Focke-Wulf Fw 190 A-8/R2
ProfiPACK

Eduard, 1/48 scale

Reviewed by Brad Fallen

Eduard's 1/48 scale "First Ones Home" Dual Combo
is available online from Squadron.com for only USD$59.96!
 

Eduard continues to re-release its 1/48 Focke-Wulf Fw 190 series with this new edition of the Fw 190 A-8/R2 kit that was originally issued in 2007.  Brett Green reviewed the kit at the time and concluded that it was “cleverly engineered and beautifully detailed, inside and out.” 

I didn’t buy this first release of the kit but remember being sorely tempted to do so, largely because of Martin Novotny’s superb box art that features Uffz. Herbert Chlond’s Fw 190 A-8/R2 ‘Green 3’ (kit marking option A).  Chlond is shown overflying the doomed B-17G ‘Mud In Yer Eye’ of the 349th Bomb Squadron, 100th Bomb Group on 11 September 1944 during a clash over Czechoslovakia and Germany that saw over 50 German and US aircraft destroyed.  The kit’s 2007 edition contained a booklet on the battle, which isn’t in this release; a good alternative for more information is the Museum of Air Battle over the Ore Mountains website. 

Apart from the booklet this 2015 re-release is identical to the original kit, with standard Profipack inclusions.

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Thumbnail panels:

Contents are as follows:

• Seven sprues moulded in Eduard’s new-ish dark grey plastic.  As usual with kits in this series there are lots of unused parts including a bomb, ETC rack, VDM-9 propeller, WGr.21 rockets, 14-bladed cooling fan, engine side cowls, gun trough and instrument panels – more than 30 in total and all good for the spares box!  And regardless of which marking option you choose you will also have a spare pair of fuselage halves, because Eduard supplies fuselages with and without the cockpit side armour fitted to many A-8/R2 aircraft. (This is quite generous, I think, because only one of the marking options requires the non-armoured fuselage.)  The quality of Eduard’s Fw 190 mouldings has been well covered in previous reviews and there is no need for me to go into further detail here; suffice to say that the moulds are holding up well with only a little flash present here and there.

• One sprue of clear parts.  This sprue is crystal clear and also comes with spares, as the late-style bulged sliding canopy is not used on any of the marking options.  Options A and B were fitted with armoured glass on each side of the sliding canopy and these panels are provided here.  I’d recommend using white glue, and sparingly, to attach the panels without leaving telltale glue marks.

• One fret of pre-painted photo-etched parts, most of which will be used in the cockpit.  A number of the parts are tiny and it’s inevitable that the carpet monster will claim some; fortunately there are a few spares.  Highlights are the beautifully painted side consoles and instrument panels, although the latter suffers from some out-of-register bezel surrounds that you’ll need to address because these will stand out even in the dark Fw 190 cockpit.  This is the second Eduard Fw 190 kit in which I’ve seen this problem recently – hopefully it’s only a minor aberration from the company’s usual high production standards.

• A sheet of pre-cut canopy and wheel hub masks, which will make painting these challenging areas more straightforward than having to prepare your own masks.

• A 20-page A4 instruction sheet, with full colour painting and marking guide and greyscale stencil placement guide.  Assembly is called out in Eduard’s usual clearly illustrated style, with parts placement indicated by shading and/or arrows.  Optional parts for different marking options are also clearly identified.  As always, however, it will pay to study the instructions closely as there is a lot going on in most of the drawings.  Step-by-step test fitting will be a must, not least because Eduard’s radial-engined Fw 190 kits must be assembled with care and precision to avoid alignment problems.  The painting and marking guide contains four view illustrations of each aircraft along with scrap drawings of the optional drop tank to show decal placement.

• Decals.  The decals have been produced by Eduard and appear to be of reasonably high quality.  They have been printed on two sheets:  a larger one for national insignia and individual aircraft markings, and a smaller one of for stencils. There is a little colour bleeding on a couple of the larger markings, but most of this can be cleaned up with a sharp scalpel.  The stencils are very crisply printed and will add some welcome, fine detail to the finished model.

Markings

As I mentioned earlier, the featured aircraft are unchanged from the original kit:

• ‘Green 3’ of Stab/II.(Sturm)/JG 4, flown by Oberleutnant Hans-Gunther von Kornatzki (CO of JG 4) and Unteroffizier Herbert Chlond, 11 September 1944. 

• ‘Black 13’, flown by Oberleutnant Werner Gerth, CO of II.(Sturm)/JG 3 ‘Udet’, July 1944.

• ‘Black 10’, flown by Karl Spenst, CO of 8./JG 300, November/December 1944.  Two slightly different marking schemes are suggested for this aircraft, with the difference being the colour of the RVD band on the rear fuselage – red in November 1944, and blue and white in December 1944. You’ll need to mask these bands yourself, as decals are not supplied – not a bad thing in my view, as I’ve always found fuselage band decals tricky to fit.

• ‘Yellow 1’, flown by Feldwebel Ewald Preiß, 6./JG 300, October 1944.

• ‘Yellow 11’, flown by Gefreiter Walter Wagner, 5./JG 4, 1 January-March 1945.  This aircraft crash-landed during Operation Bodenplatte and was subsequently repaired to ground-running condition by personnel of the 404th Fighter Group.  Again Eduard provides for two colour variations – one in the original Luftwaffe camouflage, and the other in the garish red applied by the Americans.  US national insignia decals are included for those wanting to complete the second version.

This is another high-quality Fw 190 kit from Eduard that’s good to see being released again.  With its additional armour plating and subdued mid-war camouflage the Sturmbock is one of the most purposeful of all Fw 190s, and Eduard’s package captures this look perfectly.  The build will test your modelling skills and the mottled camouflage on most of the options your painting, but with care you’ll have an excellent model of one of the USAAF’s most dangerous opponents. 

Highly recommended.

Thanks to Eduard for the sample.

Review Text Copyright © 2015 by Brad Fallen
Page Created 27 July, 2015
Last updated 27 July, 2015

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