Just returned from a wonderful vacation on the Orkneys and the Shetlands, just to finish nr. 6 of my Stuka project: a regular B-1 version, deployed during the Battle of Britain, belonging to 9.St.G.51. In August 1940 it was stationed near Norrent-Fontes, Pas de Calais, France.
It’s a wonderful, joyful kit to build, beautifully detailed, but it took me a lot of time and effort to build it. That is partly due to the fact that the plastic is quite brittle, so small parts tend to break when they are cut off from the sprues, though I do this always very carefully. But even after that it could go wrong: I head to scratch new antennas and needed 2 spare MG’s from the box top solve the breaking problem….
Studying pics of B-1 made in the summer of 1940 show, that Airfix did their homework well: the colour scheme is that of a transition phase between prewar en wartime camouflage scheme and colours.
Already the colours and the pattern of the wartime camo are used here, but the greens cover almost all of the fuselage leaving a more narrow part of the bottom in RLM 65, as was done before the war. The same goes fort he small stabilizers on the tail wings, that are half green, half blue painted.
The font of the Stammzeichen letters and numbers are the same as in wartime, however the swastika was bigger in prewar times and placed more to the rear so that part of it was painted on the rudder. I used a swastika from the 1/48 Xtra-decal set that has the correct size.
Because I was not satisfied with the dark green paints I have, (they look too ‘British’) I chose two shades of black green: Revell Black Green RLM 70 was used for dark green RLM 71(!) and Hobby Color H 65 Black Green for er… black green. The result is not completely satisfying,for the colours are too close in shade, but I can live with that ;-) I do have now the classic dark green Stuka I wanted.
At this moment I cannot stand the sight of a Stuka, anyway for the time being, so the A-2 en D-8 versions that are in my stash have to wait In the meantime I will continue my work on Revell’s excellent B-17G.
Enjoy the pics and thanks for looking!
Jan
