Junkers Ju 87R-2 Stuka

by Jim Reid

Airfix's 1/24 scale Stuka is available online from  Squadron.com

This is the Airfix 1/24 scale Junkers Ju 87B kit with some slight mods to depict the R-2/Trop of 6/Stg2 flown by Lt Hubert Polz in Libya 1942.

The main references I used for the early desert color scheme (though not this aircraft specifically) were:

• Luftwaffe Camouflage and Markings Vol. 2, Smith and Gallaspy

• Scale Models, April 1981 The Luftwaffe in the Western Desert, Ian Huntley

I didn’t have many references for this particular aircraft. The general consensus seems now to be that the snake design on this a/c was desert yellow and not red. Frankly the red version just looks better.

Although some references state the aircraft was a B-2/trop not an R-2, I chose to build it as the long-range version adding external tanks and additional cockpit armor.

Mike Grant's decals are of very high quality and went on with no problems, I found they reacted well to decal solvent. You can see Mike’s decal range at http://www.cadvision.com/mikegrant/MikeGrantDecals/

Thanks to HyperScaler Dave Yodens for helping me out with the extra 300 liter drop tank.

A 360° movie of this model may be seen on HyperScale's ScaleVision multimedia website. The movie is 15 seconds in length and 4MB in size.
 

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