaro 1 scheme but this time it is a striped version as applied to later versions:

VIII. C205V Serie VI MM98221 at Reggio Emilia, June 1944, with yellow nose undersurface and

IX .  C205V Serie VI MM98218 at Reggio Emilia, Summer 1944, this time with the stripes only on the nose with the Luftwaffe colours over the rest of the airframe.

Spinner spiral decals are provided for choices I-IV and IX, and these will save some ‘interesting’ masking.

All in all a great set of markings with some very interesting schemes that will entice the modeller to invest in several kits.

Thanks to Stormo Decals for the sample.

Text and Images Copyright © 2020 by Graham Carter
Page Created 13 October, 2020
Last updated 13 October, 2020

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