Italeri 1/72 Macchi MC.202 Folgore

ITALERI 1:72 MACCHI MC.202 FOLGORE

Reviewer: Hrvoje Šafhauzer (contact via SMAKR webmaster)
Kit Review submitted: 20 September 2009

Kit Details:

Aircraft: Macchi MC202 Folgore
Scale: 1/72
Kit: Italeri #1222
Parts: 44 pale gray + 2 clear injection molded
Surface detail: finely engraved
Options: rotating propellers, rotating main wheels up or down, opened or closed canopy, two types of horizontal tail surfaces (like at M.C.200 and at M.C.205, respectively)
Decals: 3 options
Price: 40 Croatian Kuna (approx 5.48 EUR) in 2005

Aircraft History:

General history of the M.C.202 has been described previously here at SMAKR, by Kevin Ronayne's Inbox article. So, I shall address here Croatian use only.

Since by the end of 1943 Allied Heavy bombers were often overflying Croatia towards the targets in Austria and southern Germany, the Luftwaffe decided to establish a fighter group comprised of Croatian pilots and ground crew. Kroatien Jagdgruppe 1 (Kro JGr 1) was to be incorporated into the Reich Defense and to comprise two operational fighter and one training fighter staffeln, and was raised on 23^rd December 1943. Pilots were mostly freshly trained in JG 104, except some of the veterans that flew in 15(Kroat.)/JG 52 at Eastern Front. Operational training was conducted on Fiat CR.42s and G.50s, both of the Croatian AF and Luftwaffe, and by the end of January 1944 a first batch of 16 Breda-built M.C.202s serie XII was delivered to 2/Kro JGr 1 and operational flying started. Tasked with intercepting USAAF heavies, or dealing with the stragglers, and needing to deal with their escort, in operations the pilots were hampered by the lack of radar early warning systems. Often Croatian pilots flying the planes in German markings found themselves climbing after the bomber stream, exposed to the attacks of the Allied escorting fighters.

Folgore's armament of two fuselage mounted 12.7 mm Breda-Safat machine guns, even when sometimes augmented by two wing mounted 7.7 mm Breda-Safat machine guns, was inadequate for the job. Things were worsened by the fact that Breda-Safat was not the best of the heavy machine guns used in WW II, due its slow rate of fire and mediocre muzzle velocity. One thing that puzzles me is that if the Breda-Safat was too heavy to be installed in wings, why Castoldi Team never tried mounting one to fire through propeller shaft – DB601 provided such option – to augment firepower? In fact, that was not done in M.C.205V Veltro even when rapid fire MG151/20 cannon became available.

Following reorganization of the Croatian HZL (Croatian Flying Legion) at Eastern Front, the Kro JGr 1 was disbanded in September 1944, with the aircraft taken back by Germans and transferred to airfields around Croatian Capital Zagreb to be used by Luftwaffe. During the existence of this unit, there were only four confirmed victories, two B-24s and two P-38s), with up to twelve unconfirmed ones, in spite of constant fighting. And losses were also great, not only at the hands of the escorting fighters but due the bombers defensive fire also, underlying Folgore's inadequate armament for the bomber interception task. For instance, in two intercepting missions out of eleven dispatched Folgores seven were either shot down or belly landed due combat damages, albeit with all pilots surviving, some of them being victims of the bomber gunners. It appears that some of the M.C.202s were later handed to Croatian AF for use, probably as the fighter trainers, and that these carried Croatian late 1944 / early 1945 style trefoil markings. None of them survived end of war in May 1945 in serviceable condition.

The Kit:

I purchased this kit during my kit-haunting trip to Zagreb. My Italian warplanes collection is poor, so I grabbed this one instantly. By chance, I purchased later that day a book listed below as 2nd reference, but not opening it before coming back to Sarajevo.

My copy was flash free, with no sink marks, and quality and details were same as described by Kevin Ronayne. Same applies for the instructions and marking options, and here are the photos just for reminder.

Construction:

At the start, I decided I would not correct the kit's drawbacks regarding the fuselage length and I started with prepainting the parts on the sprues. The only modification was to drill a hole in the front side of the desert air filter. Not having Model Master paints, I used Revell and Humbrol paints, guided by Humbrol conversion charts. Cockpit interiors, control stick, instrument panel and floor were painted in R75 light gray, posing as the ghost gray as instructed. R99 aluminum was used for radiator and oil cooler bath interiors, landing gear legs and retracting arms, cover interiors, and main gear bays, wheel hubs, propeller blade roots and spinner interior surfaces. The oleos and rudder pedals were painted in R91 steel, and H53 gunmetal was used for pilot head armor plate, radiator and oil cooler heat exchangers, and for air filter interior. Propeller blades, tires, control stick handle and pilot seat were painted in R9 anthracite. Exhausts were painted in a mixture of R84 leather brown and R91. Since no pilot is provided, an alien was drafted and his body painted in R79 blue-gray, gloves in R9, helmet in R84, and face in R35 flesh, while goggles were picked by black permanent soft tip pen. All this took few days.

As per the instructions, I assembled the seat and control stick to cockpit floor and propeller subassembly. I left the propeller shaft securing part for later, noting that I could easily position it before placing the lower engine fairing with oil cooler. Next, the cockpit subassembly and instrument panels were glued to the starboard fuselage. While this dried, and since it was a series XII fighter, I made cartridge case ejection ports at wing undersurfaces guided by M.C.205 profile in reference 3. Tailwheel lower rear fuselage insert parts were glued together, and the fuselage parts were glued together, and all left to dry for 24 hours. After cleaning the seams, I glued the insert into the tail, it was slightly smaller than opening intended to fill, a victim of multipurpose molds – this is not a Hasegawa kit! The same thing happened with upper engine cowling with MGs, it was trimmed and pressed into position, glued with liquid glue and secured by a rubber band, leaving an eventual gap in the rear part. At this stage I would usually add tailplanes, and I opted for later type, but test dry fitting of the wings proved that there would be a gap at the front. With so much filling required, I left the tailplanes for later. I also needed to flat engine front using a fine file, otherwise a spinner would not mate to the nose properly.

The upper wing parts were glued to the lower single part, and their edges cleaned after drying. The wing was glued to the fuselage, and small strips of scrap styrene from a yogurt cup were inserted into the gaps at the wing root leading edges. The next day, a blade was used for trimming the strips level with wing uppersurface and Revell putty applied at all joints, upper cowling and rear fuselage bottom included. After that, I assembled the main landing gear parts together as per instructions which went on with no trouble. Next afternoon, sandpaper was used for sanding the putty, and damaged panel lines were rescribed slightly.

Now the tailplanes followed, needing some assistance until the glue dried, but in the end all was OK. I used the latter tailplanes as in M.C.205 Veltro since this model was to represent almost the end of the Folgore's production run. Propeller subassembly was positioned on the nose, secured, taking care to leave it rotating, and bottom engine cowling glued in position. Some trimming of the joint was required, but nothing substantial. Engine coolant radiator bath assembly was glued in position followed by the undernose oil filter casing, and underfuselage venturi in front of the radiator. Next came the tailwheel, followed by the main landing gear members and their covers, where some time was taken between the steps for the glue to cure. The windscreen was glued into its position, using canopy for fine positioning, and followed by placing a pilot into seat. A reflector gunsight was fashioned from piece clear of clear acetate and glued into position. I also used glue for placing cockpit canopy while I should rather use white glue. I do not now how, but I managed to smear it from inside and noting it next day only. However, I let it be and proceeded with next step. Wingtip position lights were painted using red and green permanent soft tip pens.

Painting & Decaling:

Well, here I was on shaky ground and what I made is highly debatable, basically all that follows was made on the assumptions or my interpretation of the very few photos of the Croatian pilot-flown Folgores published in References Nos. 1 and 2. Both references state that Croatian-flown planes were in the Reggia Aeronautica scheme for North Africa: "sabbia e spinacci" over light gray, even when the John Weal's profile in Reference 1 exhibited something else. However, after looking at the available photos I concluded that it would probably be RA's "mountain" scheme – "spinacci e sabia". In that scheme, the irregular blotches of either sand yellow or light green were applied over standard RA "continental" scheme of dark green over light gray, and in the references there is at least one profile of M.C.202 painted in that manner. Consequently, I applied R75 to undersurfaces including the complete fuselage bottom – the profiles indicating so. To keep in line with the Croatian Messerschmitt Bf-109 Gs from References Nos. 1 and 2, I made a nose band right behind a spinner using R15 yellow in two applications. I opted not to add any other yellow identification areas, since it was supposed to be a fighter trainer and not an operational combat plane. For uppersurfaces I used R39 dark green (Revell's choice for RLM71), as approximation for Italian "verde oliva scuro" i.e. dark green, cross-reference from Humbrol chart indicating so.

Then, all work stopped for some twenty days, since a five-day business trip turned into a fifteen day stalemate and I needed some time to recuperate from a 6-hour jet lag. Blotches were applied by a fine brush using H93 desert yellow. Since it was assumed that this plane was the one used previously by Kro JGr 1 and that Croatian markings were applied by modifying German ones, I used R65 bronze green (Revell's choice for RLM83) for making crudely field-overpainted yellow rear fuselage Eastern Front recognition band (cancelled in Autumn 1944), swastika fin positions and Luftwaffe individual number locations. Time for decaling.

First I applied that little of kit stencils offered, bar a red cross in ring marking at first aid kit compartment. Croatian national insignia were taken from Hobby Boss kit of Bf-109 G-10, both planes being similar in size. The Croatian coat-of-arms were applied first to the tail, followed by the Croatian "trefoils" at the locations where Luftwaffe crosses would be placed and I was also guided by the Hobby Boss painting instructions. White bordered red "1" individual number was applied in front of fuselage trefoils, and everything was concluded with previously mentioned red cross applied at a location over a trefoil.

Afterwards, R02 matt clear was used for sealing the decals and position lights, with final touch-ups where required. Same paint was used for attaching the aerial wire made of stretched sprue.

Conclusion:

Other reviews of this kit pointed dimensional inaccuracies, but as I stated this did not bother me. At least, the semi-wings are of a different span like on real Macchies. But the fitting of some parts did bother me. So, Mr. Italeri, do not emulate Hasegawa multi kit mold techniques with inserts if it cannot be done properly, please. Consequently I would recommend this kit to us more interesting in having look-alike model of a certain warplane in wanted colors, than to the accuracy buffs and modeling contest participants, and to beginners who aren't afraid about fit and accuracy issues.

Review courtesy of my valet, as usual.

References:

Hrvatsko Ratno Zrakopovstvo u Drugome svjetskom ratu/Croatian Air Force in the Second World War, by Tihomir Likso and Danko Čanak (bilingual Croatian/English);
Osprey Aircraft of the Aces No 49 – Croatian Aces of World War II, by Dragan Savić and Boris Ciglič;
STORIA DELL' AVIAZIONE, PROFILI DI AEREI MILITARI DELLA 2^a GUERRA MONDIALE, Fratelli Fabri Editori, Milano, 1977;
Guida agli aeroplani di tutto il mondo, la seconda guerra mondiale – parte prima, by Enzo Angelucci and Paolo Matricardi;
Axis Aircraft of WW II, David Mondey;
The Complete Book of Fighters, William Green and Gordon Swarnborough;
The Encyclopedia of AIRCRAFT OF WWII, general editor Paul Eden.

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