1:72 Junhers Ju 88A-1

A fast bomber over the Channel

The Ju 88 came about as a Schnellbomber, that is a machine fast enough to outrun fighters. The short-span A-1 version reached the units at the beginning of 1940 and that summer went straight into the hardest test the Luftwaffe of the day had known. The crew of four sat crowded together in the glazed nose, there were dive brakes under the wings for dive attacks, and in practice it turned out that speed on its own was not enough against Hurricanes.

The five options on the sheet come from precisely that period. Machine 4D plus DC belonged to the staff flight of III./KG 30, aircraft L1 plus ER served with the training wing LG 1 and 9K plus HS with KG 51; all three are listed to the summer of 1940 in France. The remaining two, 3Z plus BB of the staff flight of I./KG 77 and 3Z plus HN of the 5th Staffel, belonged to KG 77 and are dated to September 1940 at the airfield of Laon-Athies.

For the modeler it is a rewarding set, because the code letters of German bombers were large and contrasting and show up well on the slim fuselage of the Junkers. It is worth giving them time and applying them one at a time, so that they line up exactly with the crosses.

The set is intended for a finished Junkers model in the A-1 version in 1:72 scale; the later A-4 had a longer wing and a different arrangement of stencils.

Anyone who wants the machine accurate in shape should check the wingspan of the A-1 version and the extent of the nose glazing; both changed in the later batches, and models sometimes combine parts from different versions. The base also affects the final impression: large code letters only show to advantage on an even surface with no steps between the parts.