Probably the epitome of the 'heavy' fighter is the Messerschmitt Bf-110. Designed to be long range escort fighter capable of defeating enemy fighters as they came to attack the defending bombers, the truth turned out to be that the 110 was not able to protect itself against a modern fighter force. The result was that that the escorted bombers were basically left to fend for themselves, with rather dire consequences to the crews. However, the aircraft was very good at reconnaissance, attacking lightly defended targets, and night fighting, where it proved to be a stable platform.

Kagero's book is the first in two volumes on the Bf-110. This edition covers the complete developmental history of the type from the initial 110v1 prototype to the last 110G-4 night fighters. This is accompanied by a goodly selection of quality photographs which generally follow along with the write-up.

There are several highlights of Kagero books that make this series so well liked by modelers. The first is that there are excellent scale plans in 1/48, which also includes a large foldout. These cover the major versions up to and including the 110D. The foldout is for the 110C and 110D versions, which are the most modeled in this scale. There are also a goodly number of superbly done and rather large color profiles of all the different versions. Especially helpful to may of us are the drawings that show the differences between the different variants; this book covering up to the D series.  Finally, there is the now obligatory decal sheet. This one covers two aircraft; a desert painted E-2 version and a G-4 night fighter. As a nice bonus, a set of canopy masks has also been added to the mix.  The decals are in 1/72 and 1/48 while the masks appear to be 1/48 scale.

As you probably are aware by now, Kagero books are in both Polish and English. Early editions suffered somewhat by having a rather unusual English translation that contained some odd syntax usages. This has been pretty well taken care of in the actual body of the book, though some do still pop up from time to time in the photo captions (which are obviously not proof-read by the same person who does the rest of the book). The one that really grabbed my attention this time was for a photo of the G-4 night fighter at Hendon when it was captioned as "...exposed at RAF Museum in Hendon."  :o) I think they meant 'displayed'.

Aside from that tiny glitch, this is truly an excellent work and if your interest lies in things Luftwaffe, then you really should have this one in your library.

July 2005

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