1:48 Messerschmitt Bf 109G-2

Gustavs with the blue swastika of the north

Finland received its first Messerschmitts of the G-2 version in 1943 and deployed them against numerical odds on the Karelian Isthmus. The machines were given fuselage numbers of their own beginning with the letters MT and in the hands of experienced pilots reached a kill ratio that is among the best in the history of the type. The Finnish Air Force kept them in service long after the fighting ended.

The machines captured

• the aircraft with Werknummer 14754, a white 3 and the fuselage number MT-213, from the middle of 1944
• the same type with Werknummer 13528 in its original German ferry markings, as it arrived at an airfield near Helsinki in May 1943
• the same machine after being repainted to the fuselage number MT-222, a yellow 2, in the colors of a fighter squadron with a well-known pilot, the summer of 1943

The interest of the sheet lies precisely in the second and the third subject: it is one and the same aircraft in two phases of its life, first with a German ferry code and then after being taken into Finnish service. Anyone building a pair of models gets a vivid illustration of how the whole appearance of an aircraft changed in the course of a few weeks.

Application procedure

The fuselage numbers of the MT series are printed in narrow lettering and so wrinkle easily. It helps to settle them on a thoroughly warmed gloss base and to draw the excess water off toward the tail, not across. The package takes in neither the model nor the shades of the Finnish camouflage.

Anyone building both appearances of one machine side by side will appreciate that the sheet has the German as well as the Finnish markings in a single envelope and no second sheet has to be bought.