The Junkers Ju.87 "Stuka" (nickname of "Sturzkampfflugzeug",
that means "diving battle aircraft") was a particular plane
heavily used by the Reich in the first period of WWII. Its peculiarity was the
bomb diving, that gave "Stuka" a real advantage in this period. The
Ju.87 gave very good results until the Battle of Britain, where this slow
and heavy plane showed all its vulnerability, especially at the end of the
diving manouver. In Autumn 1940, the "Regia Aeronautica" managed
to receive 100 Ju.87 Stukas from allied Germany, renamed "Picchiatelli"
(from Italian word "picchiata" that means
"diving") which served in various groups until the end of the
war, achieving excellent results.
Click on
images below to see larger images
|
|
|
|
The
kit I built is from Hasegawa, in 1/48 scale. A nice kit, according to Hasegawa's
quality standard, but with some minor flaws I go to enumerate. The first
and more evident is the ugly styrene "triangles" used to represent
the leverage of flap and ailerons. These triangles has to be removed immediately and
rebuilt with metallic wires or similar stuff. Also flaps and ailerons
should be separated from wings and mounted lowered, as they are in
reality when the plane is parked. Same as above, we should work on the dive
brakes, that are represented in "closed" position, when they have
to be lowered as well. A look at the pics will explain the whole things...
The cockpit
was enriched with scratchbuilt particulars, as levers, buttons and electric
wires. The seat belts are made from laminated brass. The whole cockpit is
painted in RLM 66 Schwartzgrau, with some grey drybrushing and black oil wash.
Click on
images below to see larger images
|
|
|
|
The plane
livery is the classic RLM 70-RLM 71 "Splinter", with RLM 65
undersurfaces. I used Gunze acrylics and my Badger 150. I did a dark grey
preshading that almost disappeared when I airbrushed the splinter scheme,
but remained subtle in the undersurfaces. Once the paint has dried
I did a panel oil wash with Raw Umber. The Italian Stukas arrived from
Germany with complete Reich insignas, including swastikas, wing
crosses and squadron numbers, that were covered when they arrived in Italy. The
Italian ground staff used to cover these insignas with a
similar to RLM 70 green that, being newer than the original colour, was a little
darker.
That's all, I
hope you'll like it. See you!...
David
Rome (Italy)
Click on
images below to see larger images
|
|
|
|
|
|
|