1:48 Kawasaki Ki-61 Hien

Cannons in the wing, numbers in red

The subvariant of the Kawasaki fighter to which this sheet is devoted differs from the later machines in where it carried its heavy armament. The 20 mm weapons in it were housed in the wing and came from German deliveries, because a domestic weapon of matching size was not yet available in sufficient numbers. The fuselage therefore stayed shorter than on the successor variant, and the difference is clearly apparent on a model.

The markings of three aircraft of the 244th Air Regiment:

• the machine with the red number 295, Japan, 1944
• the same aircraft in its form of January 1945, then assigned to the regiment commander Kobayashi
• the aircraft with the red number 43 of 1945

The red numbers were no accident. With this regiment the color denoted belonging to a particular squadron and together with the stripes on the fuselage made up a clear system that made it easier for crews to form up in the air. A modeler who builds two machines from one sheet and from the sister sheet gets a vivid illustration of how such a distinction worked.

It is interesting for a collection that two of the three subjects share the same number and are told apart only by the time they come from. Anyone building an airfield scene can use the pair to capture one machine in two periods and complete it with ground equipment matching the winter at the turn of 1944 and 1945.

Workmanship: the large numerals on the fuselage lie across panel lines. So that the film settles into them, it is good to go over the spot with a soft brush and a softener once it has dried and let the decal settle without further touching.