This is the third book in Kagero's new series on aircraft units and it chooses one of the longer lasting Ju-87 units, Stuka Geschwader 2 'Immelmann'. This was one of the first dive bombing units to be formed when the Luftwaffe was formed and while initially flying He-50s and Hs-123s, they were one of the first to be flying the Ju-87. Those who are students of the Luftwaffe know that unit numbers changed seemingly at will and so it was in the days before the war started. This even continued late in the war as Stuka Geschwader 2 ceased to exist in October 1943, becoming a Schlacht Geschwader.

In between the unit fought on pretty much all of the important fronts. They fought in Poland, in France, were nearly decimated during the early phases of the Battle of Britian, were active in the Balkans and in North Africa. They were also one of the principal units in the war against the Soviet Union. During this time, they flew pretty much every variation of the Ju-87 that was developed including the cannon armed Ju-87G, whose most famous pilot was Hans Rudel.

The book covers all of their campaigns and is chock full of period photos of the aircraft operated by the unit. What makes this book such a great deal for modelers is an incredible decal sheet. This covers four aircraft in all three major scales. These are pretty much the unique markings with the common stuff coming from the decal sheet. Included are: a whitewashed B-3 from 3./St.G 2 from late 1941 in russia, a standard scheme B-2 from 3/ST.G 2 in the fall of 1941, another B-2 from 1/St.G2 in Bulgaria during March of 1941 and the cover plane with the big snake marking from 6/St.G2 in Libya during the summer of 1941. The huge sheet is superbly printed by Cartograf and there are B-2 stukas by both Airfix and Hasegawa on which these markings should fit. Each of the large profiles on these planes provides color and detail information that the modeler will need to build a nice replica.

May 2013

You can find this sheet at www.kagero.pl. Thanks to Kagero for the review set.

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