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ITALERI
1:72 MACCHI MC.202 FOLGORE
'INBOX Review'
Reviewer: Kevin Ronayne kevin.ronayne@nuigalway.ie
The most famous of all Italian Second World War fighters, the Folgore represents one of those classic 'what-ifs'. Like the Reggiane 2000 and Fiat G.50, the earlier Macchi 200 Saetta used a radial engine, as Italian industry was unable to produce a suitable inline engine. The solution was to fit the Daimler-Benz 601 engine, the resulting aircraft being redesignated the Macchi 202. The DB 601 was eventually license-built by Alfa Romeo as the Monsone (Monsoon). Even with this, total production of the Folgore was only about 1,500, due to limited engine availability. The follow-on Macchi 205 used the DB 605 engine. This was an even better design, but only 265 were built - most of those after the Armistice in 1943. The Macchi 202 and 205 proved that the Italians could design fighters as well as anybody else, but they were just too few, too late.
My first reaction when I heard Italeri were going to release this kit was 'About time!'. This is Italeri's first kit of an Italian WW II aircraft for a very, very long time. It fits in with Italeri's current focus on single-engined fighter aircraft from this period. Unsurprisingly, the arrangement of parts on the sprues suggests that a kit of the Macchi 205 'Veltro' will follow in the near future. Everything about the kit is standard Italeri, including two main sprues in light grey, and a small transparency sprue left to float free. There are about 46 parts in total. There is the usual very comprehensive instruction leaflet, with full-page paint and decal guides for each of three subjects. Paint codes are in Model Master and FS. The asking price is rock-bottom: just £ STG 3, or £ IR 4. Competitive pricing is something that Italeri are well known for. But just how good is the kit? Up until now, the best kit of the Folgore in this scale was the Hasegawa offering. I can say that with certainty, even though I've never seen that kit at first hand - the only other competitors were the passable Supermodel kit, and the ancient Revell tooling - also reboxed by Matchbox.
Close examination of the sprue reveals detail in the form of finely recessed panel lines - you won't see the Matchbox-like trenches that have appeared on some other Italeri kits. On parts of the wings, this is supplemented with very finely raised rivet detail. It is so fine that it gives the illusion of being countersunk until you actually touch it. Inside the cockpit, you will find a detailed floor, as well as sidewalls. A continuing criticism of Italeri is that they are still prone to leaving mold injection and sink marks in some awkward places - here, for example, some of the sidewall detail is obliterated by a sink mark. The instrument panel is very good: it has an unusual central panel which is partially separated from the rest of the instruments. Italeri have reproduced this, along with two separate decals. The cockpit also includes a reasonably detailed seat, control stick and upper rear bulkhead. Separate windscreen and main canopy parts are provided.
The rest of the kit is very conventional, which comes as no surprise - it's a very conventional looking fighter. The lower wing is molded in a single piece, with detailed wheel bays molded in. However, there is no detail in the rest of the bay, where the struts would be stored. Including struts, wheel and covers, there are 6 parts in each main undercarriage assembly. No instructions or parts are supplied for a model with retracted undercarriage, but I doubt it would be much of a problem to any experienced modeller. Some MC 202's had a rifle-calibre machine gun in each wing to supplement the fuselage armament, but there is no provision for that in this kit. The kit does provide optional sets of tailplanes, with very subtle differences in the elevators. Other points of note include a separate part for the top engine cowling, with the machine-gun installation. There are also separate parts for the port-side intake, the engine underside, radiator intake, tailwheel and tailwheel fairing. Some of these parts are will presumably be replaced if and when an MC 205 kit is produced.
All three subjects have the same basic paint scheme - a sand scheme with green camouflage, and light grey lower wings. Two of the subjects use an 'outline' camouflage pattern, but the third has solid blotches. On all three, the camouflage basically 'wraps around' the entire fuselage, except for the central wing section. The Model Master and FS colours are very generic, and are only to be viewed as approximations of the actual colours. One of the subjects is an aircraft based on the Eastern front in 1943. Another is Libyan based (1942). No information is given for the other subject. It's almost certainly based in the Mediterranean theatre, given the white theatre markings. The Zanchetti-produced decal sheet is small but perfectly formed. It looks very crisp indeed - based on past experience, I don't expect any problems whatsoever.
In the accuracy stakes, the kit is very good - but not perfect. In both length and wingspan, the kit comes up short by about a millimetre on both counts. Shape and profile both look very good, and panelling also looks very accurate for the most part.
A recent issue of the English magazine Scale Aircraft Modelling commented that on first view, this kit looked 'at least as good as the Hasegawa version'. Not having the Hasegawa kit, I'm not able to make that comparison. The best assessment I can give is that it falls slightly short of the standard set by the newest Revell and Academy kits - say, for example, the Revell P-47M, or the Academy P-51B/C. However, the key word here is 'slightly' - it's still looks an excellent kit. At this price, Italeri will hopefully sell truckloads, and will be encouraged to produce kits of other less important Italian fighters.
"It's stated that the major fault of Italian a/c lied on the poor armament (generally the standard two Breda-SAFAT .50in calibre machine guns on the cowling). For "to fill" this gap, to the serie VII forward the airframes leaving the lines, at Macchi Varese production plants, were provided with the provision-room for a machine gun in each wing, but their too-small calibre caused them to be rarely mounted. So, the RA pilots preferred the lightness of their Macchis (it is said the same for the RA BF.10G's wing cannons months later!) and the related holes in the wings were faired over with a steel plate in the process.
At the end, very few examples carried on the useless wing's MG. And, cause of scarcity of Mauser cannons, the Veltro first serie carried on the same poor armament of the late Folgores, four MG! Eventually the Serie III Veltro had the wing-mounted Mauser MG.151 20mm cannons."
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