Re.2001, the fighter-bomber

[Giorgio N]

This will be my first entry for this GB, the Sword kit of the Reggiane Re.2001 Falco II.

The Re.2001 is not really the most famous among the Italian fighters of the war , being obscured by the more famous MC.202. The two types competed for the request of a fighter powered by the German DB.601 engine and the Macchi won thanks to the superior performance. The Re.2001 however showed potential as a fighter bomber and this led the Regia Aeronautica to order the type. It was in this role that the Re.2001 spent most of its career although a number also served as night fighters.

From a design point of view the Re.2001 was actually much more modern than the Macchi. All Reggiane aircrafts were built using the mass production techniques that their designer, Roberto Longhi, had seen developing during his time in the USA, where he had worked with Bellanca, Curtiss and Burnelli. This led to a very advanced structural design that allowed lighter airframes compared to what Macchi and Fiat did. Unfortunately things didn't all go right and there were many problems related to the delivery of materials, so that the potential advantage in speed of construction of these aircrafts were all lost.

Overall the Re.2001 was a type that did what was expected without really shining. Fighter bombers are rarely as celebrated as pure fighters are and this didn't help the Re.2001 fame either.

Fortunately the Re.2001 has been decently served when it comes to plastic models, at least in 1/72 scale: Supermodel issued a 1/72 kit in the '70s that while basic was a decent base for an accurate model (and was really Supermodel's best kit of an Italian fighter). More recently Sword issued a short run kit that promises to be pretty good. This is the kit I'll be building.

 

The box art... well, I missed the Sword Re.2001 when this was first issued. Later it was reissued in a combo box together with a Spitfire Vc and I missed this one too (very bad!). Fortunately Sword recently issued a nice collection of Reggiane aircrafts and this time I grabed one immediately:

 

 

Of the kits included in the box, the Re.2000 is the most recent and it's a great kit. The 2005 is the oldest, it's good but the RS kit is better. I'm not sure if having two 2002 is really a great choice considering the short career of the type, in any case these are also good kits. In any case this box is a great way to have 6 Italian fighters at a very good price.

 

Each kit comes in a separate bag and here's the one for the 2001:

 

 

The kit is relatively simple, with only one plastic sprue. Plastic is typical of this kind of kits, quite soft but retains details quite well. No alignment pins are included, again typical of short run kits. Detail is pretty good and the shape looks good. Resin parts are included for the wheels and exhausts, nice touch.

 

 

Decals are on a single sheet for all aircrafts, with only one option for each. The sheet is in the bag of another kit, will take a picture later.

Overall this promises to be an easy enough kit, at least easy enough considering its short run nature. Painting should also be easy as Re.2001 used in the fighter-bomber role were in the standard continental scheme of dark green over light grey.

[Ozzy]

Nice looking kit.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

So Sword give you a bomb & bomb-mount in the Re.2001, but not in the Re.2002 (which was the dedicated attack aircraft IIRC)?   

 

Oh well, at least I now know I can rob the bomb out of my Re.2001. 

 

 

[Giorgio N]

14 hours ago, Ozzy said:

Nice looking kit.

 

It sure is, I hope that fit is to the same level... 😁

 

7 hours ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

So Sword give you a bomb & bomb-mount in the Re.2001, but not in the Re.2002 (which was the dedicated attack aircraft IIRC)?   

 

Oh well, at least I now know I can rob the bomb out of my Re.2001. 

 

 

 

Exactly, a bomb here and none in the 2002, that is really a pity since the 2002 was really only an attack aircraft.

Speaking of the 2002, should I finish the 2001 in time I may build the radial engined brother. There are two subjects I'd like to build, one of the aircrafts that bombed and damaged HMS Nelson in one of the desperate attacks carried out in July 1943 and a Cobelligerant aircraft operating in the even more desperate attempts to stop the German slaughter at Kefalonia

[Giorgio N]

Finally made a start ! Not much to show here but at least I started painting bits... starting, as most often happens, from the cockpit.

One of the questions commonly asked on modelling forums is "what is the colour of the cockpit of Italian WW2 aircrafts?", to which often the answer is still "use verde anticorrosione". Those modellers here who have seen similar posts on this forum of course know that this is not the right answer ! Or better, the answer is way more complicated.

To summarise here (I would suggest to search in the WW2 section of the forum for a more elaborate answer to this question), before the introduction of Tavola 10 there was no official Air Force requested colour and every manufacturer used their own preferred paint, with some companies using greens and grey greens and others using grey (and some earlier aircrafts still using aluminum). The Tavola 10 introduced for the first time a standard colour, Grigio Azzurro Chiaro 1, that was the same colour required for the undersides.

Reggiane is known to have been one of the companies that painted cockpits in green. Was the Re.2001 cockpit also painted in green ? Hard to tell ! In theory the cockpit should have been in grey as per Tavola 10, since these aircrafts were mainly built after October 1941. At the same time it is known that some companies kept using "their" colours for some time. I could not find any specific information on the Re.2001 so I used some pictures of a Re.2002 recovered a few years ago that seem to show green more than grey in the cockpit. Of course since the pictures show a wreck it may well be that the green is the primer onto which a grey was applied, however I'll stick to green.

Analysis of wrecks of different Reggiane built aircrafts have shown a few different greens, amongst them the more common seems to have been a "lawn green" similar to FS 34227. This is only a bit greener than the well known British grey green, so it may be surprising to see that my painted Re.2001 cockpit parts don't look that different from a Spitfire...

 

[Beard]

I have the Malta Spitfire/ Re2001 boxing and, although Italian aircraft aren't really my thing, the Dailer Benz engined Fiats, Macchi and Reggiane planes are interesting so I'll be following your build.

[Giorgio N]

An update on this model... I should have posted a couple of pictures earlier, but really most of the work was only done in the last couple of weeks...

Anyway, let's start saying that I researched the cockpit colour a bit further and I'm now convinced that grey is a better option. For this reason, I painted the cockpit areas in Grigio Azzurro Chiaro 1. I also added seat belts from Eduard's specific PE sheet

 

 

The picture above shows that I misplaced the pedal bar and had to replace this with a plastic rod (yet to be painted in the picture). I also made a small mistake: I attached the seat belts to the rear bulkhead... not this is wrong in itself, the problem is that I had forgotten that that bulkhead would have been covered by another part in the model !

Small bit of info on the seat belts: originally the straps connecting them to the bulkhead were not used, this was a modification introduced in 1942 (I have the exact date somewhere...) and I used these as my aircraft is represented after this date. For older aircrafts they can be left off.

 

I forgot to take pictures of the newly repainted areas within the fuselage halves, so the best I can show is how these looked from the lower fuselage end. Notice how I left the rest of the interiors in green.

 

 

Fit on the fuselage wasn't perfect, may have been my fault but anyway this is afterall a short run kit. Before closing the fuselage halves I glued in place the resin exhausts with 2-component epoxy. Care is needed to align these correctly as there's nothing to set them at the proper depth within the fuselage

 

 

 

[Giorgio N]

With the fuselage properly glued I added the instrument panel and glued the cockpit in place. This was not easy as the instrument panel required some fettling to fit and the cockpit floor barely touched where it was supposed to, so much that it was hard to glue the parts. Adding a couple of plasticard bits helped solving the problem. OF course before inserting the cockpit I had to detach the seat belt straps from the rear bulkhead, attach the proper part on the fuselage and then re-glue the straps

 

 

And a close-up of the straps on the proper bulkhead

 

 

 

 

Next step will be gluing the wings, that I have prepared separately. A first test fit shows that this area may not be as bad as I feared

 

[stevehnz]

I have the same boxing as Simon so I too shall be watching this, even though  watching these current GBs is messing with my head something wicked, I haven't a hope of taking part in any just now.

Steve.

[Franz75]

Very nice kit,

At last, Italian plane.  Good luck, I will be watching this one.