Kit # 6013 MSRP $46.95
Images, text and model Copyright © 2004 by Matt Swan
Fonderie Miniatures 1/48 Scale Blohm & Voss 212 P-03
Kit # 6013 MSRP $46.95
Images, text and model Copyright © 2004 by Matt Swan
Developmental History
Luft ’46 projects have always fascinated me. I try to imagine the surprise that members of the famous Watson’s Whizzers must have experienced when discovering such unusual aircraft as the HO-229 or this particular project – the Blohm and Voss BV-212. I think that it is much better that these guys experience the surprise rather than Allied bomber crews though.
By the end of 1944 the Luftwaffe High Command realized that a better high-altitude fighter was needed and they wanted to take advantage of the new He S 011 jet engine that was being developed. Thus, the Emergency Fighter Competition came into being*. In February 1945 Blohm and Voss designer Dr. Vogt presented the Project 212 design for the “Emergency Fighter Program”. This design used the same steel air-intake/load bearing design as the BV-211 and incorporated many interesting features including a pressurized cockpit, 40 degree swept wings, a fuel load giving four hours of flight time and the capability to carry a varied armament load.
By February 1945, three proposals had been received from Messerschmitt, two from Focke-Wulf and one each from Heinkel, Junkers and Blohm & Voss. The Blohm and Voss proposal was actually the third generation of design. The first of the BV P.212 designs featured a short, squat fuselage, with a short air intake. The wings were swept back at 45 degrees, and featured a small amount of dihedral. Two small vertical fins were located near the wingtips. The second of the BV P.212 designs was a refinement of the previous BV P.212.01. The fuselage was lengthened, and the wings now featured down-turned wingtips in place of the wingtip fins of the BV P.212.01. The BV P.212.03 was the final design. The fuselage was again lengthened, with larger internal fuel tanks being installed. The wings were swept back at 40 degrees and featured pronounced dihedral. There were full-span leading-edge slats and at the rear of each wingtip there were a small fin and rudder. In addition, the wings were designed to be built out of wood, steel or aluminum, although the first versions were to have the usual stressed skin steel construction.
2700 liters (713 gallons) of fuel could be carried, 2100 liters internally in the wings and fuselage and 300 liters in two under wing drop tanks. The armament consisted of 2, 3, 5 or 7 MK 108 30mm cannons, with armament variants including 22 R4M rockets in the nose or a 500kg bomb load. Although the Focke-Wulf Ta 183 was chosen for production in late February, the design impressed the panel so much that three prototypes were ordered and construction began in May 1945. After exhaustive wind tunnel and structural tests, the first aircraft was to make its first flight in August and the second aircraft was to be ready by September 1945. Of course, the end of the war ended all construction.
The Kit
Fonderie Miniatures has been putting out a few new kits of interesting subjects. This particular kit gives the immediate impression of a limited run kit, the sprue gates are all heavy, and the plastic is rough and shows the dreaded orange peel effect in several places. This is a true multi-media kit with the main fuselage and wing pieces of injection molded plastic, the interior cockpit pieces of resin and the landing gear of white metal. The canopy is a Vac piece that is fairly clear and benefits from a coat of Future Floor Polish. While the plastic pieces all feature engraved panel lines they are not very crisp. The resin looks to be of good quality but the seat does not have any seat belts – I added Cutting Edge poseable seat belts to dress up the front office a little.
Like most limited run kits and other European projects, there are no locator pins on any of the parts and the wing pieces all have large flat contact surfaces. The challenge here will be to get the wing dihedral correct and maybe add some pins. The landing gear doors do offer some very nice interior panel details. This kit includes the basic piece to build a descent replica of the aircraft but lacks the finer pieces such as aerial loop, seatbelts and some decals, which I’ll talk about in a moment. Overall we have 31 injection molded pieces, 15 white metal pieces, one resin piece and one Vac piece for a total of 48 pieces in the box.
Decals and Instructions
FM does not give you much in the line of decals for this bird. The very small sheet has markings for two fictitious aircraft, one of JG.26 in standard Luftwaffe splinter camouflage and one for JG.54 in a winter scheme. There are no service stencils, no unit badges or other marking included. It is highly recommended that the modeler have a decent pile of spare decals to augment the kit sheet for best results.
The instructions are not much more promising, we get two pages covered front and back with exploded views. Three pages are for assembly and one page is for decal placement and painting. The construction steps are very illustration orientated with very little text. There are no color call-outs in any of these steps so the modeler must rely on previous Luftwaffe modeling experience and some common sense. There is no historical information provided for the aircraft and the exterior color-coding is extremely brief.
Construction
Construction was very straight forward on this kit. All the large plastic pieces needed a light sanding to remove that orange peel effect. I did add some weight to the nose to prevent tail sitting and added the Cutting Edge posable seatbelts. The interior assemblies were done first and painted a basic RLM-66 black-gray for the cockpit and RLM-02 in the landing gear bays. Details were added with dry brushing and washing. Some sanding was needed to acquire a good fit with the landing gear bays but nothing very serious. The engine pieces were done with Tamiya Burnt Iron before installation.
I saw the wings as the greatest challenge in the construction phase. I installed the landing gear then, with the craft setting on the wheels, placed blocks under the wings to achieve an equal dihedral then glued them in place. While still maintaining the blocks the winglets were glued in place and checked for proper alignment. All the openings such as engine, cockpit and gear bays were stuffed with damp tissue paper and the model was painted. I used Polly Scale and Tamiya acrylics for the finish. All gear doors were painted separately then installed after the tissue packing was removed.
Final finishing is all pretty standard, the model was sealed with Future Floor Polish then the decals were applied. The kit decals behaved nicely and responded well to setting solutions. I added service stencils; access panel latches, kill markings and the unit badge from my spares box and the loop aerial came from the spares box as well. After another sealing coat of Future the panel lines were washed with a basic sludge wash and the gun blast stains were applied using Tamiya X-19 Smoke. A little Smoke was added around the end of the jet exhaust to simulate heat damage to the paint. The final paint detail was a coat of Polly Scale clear flat. The canopy was dipped in Future, allowed to cure then masked, painted and installed with Testors Clear Parts Cement.
Conclusions
While this kit may sound fairly simple, and for a limited run kit it is, I do not suggest that beginning modelers tackle this project. It requires a good level of modeling skill to get these pieces to align properly and a good spares box is definitely required for best results. The instructions require careful study prior to beginning assembly and dry fitting is a must throughout the project. In the end you will have a very nice addition to your Luft ’46 collection.
