Kagero TopDrawings 59 - Heinkel He.111 Vol.2 (9788365437365)

[Mike]

TopDrawings 59 - Heinkel He.111 Vol.2 (9788365437365)

Kagero Publishing via Casemate UK

 

 

The Heinkel He.111 was one of the most common sights over BoB era WWII Britain, and it remains popular with modellers today.  We have kits in all scales for example from Airfix in 1:72, through the new ICM kits in 1:48, and the older 1:32 kits from Revell.  The TopDrawings series majors on scale plans, which is the main thrust, but also includes a little background information, some pertinent profiles, and often a bonus of decals or masks targeted at the subject matter in hand.  With this edition, you get what is referred to as a poster, but is actually an atmospheric A4 print of a camouflaged He.111 releasing a V1 bomb during a night mission, painted by Arkadiusz Wróbel.

 

 

The book is written in English on the left of the page, with Czech on the right, which translates to top and bottom for the captions to the various drawings within.  The book itself is bound in a card cover and has 28 pages, with one at the rear are devoted to advertising the rest of the Kagero range, but in addition you get two sheets of loose A3 plans printed on both sides in 1:48 and 1:72 of the H series with the glazed nose replacing the stepped nose originally fitted to the early aircraft.  The first half of the bound plans show the variants up to the H-18 and includes Hs.293, Bv.246 and V1 carrying airframes, plus torpedo and balloon-cutter versions.  The four pages of profiles show five H airframes, plus an overhead plan on the third page (and another two on the rear cover), after which the plans begin again, taking it up to the H-22 with detail diagrams of various points of interest on the airframe, munitions carried and of course the awesome Zwilling.  The final section of the plans shows the evolution of the aircraft through the H series, with differences marked out in grey and captions discussing the nature of the changes.  The most unusual of these variants for me was the EDL 131 equipped remote turret that was fitted to some H-22s instead of the partially glazed top gun.  I now have a hankering to convert one of my 111s to this mark.

 

 

 

Conclusion

These books are essential for the modeller that likes to compare their models against scale plans, and wants them to be as accurate as possible, with the print a nice bonus that could be mounted and displayed on a wall to annoy your family.  We reviewed Volume 1 here in the summer, which covered the earlier models.

 

Highly recommended.

 

 

Review sample courtesy of