Bf 109-F2/4***FINISHED***

[PeterB]

I suppose I have built 2 109F previously, the first being the original Airfix 109 which was later renamed 109F but was a bit of a mess, and about 10 years later the Frog F which I still have. Ihave always felt that the Friedrich was a little under-represented so when Italeri brought out their kit in the mid 1990's I bought 2 of them though I have since seen review suggesting that the F and related G have accuracy problems - nothing new there!

I intend to build at least one, possibly in a slightly unusual Russian theatre scheme of brown and green, and maybe another in normal Western European colours. The kit comes with the options of an F-2 of JG26 (Galland?) in France in December 1941, an F-4 of JG2 also in France in June 1942 and an F-4/Trop of JG27 in North Africa in September 1942. If anybody knows what is supposed to be wrong with the kit by all means let me know and I may even try and improve it.

 

Pete

[Col.]

While it certainly seems as if those parts will create something that looks like a 109 I can't comment more on the accuracy or otherwise of this one Pete but it will make for an interesting comparison with the earlier Hasegawa kit. Do like your plan to do one in the Russian theatre colours 

[PeterB]

Thanks Col.

 

Just looked at a review from SAM and there is a lot of things that the modeller did not like. He says the panel lines are all wrong, the cockpit is too basic, the wheels are too thick and the legs too thin for starters. He goes on to say he had to reprofile the prop blades but does not say what was wrong with them, and thinks the spinner is too blunt, does not like the radiator flaps, and finally the supercharger intake is wrong! Strangely he makes no comment at all about the size/shape of the fuselage and wings so maybe that is not too bad? Personally I think he is being a bit harsh about the cockpit.

You get sidewall detail, rear bulkhead and floor, stick and seat (he says that is wrong too), and the only thing you do not get is a detailed IP or failing that a dec. About the only thing he did like was the fact that you could fit a resin engine and display it with the top of the cowling open/off. Italeri clearly moulded it with the G version in mind, hence the open top to the cowling and the seperate tail unit which could be problematic if it does not fit well. Unlike my Airfix Il-2 I am going to build it anyway. Actually I will probably build the Il-2 as well but more on that in the "Less than a Tenner" GB

 

Cheers

 

Pete

[Graham Boak]

I quite like the Italeri one too, which is just as well as I ended up with spares after a diversion into Mistels.  However you will want to replace the spinner (I used a spare Heller) and (IIRC) move the undercarriage mounting points inward.  The fit of the cowling is a bit, err, sensitive.  I found it better to glue the halves separately to the fuselage halves first.  However it is fair to say that I have not compared it to any of the no-doubt superior kits that have come out since.  Nor do I particularly intend to.  I don't feel any need for another F, which is a bit of a shame as I still have one left.

[jean]

Hi Pete,

 

that is a good idea to tackle this kit. I have one myself, which I keep for rainy days...

I have compared the plastic with a good plan and indeed there are quite a few inaccuracies, most of them you have mentioned.

The panel lines on the fuselage are pretty much all in the wrong place... and the landing gear attachment points are in the wing root when they should be at the edge of the fuselage. As you know the 109 could have its wings removed and still be towed on its landing gear.

You are talking a move inward of each leg of about 1.5 mm on each side. But again you do not have to care about it! Plus the detail inside the wheel wells is totally fictitious.

I purchased a French resin A.M. kit that deals with the cockpit, spinner, propeller, undercarriage and wheels. So I will be left with the rescribing if the fuselage....

But you know, I am sure that at the end of the day it will still look like a Friedrich built OOB!

 

Have fun!

 

JR

[Graham Boak]

Ahem.  I missed this first time around, but the original Airfix 109 began life as an F - and at the time I couldn't find any reference to what an F was, just Es and Gs so there obviously was one...  It was then rereleased as  a G.  But it was bloated and only vaguely anything Messerschmitt.

[PeterB]

Thanks guys,

 

Forgot about the wheel wells which the review had a rant about, and also the false "fabric" effect on the control surfaces.Looking at the kit wheels I have realised he was not saying they were too thick - they are far too big, but fortunately I have found some correctly sized spares! Still working on the prop and spinner.

 

Cheers

 

Pete

Edited July 5, 2021 by PeterB

[PeterB]

15 hours ago, Graham Boak said:

Ahem.  I missed this first time around, but the original Airfix 109 began life as an F - and at the time I couldn't find any reference to what an F was, just Es and Gs so there obviously was one...  It was then rereleased as  a G.  But it was bloated and only vaguely anything Messerschmitt.

Hi Graham,

 

May be wrong but looking at the pics on Scalemates I think I must have bought it when it was re-labelled a "G" - the artwork on the "F" bag header looks like it was drawn by a 5 year old (bit like the kit itself)! Either way it just did not look right to me and went in the bin after a couple of years. Like you I had no real idea what an F was at that time and I guess it was not until around 1963 when I bought Green's Warplanes of the World series of books that my knowledge of planes expanded beyond the early Airfix offerings. The first one I saw and bought was Volume 3 and I discovered that the Japanese did not just have "Zeros" and "Oscars" and the Russians did not just have "Migs"!

 

I have just noticed that Italeri have included the tail bracing strips so that probably makes it an F2 or an early production F4 OOB but they can be easily removed for a later one. They also of course include windscreens with and without the extra armoured glass so in that respect the kit is not too bad.

 

Cheers

 

Pete

Edited July 6, 2021 by PeterB

[Graham Boak]

The F packet had plain artwork of the model, on a stand IIRC.  The G had a coloured side view.

 

I do find it a shame that there's no modern equivalent to those very useful books.  I find myself amazed at the number of modellers here who come out with "I've never heard of any of these" referring to some subject "we" thought normal at the time and certainly not particularly exotic.  Of course, these Green books did include the exotic too!  I remember getting mine (from Vol.1)  from the newsagent at the end of the street - happy days!  Up until then the only source was the larger "Famous Aircraft of WW2" series - which did at least include mention of the F but was only available to be at secondary school when I started going to a better library.  The local shop however did come up with the Lindberg F...

[PeterB]

Hi Graham

 

My local newsagent did not sell books but did have a strange range of kits for a while - no idea what make but I remember a "Curtiss Navy Racer" and what I think was a Farman "Longhorn" or perhaps it was a Wright "Flyer" - maybe the Curtiss was the old Hawk 1/48 moulding?  I did not have access to a decent bookshop until I went to Grammar School and until then I made do with the old Ian Allan small paperbacks and an rather useful booklet that was included with one of my "comics". I had to travel through Bradford to get to school and for whatever reason decide one day to do a bit of shopping. I found said bookshop, wandered in and my pocket money suddenly came under extreme pressure. Could not afford Bruce Roberton's Aircraft Camo and Markings but I saw the red cover of Fighters Vol 3, bought it, and asked the shop to get the other 3 volumes in for me - could not afford to by any kits for many months but it was worth it! I managed to pick up both volumes of "Famous Bombers" in a book sale at WH Smiths, likewise Roy Cross's small Batsford pocketbooks on Fighters and Bombers. The latter were priced at 9/6 but I suspect I paid about 2/6 for them. Not a huge amount of detail but I discovered dozens of planes I had never heard of. I managed to get all of the small Green Warplanes books up to volume 10 eventually and then they stopped just as it was getting interesting. Never did get the WWI books.

 

Happy days.

 

Pete 

Edited July 6, 2021 by PeterB

[PeterB]

The various joints are far from perfect but I have seen worse.

I have a couple of corrections to make. Firstly Italeri do provide a perfectly good IP - I missed it, probably because I had too many similar kits on the go at once! Secondly, I mentioned the braces on the tail. To be completely correct I should say that when the new cantilever tail section was designed to replace the one with struts on the Emil, a mistake was made and it was slightly under strength. As a temporary measure a pair of straps were fitted on each side whist a new stronger tail was designed for the more powerful Gustav. This was fitted to mid production F-4 Friedrichs which therefore did not have the straps, but for some reason they reappeared on late production ones so, coupled wih the armoured windscreen I will have to make sure I have the correct bits for whichever plane I end up doing. Also, the supercharger intake changed - in fact it seems they tried about 13 different versions between the various manufacturers and the WNF factory at Wiener-Neustadt persisted with a rectangular intake as on the Emil until well into F-2 production. Other than that there were essentially 3 fairly similar versions - early, late and the one for F-4/Z which had GN-1 nitrous oxide boost was slightly bigger again I think. FYI the Friedrich was manufactured at 5 different plants - Arado Rostock, Erla Leipzig, AGO Magdeburg, Messerschmitt Regensburg and WNF as mentioned previously.

 

Finally, I mentioned the wheels - it appears that the Friedrich had the same 6 spoke 650/152 wheels/tyres as the Emil, but  the kit ones are more like 720mm in diameter so I will replace them with spare resin wheels for an Emil, and I have also found a replacement spinner. I should move the wheel leg mounting inboard but have not bothered with this one - I might have a go if I build the second kit.

 

It's Miller filler time folks!

 

Pete

[PeterB]

A few more bits on - I replaced the supercharger air intake with one from an old G kit, stuck on the slimmer of the intakes under the nose as the larger one seems to be for the F-4/Trop option, and got the gear legs on. It needed a bit of filler around the wing joints but is not too bad though I will need to run a little PPP into the top end of the rudder joint as it is a bit much.

You may notice that I have cut the wing cannon off, and therein lies a story. Messerschmitt had wanted to fit an engine mounted 20mm MGFF cannon in the Emil, but they encountered too many problems so it ended up with a pair of MGFF in the wings. When the Friedrich entered service however they had fixed most of the problems so the first version had an MGFF firing through the spinner and a pair of MG17 in the cowling. By the time the F-2 was introduced the FF had been replaced with the faster firing MG151 in its 15mm form, and in the F-4 this was changed to the 20mm version. Clearly this was rather less firepower than the late Emils and although some pilots such as Molders apparently liked it, others such as Galland thought it was not enough. Galland had the MG17 replaced with MG131, which required "bumps" to cover the larger breeches, and Messerschmitt decided to let him experiment "officially" by providing him in mid to late 1941 with a couple of modified planes. The first had the MG131 with much smaller and narrower bulges than appeared on the Gustav, and depending on the source this was called either the F-2/U1 or F-2/R1 - may have got this the wrong way round but I thnk "U" indicates a modifictaion on the production line whereas "R" is a field modification using a factory produced set. The second experimental plane, which Italeri provide the bits and decs for, retained the MG17 but had a pair of wing mounted MGFF, which had bulges fitted under the wing. Mushroom call this the F-6/U1 but I find that improbable as it was an F-2, and some sources say there was an actual F-6 version which was a recce bird. I have no idea what the outcome of his tests were, but eventually an official  F-4/U1 with MG131 was planned but abandoned and a limited number of F-4 were fitted with MG151 in gondolas under the wings, as on the later Gustav - Mushroom call this the F-4/R1 which makes sense I guess as it was a field fitted, factory produced conversion. However, when the Gustav had the gondolas fitted I believe it became the U6, and that might be where the "F6" comes from - perhapsit is a typo and they meant F-2/U6 but then again I have just seen Gallands plane called an F-6U in another book?

 

All the above taken from Mushroom Pubilcations "Camouflage and Decals 5" - feel free to disagree provided you give an explanation and if possible a source!

 

Cheers

 

Pete

Edited July 8, 2021 by PeterB

[PeterB]

Over in my buid thread for my Hasegawa 109G-6 I mentioned some of the range of colour schemes used in Russia as well as the "Standard" 74/75/76 one. Well, I have decided to go with what I have seen called the "Spring Thaw" scheme on my F-4 of JG 54 "Grunhertz". A combination of RLM 70 and a brown - source uncertain bus could be a Luftwaffe colour or a captured Russian one apparently. I have cheated and used Dark Earth as it seems to match some profiles but it could have been the lighter RLM 79 Sandgelb. Certainly some Friedrich's that were previously in North Africa kept the 78/79 scheme with green and sometimes a grey painted in patches over it, or so it seems.

"Splinter" needs a bit of straightening before I paint the yellow wing tips and under the nose, together with a partial yellow fuselage band. The undersides will be RLM 76. The colours presumable match the landscape which would be a combination of mud and grass as the thaw set in. "General Winter" may have been a major ally to the Russians but the so called "Rasputitsa" also helped, when the thaw started and many of the unmade roads and tracks turned into a morass of deep sticky mud making travelling on land almost impossible at times. Bad enough for motor vehicles but the Wermacht still relied heavily on horses.

 

Cheers

 

Pete

Edited July 10, 2021 by PeterB

[Graham Boak]

There were a number of 109Fs that came straight from the factory in a desert scheme modified by a darker colour on top.  Some of these were also seen in JG5, in the Arctic.  These however were examples with the mid-fuselage demarcation.

[Col.]

Your 'spring thaw' scheme makes for an interesting subject Pete and the somewhat confused gestation of this machine's possible designations also makes for interesting reading  

[PeterB]

16 hours ago, Graham Boak said:

There were a number of 109Fs that came straight from the factory in a desert scheme modified by a darker colour on top.  Some of these were also seen in JG5, in the Arctic.  These however were examples with the mid-fuselage demarcation.

Like this.

I did consider doing this scheme but I rather wanted a JG 54 one. Other profiles show a darker RLM78 blue.

 

Pete

Edited July 10, 2021 by PeterB

[PeterB]

Bit more progress - I have put on the prop which has a replacement spinner from a Heller kit, and I reprofiled the blades slightly as they looked more like Gustav blades to me.

As you can see the yellow fuselage band is a bit unusual - instead of a thinnish one behind the cross, it is actually a thick one under it - not sure if it was originally all the way round the fuselage and then overpainted, or not. As this will be marked up as a plane of I/JG 54 Grunhertz it will not only have he Geschwader marking of a Green Heart, but also the Gruppe marking of the coat of arms of Nurenburg where it was based in September 1939 when JG 54 was created from JG 70 apparently, so I have knocked up some decs.

Now I just need to sort out the wheels and canopy and it will be almost done.

 

Pete

Edited July 10, 2021 by PeterB

[Col.]

Your rendition of this interesting scheme is coming along nicely Pete

[PeterB]

So, this is supposed to be the F-4 of Hauptmann Heinz Lange, Staffelkapitan of 1/JG 54 on the Leningrad Front in Spring 1942.

Everything is done except for a final coat of varnish. What I did not notice until I came to put the correct sized wheels on was that the legs/doors are sized for the big kit wheels so when I do the next one I will have to adjust them!

 

Pete

Edited July 15, 2021 by PeterB

[PeterB]

Finished and in the gallery.

Could be better but I am reasonably happy with it.

 

Pete

[AaCee26]

Hi,

 

As mentioned earlier panel lines in this kit and Italeri G-6 are quite strange positioned. Otherwise the outline accuracy is quite good. With better spinner, canopy and less agricultural wheels sourced from other kit spares would give a pretty nice model.

 

Greetings,

 

AaCee

[JOCKNEY]

Great job Pete

Really unusual colour scheme, which gives the build some real character.   

Cheers Pat