1:48 Fw 190F-8

The Focke-Wulf that came down to the ground

The letter F denoted the ground-attack branch of the line, derived from the A-8 version. The machine received armor plates under the cockpit and around the lower part of the fuselage, because it flew low over the battlefield and its main enemy was anti-aircraft fire from below. The outer wing cannons, by contrast, were left out so that the machine could carry a rack with a bomb under the fuselage. The armament in the cowling and in the wing roots stayed, that is the four positions this set fills with metal.

A part that survives handling

A ground-attack aircraft is built with external stores and a modeler often turns it over and moves it around during the work, which is exactly the situation in which thin plastic projections die. A molded barrel catches on the edge of the mat and either snaps or bends and can no longer be straightened. A brass tube takes the same and stays straight, because metal in such a small cross-section behaves elastically where styrene is brittle. The practical consequence is that the barrels can be fitted early and do not have to be kept back until the very end of the build. Anyone who has once glued a broken plastic cannon back into finished camouflage knows why that is worth mentioning.

What is in the box

• the cockpit framing covered on both sides of the glass
• two sheets of insignia masks
• a pair of metal muzzles for the MG 131 weapons
• a pair of MG 151 cannons plus a dynamic pressure sensor

Neither decals nor plastic parts of the aircraft are included; the set complements a kit bought separately. For the ground-attack version that is practical for another reason too: low-flying machines carried conspicuous bands and numbers, and a masked spraying is more durable than a decal at the moment when paint chipping or dry-brushing is then done over it.