Junkers Ju 88R-2

by Rafi Ben-Shahar

Junkers Ju 88R-2

Revell-Monogram's 1/48 scale Junkers Ju 88C-6 is available online from Squadron.com

This kit started out life as the re-boxed Hasegawa Ju 88C-6 night fighter of Dragon ancestry.

Since there were no decal options other than the one all-black (and all-dull in my opinion) version of the German night fighter, I converted the model and applied the RLM 76 over RLM 70 and RLM 71 upper surfaces.

Special attention was given to the relocation of the antenna wire to avoid being melted by the fire from the Schrage Musik single 20 mm gun installation at the mid spine.

The main source of reference for the conversion was Squadron's Ju 88 in action, part II. The result was nice, but not very pleasing. With time, I accumulated parts of the BMW 801 engine from other Dragon Ju 88 kits. The engine parts were destined for the improvement of the Do 217E-5 kit. However, once I started to build the latter, I realised that the Dragon parts do not add much. And there was a simpler option to replace the faulty ProModeller parts. It was then, only natural to revamp the Ju 88C with the BMW engines. The result is a Ju 88R-2.

Again, the main reference was Squadron's book. I modified the optional flame dampers from the Do 217E-5 to produce a unique version of the Ju 88. I also retained the old canopy style so that it would not look too similar to the Ju 88G-1. I trust that this modification did exist somewhere, some time within the ranks of NJG 2.
 

Model, Text and Images Copyright © 2001 by Rafi Ben-Shahar
Page Created 23 August 2001
Last updated 04 June 2007

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