IPMS Seattle Chapter Newsletter Page 1

Cyber-Hobby (Dragon)1/48th Scale Messerschmitt

Bf 110D-3

by Walt Babst

In aviation it has been shown on manyoccasions that when engineers try todesign an aircraft that is supposed to begood at many things, they often end upwith a plane that is not good at anything.This is often the way the story of the Bf110 was portrayed.

The idea of a Kampfzerstörer or Battle-Destroyer was that of an aircraft that couldachieve aerial supremacy over enemyterritory, have a long enough range toescort bombers, be able to intercept enemybomber formations and also carry outground attack and bombing missions onits own. This idea received favor withHerman Goering and led to the issuance ofa directive in 1934 calling for the design ofan aircraft that would be able to perform allthese tasks. After design review threeprototypes would be commissioned fromthree different companies, Focke-Wulf,Henschel and Fayerische Flugzeugwerke(BFW). Trial results quickly showed thatFocke-Wulf’s Fw 57 and Henschel’s Hs124 were not able to compete with BFW’sBf 110.

Finding favor with Goering the Bf 110 wasrushed into production. The plane enjoyedinitial success in Poland and France, butsuffered unacceptably high loss rateswhen matched against the British Spitfiresand Hawker Hurricanes. Instead ofachieving air superiority the Bf 110s had tobe escorted by their sister ships, thesingle-engine Bf 109s.

On December 17, 1939, a flight of 22 RAFWellingtons flew out on a mission overHeligoland Bight, a bay in the North Sea atthe mouth of the Elbe River. Thesebombers were intercepted by a flight of Bf109s and Bf 110s, when the ensuing battlewas over twelve of the Wellingtons hadbeen shot down, nine of them credited toBf 110s.

During the Battle of France though the Bf110 faced modern single engine fightersand had higher loss rates than previouslyencountered, losing approximately 35percent of the Bf 110s deployed in thatbattle. This situation would be repeatedagain when the Bf 110 was deployedagainst the Hurricane and Spitfire duringthe Battle of Britain. During the Month ofAugust 1940 over 120 Bf 110s were lost, orabout 40 percent of the Zerstöreregruppenaircraft deployed against England. It hadbecome clear that the Bf 110 could notfight head-to-head with the more maneu-verable single-engine fighters.

When the Americans entered the war andbegan their campaign of daylight strategicbombing it was an opportunity again forthe Bf 110 to destroy the enemy the way ithad at Heligoland Bight. The problem wasthat the Americans quickly learned toescort their bombers with single-enginefighters that could help keep the enemyfighters at bay. As long and as far as thesingle-engine fighter stayed with thebombers the Bf 110 could not be aneffective weapon against the bombers.

One might think that the failure of the Bf110 to fulfill any of the missions it wasdesigned for would lead to it being phasedout. It is true that production was halted inthe expectation of it replacement the Me210, but this aircraft performed so poorlythat production lines quickly resumedproduction of the Bf 110. Soon afterproduction resumed the ultimate version,the Bf 110G, started rolling off productionlines. Production would continue untilMarch 1945 even after its successor theMe 410 went into production. Whatspurred Germany to produce an aircraft fornine years when they had learned early on

that it really could not fulfill the roles it hadoriginally been designed for? Adaptabilitywould be one reason and no viablereplacement another.

The Bf 110 continued to fight the Americanbombers during the day, using standoffweapons that enabled them to engage thebombers without getting as close in andhaving to tangle with the fighter coverage.As America continued to bomb during theday, the British would follow up with theirown raids at night. Defending Germanyfrom these nightly raids is really where theBf 110 found its strength. At first earlyversions of the plane were painted blackand sent up at night to shoot downbombers caught in the spot lights. Radarwas used to guide the fighters into thebomber stream also. It was dangerous anddeadly work, but the crews of the Bf 110were highly successful. The size of theaircraft enabled the installation of radar onboard the aircraft itself. This enabled thecrews of the Bf 110 to be hunter aircraftcapable of finding and tracking their ownquarry. It proved to a role that Bf 110swould fill till the last days of the war. TheBf 110 found its stride, and its success, ina role that had not even been createdbefore the war, that of a Night Fighter.

A major player in the Luftwaffe duringWorld War II, today the Bf 110 is a popularmodeling subject. Many kits of differentversions of the Bf 110 have long beenavailable in all the popular scales. Recentlymodelers have been blessed with newreleases in all the popular scales. Eduardled off in recent years with their 1/48thscale C/D version that set a new mark classand detail for Bf 110 kits. Most recentlyAirfix and Eduard have released 1/72ndscale versions that have received favor-able reviews also. In between Dragonwaded in with their own 1/32nd scale kitand also a 1/48th scale kit marketed underthe Cyber-Hobby label of the Bf 110D-3. Iwas given a Cyber-Hobby kit as paymentfor some automotive work performed for afellow modeler. I love deals like that. WhenI opened the kit I knew it would move tothe top of my to-do stack.

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Thoroughbred

When you open the box you are greetedby a well packed and packaged stack ofsprues. The base kit has eleven differentsprues, three of which are doubles; onesmall photo etch fret, a piece of pre-bentstainless wire and a decal sheet for twodifferent aircraft. Since this kit was a firstproduction for the United States andJapan, there were two additional identicalsprues containing parts to build theengines for each nacelle. It is really prettycreative engineering that the nacelle panelparts are the same with or without theengine. The instruction sheet does notreference the engine parts at all, they areaddressed on a separate sheet. The engineparts look to build a nice representation ofthe DB 601A engine and with a littledetailing should look quite realistic.

The decal sheet only offers two optionsand I was a little surprised to find that oneof the choices matched one of the optionsin the Eduard kit of the E version. Both ofthe kits offer the markings for an Iraqi Bf110 from 1941. Well, a little research led meto page 92 of The Messerschmitt Bf 110 inColor Profile 1939-1945, where there is anice clear picture of this aircraft identifiedas an E, with the extended tail and the

release cable clearly visible. This does notmatch the Eduard fuselage options, butdoes match the Cyber-Hobby fuselage. Ifyou want to build this aircraft it wouldprobably be better represented with theCyber-Hobby kit.

When it comes to modeling I worry aboutdetail and accuracy but I do not let itconsume me. I have seen guys get lost in abuild moving panel lines and worrying ifthe shape of something exactly matchesthe latest scale diagrams. I want to enjoymyself and actually finish the model, and Ibuild too slow to worry about certainthings. Still though I respect those whofocus on accuracy and I did lay thefuselage and wings up against scaledrawings. I will not go into millimeters, butjust say that the outline of the fuselagelooked just about perfect and the wingswere really close, maybe just a tad short inspan. I did take a picture of the fuselagesfrom the three main Bf 110 kits on themarket, in a side by side comparison. Theyare all very close to the same and whileyou could probably almost join the Eduardto the Cyber-Hobby fuselages togetherthey do not agree on the location of thefuselage segments.

The engraving on all the exterior surfacesis fine and delicate, but I think it lacks thefinesse of the Eduard kit. The controlsurfaces may be a little heavy handed forsome but I think they will look okay whenpainted and weathered. The directionsheet looks complete but beware that thereare a lot of steps covered in some of thepictures. It might be easy to miss some-thing.

Beginning construction in the cockpit Ideviated from the directions and glued thesidewalls to the side of the fuselageinstead of building the cockpit first andtrapping it in the fuselage. At this pointyou run into your first glitch in thedirections. The directions show twolocating sockets for the side of thefuselage to help set the side panels in theproper location. The sockets are on partA1, the port side of the fuselage, but oneis missing on the starboard side. In the endit did not matter; the side panel wassufficiently located with just the onesocket. As I built up some of the parts I raninto a few little things. One was the photo-etch harness for the pilot’s seat. Thedirections show it passing through the slotin backrest which was molded closed inthe kit. Silly me, I drilled it out and foldedup the photo-etch to get it to pass throughand then unfolded it to glue it in place.Next time I would just cut it and make looklike it passed through. There is also no callout in the directions for part F12, the trimwheel, to be glued to fuselage side A1.

All-in-all the cockpit builds up to be verycomplete and very attractive straight fromthe box. The one thing I will note is thatwhile the parts are delicate and veryintricate the fit of the items is not alwaysvery positive and secure. I also ran into anissue when I joined the fuselage halvestogether. The fuselage mold seems to bewide at the cockpit area. I had to clamp the

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fuselage in order to get the side to touchthe bulkheads. Part F35, which has theframework on it for the canopy and closesout the top of the cockpit, seems to be alittle narrow, again requiring clamp, and Iwas still left with little gaps. On thepositive side though, the fit of the fuselagehalves was excellent.

The wheel wells arevery nice andappropriatelydetailed. The indi-vidual side braces aresupplied in plasticand in my opinion arenicer than photo-etch.I do warn you thoughthat you should becareful with these aseach of them isdifferent just enoughthat if you try to putthem in the wrongspot they do not fitcorrectly, yet theylook almost identical(as you can imagine, Ifound this out thehard way).

The engine firewallsare handed forstarboard and portwing, but it appearsto me that the hosesfor the starboard wingare on the wrong sideof the firewall. Thatfact, plus it was myintention to save oneengine for some otherproject, and I wantedto compare theassemblies of thenacelles with andwithout an engine, ledme to build it with justthe port engine. I sayit was my plan to saveone engine foranother project, butmy dog had otherplans. The engine fellonto the floor withoutme noticing but nother. I heard crunching

sounds and found my engine looking likeit had been hit by a few 30 mm cannonshells. The engines themselves are niceand without any enhancements make areasonable presentation of the engine. Infact, much of the detail is lost under therear panel of the nacelle that is not

removable in this kit. The assembly of theengine and nacelles is tricky, I did notfollow the directions and it caused memany frustrations trying to get it all to fit.The problem is that if you assemble it asthe instructions direct, you are trying toattach the wheel wells, firewall, engine,nacelle all at same time. I did not go thisroute, and still had issues with alignment.

The wings go together fairly well, you aregiven the option of building it with theleading edge slats deployed or stowed.Showing them deployed requires a little kitsurgery, but it is relatively straight forwardand I think adds a nice touch. You also aregiven the option of flaps up or down, Ichose down. All of the flight controls arepositional which I found to be a nicetouch.

When it comes time to attach the wings tothe fuselage you are aided by two wingspars which help insure a nice positivestrong fit with the correct dihedral. Kudosto Dragon for engineering this feature intothe kit; Revell/Monogram and Eduard donot have this feature. The tail also has anice positive fit and alignment is very easyto achieve.

The nose gun bay is also nicely detailedand looks nice straight out of the box. Theproblem is the strange engineering of thenose piece. Instead of molding a solid one-piece for displaying it closed and a two-piece for displaying it open, Dragon choseto mold it as a two-piece for closed thathas a piece missing where I do not believeit was separable on the actual aircraft. (Seephoto opposite). In order to display itopen you have to cut part of the moldednose off and use another piece that slideson. The fit is good if not fiddly, but since Iwas building this as a review and wantedto take full advantage of what the kitoffered I went this route.

After all the subassemblies were puttogether I was ready for paint. There wasvery little work that needed to be doneafter assembly, the only seams that gaveme any real issues were the nose to thefuselage, and the underside fuselage to themain fuselage towards the front. Overall it

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was not really too bad and requiredminimal amounts of putty. One word ofwarning though, throughout assembly Iforgot to drill out the holes for variousitems, like the drop tanks and the cableholders for the dingy release cable. It tooksome work but I was able to locate and drillthem from the outside, sure would havebeen easier to do it before assemblythough!

Now ready for paint, I used my photoreferences to get the scheme right for mybird. I love the German 02/71/65 paintscheme, although I did lighten my 65 bluewith some 76 blue to lighten it up a littlebit. I used the kit decals and found thatthey generally worked well although it didtake a few applications of Microsol andSolveset to get them to snuggle downcompletely. The shark mouth is supplied intwo pieces and I ended up with open partswhere the decal did not come together inthe relief cuts. I ended up touching themup with some red paint. If I had it to doover I would probably paint the mouth andthen cut the teeth from the decal. I havedone it that way before and it worked well.

I put on some of the detail parts after allthis and weathered the bird. I found thephoto etch loop antenna to be moretrouble than it was worth. If I looked at itwrong it bent and when it bent the painttended to flake. I guess I am somewhatphoto-etch challenged. Overall though Iwould say this was a very enjoyable, welldetailed kit that gives you a lot in the box.Having built the Revell/Monogram kit Ican say that it is definitely a much moreadvanced and better kit. I have not yet

built the Eduard kit, buthaving read other’sreviews and looked at theplastic in the box I amguessing that these twokits would be very close inquality. I would highlyrecommend the Dragon kitto anyone who likes the Bf110 and wants an enjoy-able build that will giveyou a really nice buildstraight out of the box.

1-10 Scale RatingsValue- 10 (lots of options, photo etch,positional flight controls, optional cano-pies)Fit- 7 (generally very good, but some partslocation points not very positive)Decals -8 (nice good color and registry buttake some effort to get them to settledown)Directions- 6 (no real directions justpictures with high parts count assembliesin each)Molding - 9 (no flash or sink marks tospeak of, crisp details and fine engraving).

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