Hauler's 1/72 scale Wasserfall Rocket

Hauler's 1/72 scale
Wasserfall Rocket

by Pedro Fuster

Wasserfall Rocket

Eduard's 1/48 scale P-39 Airacobra Dual Combo is available onine from Squadron

Description

Here’s a few pictures of my recently finished Brengun 1:72 “Wasserfall” Surface to Air Missile as developed and tested by Nazi Germany during WWII – although never, apparently, reaching operational status.

I am not a big fan of Luft’46 modelling, my main focus being mostly Cold-War era airplanes. However, I must admit there is something fascinating about those machines that, rather than being fictional paper projects, reached advanced stages in their development and almost made it... So when Brengun issued the injected plastic 1:72 Wasserfall –following an earlier 1:144 resin version– I decided to give it a go.

Perhaps surprisingly, there is quite a lot of material in the Internet about this weapon, including some highly recommended videos of actual test launches, some ending in spectacular failure, some successful. Also from these images one can discern some variations in the mostly high-visibility black & white checkered pattern schemes of the rockets, of which I chose one that seemed particularly neat and sported a colored tip. What color exactly the tip was I don’t know as the films are of course b&w, but I went for red for contrast!

Thumbnail panels:

As for the kit, the only addition to the missile was the addition of the rocket exhaust (which cannot be seen). I improved slightly the launch base by adding some additional details to the wheels, replacing the bars by stock styrene rod and gluing small wire handles to them as used for ground manipulation. I also added –again getting inspiration from the films and stills found in the Internet- two cables or hoses connected to the base of the rocket prior to the launch. These are made of lead wire, one of them wrapped in a thin strip of masking tape and suitably painted.

To add a sense of scale, I decided to complete the build with a small round base with a figure on it – in this case a 1:72 german staff officer from a high quality set of Milicast figures- looking interestedly to the base of the launch system. This was my first experience painting a 1:72 figure and I believe it did not turn out too bad after all :^).

I hope you like it!

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