Begemot 72-024: Ju-88 part II

The Ju88 has been, and is currently, well served for both kits and decals, neat stuff in the form of decals coming from AIMS and also unusual sheets from Romania and Hungary. For kits, there's the old Revell, AMT, Italeri and Airfix from my memory. There are also newer kits by Zvezda and the latest and apparently most accurate kits from Hasegawa that come at a price, though.

Except for the final option, all are for the A-4 variant that seems to have been the most common. 

As I still had an Italeri Ju88, bought second hand, that came without decals, I was looking for some nice and hopefully unusual options. When I stumbled upon the Begemot sheets for the Ju188, I also found they do the 88. So I ordered that along with it.

This has quite a few options, 8 to be exact, though most just have a different unit insignia and codes. They are as follows:

1) Ju88A-4, 7/KG76, Russia, September 1942. Standard RLM70/71/65 splinter scheme with yellow eastern front theatre markings on aft fuselage and wingtips. White spinners.

2)Ju88A-4, 1/KG77, Mediterranean theatre, October 1942. Again standard splinter camo, but with white fuselage band and the ship kills on the rudder add something different from the norm.

3)Ju88A-4, 5/LG1, battle of Crete, 1941. Again standard splinter scheme, but this one is more colorful: white fuselage band and wing tips, red spinners, and yellow cowlings and rudder, which were retained from the invasion of Yugoslavia and Greece. Late note: This is an A-5 model from the looks of it. Also the cowlings don't appear to be all yellow. I've found this photo: http://www.luchtoorlog.be/img/ju88ab/ae20_68b.jpg

4)Ju88A-4, 1/PleLv, Finnish air force, Onttolla, 1943. Again standard splinter camo, but with over-painted German crosses. A bit of color comes from the blue/white/black sectioned spinners and yellow eastern front fuselage band and wing tips. The blue of the Finnish insignas looks a bit dark to my eye, though I could be wrong being no expert on that matter. The tail number has a different color in the Hasegawa A-4 Finnish air force boxing, so better check some references here. The pear insignia is funny, though!

5)Ju88A-4, Stab/KG30, Utti, 1943. Standard eastern front markings and splinter scheme, spinners in bright/dark green.

6)Ju88A-4, 102/1 bomber sqn of the Hungarian air force, Russia, 1944. Pretty standard splinter scheme with yellow fuselage band and wingtips, but this time with Hungarian crosses and their colorful tri-color red/white/green flag colors on the tail surfaces and spinners. I intend to build this version.

7)Ju88A-4, 4/1 bomber sqn of the Hungarian air force, Russia, Winter 1943/44. Same as #6, but with white winter distemper applied.

8)Ju88B-0, 1/Aufklarungsgruppe Oberbefehlhaber d. Luftwaffe, Russia, 1941/42. The Ju88B was built prior to the Ju188 and only a handful were made. Unfortunately you can't just graft a 188 cockpit and BMW engines to an A-4 kit as the B had a shorter and different cockpit. I've seen a resin conversion somewhere, but it's rather expensive. If put next to either a regular A-4 or the 188, it would look pretty neat, though!

Standard splinter scheme, yellow eastern front markings. A small correction ""D" is provided on an addendum sheet for the fuselage code.

The decals themselves look well printed, are in register, and have a matte carrier film.

 Completing the package is a separate sheet with common markings and standard camouflage patterns drawings. If you do the winter camouflage version, you can do another 88 as a standard German version from the sheet or use common markings from the kit if they're included. (The Italeri kit comes without these, BTW)

Jeroen Koen

January 2010

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