Anigrand Craftswork 1/144 Luftwaffe Bomber-B Special Set Kit First Look

By Michael Benolkin

First Look

In 1939, the RLM issued a development contract for an aircraft under the designation Bomber-"B". This was to be a twin-engined medium bomber capable of carrying a 4,000 kg bomb load to any point in British Isles. The power would be supplied by the under developed Jumo 9-222 radial engine. The specification was aimed at the firms of Arado, Dornier, Junkers and Focke-Wulf.

The first manufacturer to respond was Arado. They submitted Ar 340 that already reached mock-up stage but the unorthodoxy design was rejected by the RLM.

Dornier's Do 317 was a further development of Do 217. During flight test the Do 317 displayed no appreciable improvement in performance over the Do 217. The RLM ordered all further work to crease. Only the Junkers Ju 288 and Focke-Wulf Fw 191 received authorization.

In 1940 Focke-Wulf began design work on the Fw 191, and Junkers had already developed studies for the EF 73 fast bomber, that was selected and redesignated Ju 288 for submission to Bomber-B program. However, the failure of the Jumo engines delayed both prototypes trails until mid-1942. These then had to be carried out with less powerful BMW radials. In 1943, the RLM ordered the scrapping of the entire Bomber-B program.

Anigrand Craftswork has returned with an interesting collection of the four designs for the RLM's Bomber-"B" program. Unlike most of the releases from Anigrand with a central subject and a few smaller bonus kits, all four of these kits are definitely stars of this show.

Cast in tan resin, all four kits are molded in standard Anigrand fashion with hollow-cast fuselage halves, plug-in wing halves and tail, engine nacelles, and resin props and landing gear. The one exception is the Ju 288 which has its pencil-thin fuselage cast as one piece with a hollow cockpit. All four kits have clear resin transparencies.

All four kits have their gear doors cast in the closed position to make it easy to pose these models in flight, but each door has a clear cut line for those who wish to display their bombers on the landing gear.

Note that all four kits have gear doors, prop blades, prop hubs, and gear struts even if they are not imaged in the parts layout images.

Markings are provided for all four examples including:

• Ju 288, RD+MU
• Do 317, VK+IY
• Ar 340
• Fw 191

The decals also provide swastikas in two parts to comply with the laws of several countries.

Anigrand continues to turn out some interesting subjects to fill in the gaps of aviation history for those aircraft that didn't get past flight test. Congratulations on this nice set!

My sincere thanks to the US importer, Nostalgic Plastic for this review sample!