Authors: Marek J. Murawski & Marek Rys
Publication contains: 100 pages, 48 renders, 58 photos and 29 colour photos, 12 colorful profiles and many stunning all-colour artwork
Format (size): A4 (210×297 mm)
Part of: Monographs Series
Review by: Geoff Coughlin
Price: 26.25 EUR (Feb 2012)
Our thanks to Kagero for supplying our review sample.
Volume II of this series continues on from Volume I, dealing with the origin and combat history of Germany’s Messerschmitt Me 262.
This superb monograph devoted to the Messerschmitt Me 262 discusses its operational development, with detailed coverage of changes made in all its variants and sub-variants, including what has to be my favourite, the Me 262 B-1a night fighter.
There are a number of books that detail the history and development of the Me 262 and a number of the period images are available elsewhere, but it’s as a modelling reference source that this title scores heavily. More on this below…
The Messerschmitt Me 262 was the world’s first jet-powered fighter aircraft and proved to be an impossibly fast adversary in the skies of Germany. Its late introduction to the battlefield during WWII means that this spectacular jet never realised its full potential.
This volume includes many rare black and white images, plus colour profile artworks, detailing the impressive aircraft. Many images are included that were taken at the end of the war and great insight is gained about the varied camouflage patterns applied to the type.
Click on the thumbnails to enlarge the images and explore some of the contents for yourself.
How good is this volume for scale modelling?
Well, firstly any volume that contains numerous period images is going to be useful and, when you add to that the many rare black and white images and colour profile artworks detailing the aircraft, you’re going to have a winner on your hands.
The text is certainly informative and well written and clearly comes after some extensive research by the authors.
Where this volume scores is the stunning artwork; it really is very impressive and looks 3-D. This is a theme that seems to be gathering pace with MMP‘s Gloster Gladiator, Vol.2 and the Kagero Fokker Dr.I both containing images that require to be seen with enclosed 3-D glasses.
There are numerous good quality models of the Me 262 in all the popular scales, which is great news because this title is going to attract plenty of sales too; rightly so, it’s an impressive piece of kit that will add to any Me 262 references you may already have.
I have the big Trumpeter Me 262 in 1:32 scale staring down on me in my modelling room and that won’t be too far off as far as SMN goes! The Me 262 B.1a Night Fighter version that’s the subject of that project is covered well in Vol.2 and now it’s here I have a final piece of the jigsaw needed before I begin my big 262 project.
Scale plans are always useful and the quality of those included here looks to be high.
The colour profiles are all-aspect, which is impressive, if not essential, for us scale modellers. As indicated above, the all-colour profiles and drawings are superb and leave little to the imagination in terms of clear reference to detail and Me 262 scale model you may have, from the Me 262A-1a to the later B-1a.
Colour schemes and decals abound for projects of this most famous of WWII Luftwaffe jet fighters, of which 5 are covered here in this volume.
About Monographs…
The Monographs Series focuses on an individual type of aircraft. Each monograph contains descriptions of the aircraft’s origin, its variants and combat history. Each volume includes several hundred archive photographs, technical scale drawings and colour profile artwork.
There are many titles in the Monographs series, so it’s worth checking out Kagero’s website to see what a huge range of titles are available to the scale modeller.
Conclusion
Highly recommended. I love these titles in the Monographs series, they always seem to have what you want in terms of reference and very rarely let you down. This volume II on the Me 262 is no different.
Geoff C.