| KIT #: | 35005 |
| PRICE: | AU$65.00 |
| DECALS: | None required |
| REVIEWER: | George Oh |
| NOTES: |
| HISTORY |
It was in 1940, during the Battle of Britain. The Luftwaffe had the upper hand because they were pounding the RAF's infrastructure. Then, just after midnight on 24 August, a lost Luftwaffe bomber dumped its bombload before returning to its base. Unfortunately (for the pilot), the bombs impacted on the forbidden target of London. In response, that night, the RAF sent 95 bombers out to their extreme range to bomb the German capital, Berlin. This angered Hitler, embarrassed Goering, and shocked the German population.
The German reaction was to divert the Luftwaffe attacks from the RAF to the British cities, which gave the RAF a much-needed reprieve. As well, Hitler ordered the building of huge protective structures in some of his cities - even providing sketches of the three suggested designs (Gen-1, 2 & 3).
So urgent was the Fuhrer Directive, that the German rail system was severely disrupted by delivering the materiel for the 6 months it took to construct them. With walls 3.5m/11' thick they were impervious to any bomb in existence. This one is listed as Flak Tower 1 (of 3) and was located near the Berlin Zoo. Each (the G-Tower) sported a smaller L-tower on its roof, that held its arsenal of 128mm/5" heavy, 37mm medium and 20mm light flak guns (no 88's?). Their secondary role was Command and control, valuable-stuff storage, a hospital and a large air-raid shelter, all aided by their underground elements. They were, in fact, modern castles. And like many medieval castles, initially offered protection, but they eventually fell to a siege when their dwindling resources were unable to sustain their contained population. Then they were demolished, or the current survivors remain as tourist attractions, or were converted to serve other purposes.
| THE KIT |
This
model comes in a flimsy lid / solid tray box that houses 11 sprues
(including 4 doubles) that frame 6 large, 4 medium and 122 small parts, plus
a fret of lots of PR parts (I didn't count them). All are beautifully c
ast
- just look at the cannons. The macroscopic construction appears to be easy,
though I might glue the single-piece L-tower on top of the larger G-tower
roof as my first step, then building the walls of the G-tower next - like
building the hull of a ship, then detailing it with the smaller pieces.
What this model lacks, is the protective shutters for each of the 144 external windows, a lot of figures and possibly a few vehicles (though they ARE available after-market), for scale.