Verlinden 1/48 Fw 190A/F/G Underwing Stores First Look

By Michael Benolkin

First Look

Verlinden has just released set number 1343, the Fw 190A,F,G Underwing Stores set and is intended to be used with most of the available Fw 190A/F/G kits on the market. I ordered this set partly out of curiosity and partly out of the need to build my aircraft projects to look unlike anyone else's. I've been using Verlinden detail sets for years now and have never had a problem with a single offering. In fact, with each new item released, they seem to one-up the quality and detail over their previous releases. This is not the case here...

Despite reading release reviews and seeing their pictures, nothing can prepare you for what is in this box! This release took my breath away and brings their product line to a whole new level! The box is crammed full of resin and photo-etched parts.

The resin parts include an array of bombs and bomb racks; external fuel tanks with mounts; rockets, rocket racks and rocket tubes, complete with suspension hardware; and, underwing gunpods and internal wing guns. See the photo below.

The photo-etch set includes a set of highly detailed wing flaps, gun bay structures, and some of the mounting hardware for the external tanks and bomb racks. See the photo below.

This set is one of two recent releases of the Underwing Stores series, the other being for the Bf109 family. There are enough external stores here to equip half a dozen Fw190s, though only one of them will benefit from these beautiful wing flaps. I would highly recommend this to any Kurt Tank fighter fan, as I am already fighting the impulse to grab some books and see what combination of external stores and markings would look good on my Tamiya kit.

I sincerely hope that we will see similar offerings for subjects like the P-51 Mustang, P-47 Thunderbolt, and ESPECIALLY one for the A-1 Skyraider!! Hint, hint...