A few months ago, I finished building a Tamiya 1/72 Bf-109E. Without a doubt, this was the best kit I had built in a long time. As a result, I started looking for other sheets in this scale for the 109E. Surprisingly, they were not that easy to find. Not sure if 1/72 has taken a back seat to other scales or not recently, but I can say that this seems to be true of aftermarket items for them.

Anyway, this sheet has six subjects on it as well as enough common markings to enable you to build all six. I have used Third Group decals before and they have worked just great. This sheet is dated 1995, so it isn't exactly a new sheet. Just new to me. All aircraft on it are either E-1, E-3 or E-4 variants. As of this writing (Feb 2001), there is not dedicated E-1 kit produced in 1/72 scale. The biggest changes are in the wings, so I hope someone produces a conversion for it.

The first subject is an E-3 from &./JG 77 in April of 1941. Typical of French based units, it has a yellow underside of the noe and a yellow rudder. It also has yellow wing tips on the top and bottom of the wing. The scheme is RLM 74/75 over 76 with lots of mottling on the forward fuselage.

Next is a 9./JG 54 109E-4 from early 1941. It is in the 74/75/76 scheme. There is very little mottling and no yellow ID markings on this plane at all.

White 5 is an E-1 from 7./JG 52. This one has a full yellow nose and rudder with yellow wing tips. It is also in 74/75/76 with additional RLM 75 on the fuselage and some mottling on top of that.

The 8./JG 2 109E-4, Red 4, is from the summer of 1940 and is in RLM 71/02 with RLM 65 lowers. There is heavy dappling that covers many of the stencils.

Red 6 is an E-3 of 8./JG 2 based in France during 1941. It is in 74/75/76 with heavy fuselage mottling in 70/71/02. If you do this scheme, you get to use six RLM colors!

Finally, we have Red 7 from 8./JG 52. This E-1 was based in Germany on home defense duties in late 1940. It is in a standard 71/02/65 scheme, but what is interesting is the crosshatching done in RLM 71.

A neat sheet with six interesting schemes.

Review copy courtesy of me and my wallet.

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