In the late 1930s – and on into the early 1940s – leaders of the Luftwaffe felt that their world-beating Messerschmitt Bf-109 was all the fighter they’d need to win World War II. A match for the vaunted Spitfire and markedly better than every other fighter then in operation, the Bf-109 had the speed, strength and hitting power to knock down anything it came up against. It’s only real drawback was range, but that only mattered during the six weeks of the Battle of Britain – once it was over, range again faded from view as a priority. Back-up fighter? Who needs it?
Fortunately for the Luftwaffe, and unfortunately for just about everybody else, the Focke Wulf was put into production, and saw squadron service beginning (very slowly beginning) in late 1941 on the Channel Front. Even while chewing over teething problems, this remarkable fighter “put the skeer” in the then-ascendant Supermarine Spitfires, prompting the rush production of the Spitfire V and IX in an attempt to catch up. It was a race the Spitfire would never quite win – every time a better Spitfire came along, a better Focke Wulf wasn’t far behind. If it wasn’t for even better American-built fighters, which started appearing in earnest two years after the Focke Wulf made its debut, the race for fighter excellence in the West would have gone neck-and-neck to the bitter end of the war.
The Focke Wulf was good, but it had its limitations. Its strengths were an ultimately reliable BMW radial engine (though it too had its teething problems), a remarkable ability to mount weapons and carry more of them underwing (something almost impossible for the Messerschmitt, and then only with serious performance penalties – and of course, dogfighting performance. Until the advent of the inline engine-powered Fw-190 D late in the war, the Focke Wulf was not at its best above 20,000 feet, a drawback that became apparent when high altitude American escort fighters began shepherding the 8th Air Force’s heavy bomber fleets to
In short, it was a remarkable fighter; and because it was built in large numbers – 20,000, roughly the equivalent of USAAF P-47 Thunderbolt production – it was able to seriously augment the 33,000 Messerschmitts that remained the primary front-line fighter in the Luftwaffe arsenal right up to the end of the war. They were a good pair – two of the smallest fighters that could be built around powerful engines – but the Focke Wulf wasn’t so small that it couldn’t lift amazing ordnance loads when the mission called for iron rain.
There have been a lot of Focke Wulf kits built. One of my first modeling articles (for an IPMS chapter publication, in about 1975) involved a head-to-head review of 1/72nd Fw-190 kits, and as I recall there were at least a half-dozen different kits involved in that review. Since then, the Focke Wulf has been well-represented in all popular scales, from 1/144th to 1/32nd – but there has always been a need for the “ultimate” Focke Wulf in my favorite scale, 1/48th. Until now.
If someone can kit a better Fw-190 than Eduard, I’ll tip my hat to them – but I expect to keep it on my head for a long, long time. This is, for all its several minor faults (including a challenging build in some areas because of the extensive number of parts used to represent the engine and its plumbing, or the landing gear or cockpit), it is superb. Any Focke Wulf fanatic who doesn’t fall in love with Eduard’s kits has set his standards way too high. However, in case you want more, Eduard has also created a “Big Ed” after-market set for their Focke Wulfs – with more PE than used in your average battleship, plus superb masks and other assorted goodies. Superdetailers need look no further. These Big Ed sets are a guilty pleasure for detail junkies – I can’t recommend them strongly enough.
Eduard has issued three different Focke Wulfs. Pride of place goes to the Fw-190 A-8/R2 Royal Class kit, which includes two full 1/48th scale kits, along with two sets of PE, two sets of masks, decals for nine different aircraft … plus a replica Knight’s Cross and a piece (small, but really there) of an actual Fw-190. This is the ultimate radial-engined Fw-190 kit – a collectors item in a box for those who collect, and the damnedest set of put-together parts for the serious builder. Highly recommended!
Eduard has also released two stand-alone Focke Wulf kits: the Fw-190 A-5 and the Fw-190 A-8. These are all in 1/48th scale, and all absolutely fabulous, especially if you love lots of tiny, intricate and exquisitely-molded parts.
These three kits are all basically the same – Eduard has captured the nuanced differences between the A-5, the A-8 and the A-8/R2 – but those merely differentiate a great core model. If you are a Focke Wulf fanatic, and you haven’t yet checked one of these kits out, shame on you. Get your (ahem) in gear down to your local hobby shop or your local Internet Squadron Shop and get one, or several (easy to do with the Royal kit) and start building. You won’t be disappointed.
