Messerschmitt Bf. 109G-6/R6, 1./JG27 France 1944
Comments
Album info
The kid wanted a German plane to fight the in-progress B-17 that will be hanging from his ceiling soon, so we dug into the stash and came up with this…
The Messerschmitt Bf. 109 was perhaps the most famous of all axis fighters of WWII. It was by far the most produced fighter plane of all time, with more than 35,000 examples made. The Bf. 109G-6 variant was the most produced of all of the subtypes and it too was made in a dizzying array of sub-variants such as the Bf. 109G-6/R6 modeled here. The R6 denotes the addition of underwing cannon pods and a few other items that tailored this airframe to high altitude bomber interception, precisely to combat the American B-17 and B-24 bombers that flew daily sorties offer Germany in the last two years of the war.
Using a photograph of a crop of newly delivered G-6/R6’s as a reference, this model is finished in the 1944 livery of 1./JG27. They had recently returned from several years flying in the North African and Mediterranean theatres where they earned their squadron logo of a cheetah superimposed over the silhouette of the African continent. Upon returning to continental Europe, they gained a green band around their fuselage as an identification que while assigned to “Defense of the Reich” duties.
Our model, assembled by Felix and finished by yours truely is the old 1/72 scale Academy Bf. 109G6 kit built out of the box, save for re-profiling the horribly incorrectly shaped tail surfaces and modifying the landing gear to a wheels-up configuration. Some of the fiddly-bits were left off since it’ll be hung from the ceiling. Paints are AK acrylic lacquers and the decals are a combination of several kits’ sets to represent “White 7” from the period picture.
