1st post for me on this forum and also my first plastic kit I`ve made in 20 odd years. Not perfect, but made for an interesting project. Story below to go with the pictures. Hope you enjoy.
``With the assignation of Hitler in November 1939 and the removal of hard liners within the Nazi party by January 1940 a more moderate Nazi government was formed and the Allied Nations rescinded their declaration of war on Germany in December 1939. In February 1940, as agreed the previous December, all German forces were withdrawn from Poland and Czechoslovakia. Russia however remained in their newly captured Baltic states . While human rights issues within Germany continued until 1945, after further diplomatic moves and sanctions against Germany from Europe and the United States , the creation of the Jewish state in Palestine was agreed and created.
Under political influence from Stalin, most European Countries adopted a communist regime and invited Russian forces to occupy various military bases in their countries, thus starting a new `cold war` from 1949 onwards. This alarmed many of the western countries and in 1948 NATO was created in preparation for a possible armed confrontation with the new formed Soviet Union .
With the introduction of military jet aircraft in 1946 and the atomic bomb in 1950 firstly by the United States , and followed shortly after by the USSR in 1952, the military stand off was complete.
The German aviation industry had made great strides in jet aircraft development from 1937, however resource’s were scarce within Germany and after the communist threat arose, it was decided to share all its information with its western allies. Both Great Britain and the US had been working on their own designs and with the free exchange of information, each country produced their own designs.
With Germany in the front line most air units were equipped with fighters as they were going to geographically be the first NATO units to intercept enemy aircraft, however by 1954 the Luftwaffe was looking for a strike capability aircraft. Although the German aviation industry was very good a concepts and ideas for fighters, they continually failed to produce a good `all rounder` bomber aircraft.
In 1960 the Luftwaffe turned to Avro after they test flew the new Vulcan B.2 which was a vast improvement on the original B.1 variant. Within months of the successful evaluation, the first Vulcan was delivered to the Luftwaffe in February 1961. With so many Luftwaffe units in the fighter role a hasty reorganisation had taken place in January 1961 with some fighter units designated for bomber operations.
JG 71 `Richthofen` Squadron became KG 71 and tasked as a night attack Squadron, was the first unit to became operational on the type on the 1st June 1961.
Here is aircraft number 218 from the newly formed unit.``
