Kagero Last hope for the Luftwaffe - MiniTopColors 37

[Mike]

Last hope for the Luftwaffe: Me.163, He.162, Me.262
1:72, 1:48, 1:32 Kagero

This is issue 37 of Kagero's successful MiniTopColors series, that consists of a booklet of 18 pages containing three-view digital paintings of ten different aircraft with decals to match in 1:72, 1:48 and 1:32. There are three schemes for the Komet, four for the Salamander, and three for the Schwalbe.

As these are late war aircraft, they are rough and ready, with very heavily adapted and personalised schemes, altered airframes with unpainted parts, previously painted grafted sections, and naked metal with puttied seams evident. The schemes are as follows:

• Me.163B V53 W.Nr. 16310062, White 9, flown by Kurt Schieber of 1./JG400, Brandis, Germany early August 1944.
• Me.163B White 10 flown by Lt. Hans-Ludwig Loscher of 1./JG400, Brandis, Germany, late February 1945.
• Me.163B V52 W.Nr.16310061 Yellow 1, flown by Lt. Reinhard Opitz, Kapitan of 7./JG400 Nordholz, Germany, April 1945.
• He.162A-1 W.Nr. 310003 Yellow 5 of 3./JG1, Leck, Germany, May 1945.
• He.162A-2 W.Nr. 120067 White 4 of 1./JG1, Leck, Germany, May 1945.
• He.162A-2 W.Nr. 120028 White 3 of 1./JG1, Leck, Germany, May 1945.
• He.162A-2 W.Nr. 120231 White 6 of 1./JG1, Leck, Germany, May 1945.
• Me.262A-2a W.Nr.110613 9K+DK flown by Ofw. Hermann Wieczorek of 2./KG51 Rheine-Hopsten, Germany 25th February 1945.
• Me.262A-1a Yellow 2 of 3./KG(J)54, Prague-Ruzyne, Czechoslovakia, May 1945.
• Me.262A-1a White 34 of III./EJG2, Brunnthal, Germany May 1945.

The decals are printed by Cartograf as usual, and are of top quality, with good register, colour density and sharpness, accompanied by a very glossy and close-cut carrier film. Each scale is separated by a dotted line, so you'll not get confused between scales.

Conclusion
Perfectly timed for the release of the new Meng Me.163B kit, and I'm sure a great many of us will end up owning both. The partially bare metal schemes are very interesting, and there's a lot of mottle, scribble and soft demarcations between colours, so you'd best spruce up your airbrushing skills to tackle them. I'm personally very tempted by them all, although having only one Salamander in my stash is now starting to look like a problem.

Highly recommended.

Review sample courtesy of

[Antoine]

Thanks Mike.

Some very interesting aircrafts here.

Think I'll get this one.

[Antoine]

Any one already shopped straight from kagero's shop?

[Giorgio N]

Any one already shopped straight from kagero's shop?

I did a while ago during a special sale. Very good service IMHO, everything I had ordered arrived very quickly and in good order. There was no need for any communication since everything went smoothly so I can't comment on this aspect but my experience has been very positive.

A word on the decals: I used a few from the sheet coming with the Spitfire VIII book and they are top class, thin but strong enough to be repositioned if needed, no silvering and a very clear carrier film that disappeared completely using microscale's liquid.

[JasonC]

It's a brave man who'll take on that 262 camouflage....

[Ticketec]

Not yet,

But am terribly tempted to!

I was 90% sure I wasn't going to build the Meng Me-163 with the kit colour options anyways

Thanks

dave

[Diamondbacks VF-102]

lovely Me-163 scheme imho