Roden 1/72 Heinkel He-111B

RODEN 1:72 HEINKEL HE-111B

Reviewer: Edmunds Jankowski (rec.models.scale)
Kit Review submitted: 2 March 2002

Aircraft: The He-111B was the second production version of the aircraft, replacing the original BMW-VI engines with DB-600CG rated at 950 HP. It’s first flight was in May 1936 and already in February 1937, the first four of them were delivered to Spain, together with Do-17E and Ju-86D aircraft, forming the Bomber Group K/88. The most infamous activity of He-111B's in Spain was the destruction of the town of Guernica. In mid-1938 the He-111B was replaced by He-111E with Jumo-211 engines, as DB-600 were needed for Luftwaffe fighters.

Kit parts: There are 183 injection molded parts in two shades of grey on 5 sprues, as well as 21 transparent parts on a separate sprue. Everything comes in a large plastic bag. The panel lines are engraved, very fine in depth and level of detail, the rivets look just right for this scale. There is small amount of flash, but it’s easily removable. The largest concern is the large amount of delicate parts, attached to the sprue with really thick supports. I managed to break four landing gear struts, so take care. The overall quality of the molds is not great, but reasonable.

Instructions: The instructions come in a sort of loose-leaf booklet, outlining the history and technical data of the aircraft; the part positions on sprues (they are properly labeled and numbered anyway); 31 steps of assembling; paint and decal scheme for three aircraft and Humbrol paint range quoted. For me the instructions were OK, as compared to some other kits, perhaps for a novice they may be a little confusing, but there’s nothing you can’t deal with by doing some dry runs.

Running commentary on construction: As you can guess from the number of parts, the model is very detailed, but in a peculiar way. The interior is well detailed, comprising some 50 parts in total, depicting all the compartments from navigator in the front and concluding with the gunners in mid-fuselage. To some extent it can be compared to Revell He-177 Greif.

There are even detailed bomb racks, which can be seen through the transparencies, but no bombs are provided, and the bomb bay doors are rather crudely depicted by raised lines without any option for open bomb bay. The landing gear boxes and main gear is very detailed, some 30+ parts for both, but this is perhaps the trickiest part in the assembly. Not to mention the enormously thin supports, which according to the instructions you should glue the gear box to the wing lower half first and then go on with wing upper half. If you do that, then even if you are able to force the halves together and put some clamps on, the damned thing will snap open sooner or later. In the end, I glued the wing halves and after a few days I started to adjust the boxes by shaving them to proper dimensions and inserting them through the open engine bay.

Another tricky part is the retractable ventral gun stand. When finished, it dangles out a peculiar angle and, of course, you can retract it only if you haven’t glued the gun to it. So I shaved it to proper dimensions to fit in the fuselage recess and placed the gun in the stand as if just had been lowered and then next, the gun was attached to the mount. When you place the bomb racks and try to glue the two fuselage halves they won’t affix together, so you have to trim the racks or carve the inside of the fuselage until they match. Don’t forget to make 24 holes in the engine cowlings, otherwise the exhausts will not fit in.

Options: The propellers are movable and as the gear doors come in one piece, I suppose an in-flight position for the landing gear is possible. The same sprues are also used for the He-111A, as there’s quite a lot of unused parts. The kit allows you to make two He-111B-1 from K/88 Group and one anonymous He-111B-1. The difference lies in a different nosecone and different air intakes for engines.

Decals: I presumed the decals were produced by Roden, as there is no other company name on them. The overall quality is OK, although the color is a shade too dark, for my eye, of course. No solvent is necessary and the decals are thin enough.

Accuracy: I didn’t go over the kit with a ruler, but at least the wingspan and fuselage are OK, and the plane leaves no doubt that it is an early He-111. The wing trailing edge needs a lot of trimming as well as the control surfaces. Also the correct angle of wing attachment to the fuselage should be checked, as with a lot of filing and sanding it’s easy to get it wrong.

Overall: You don’t have much to choose from for an early Heinkel-111, Roden is the only company to my knowledge that produces the He-111A/B/C. You could use the ICM Su-2 or I-16 as practice (although both kits are rather trying) before getting hold of the He-111 or TB-3. By the way, I disagree with the review on ICM TB-3. Yes, the parts do not fit well, but you can easily depict the usual Soviet 1930s vintage quality of assembly, when the parts were often hammered in the right place and nobody was counting missing rivets. Otherwise, the TB-3 kit is a pleasure, I’m just going through it and hope that ICM will also produce it’s smaller brother TB-1 at some time.

Note: the following related reviews links have not been updated since early 2000's - more kit reviews of this aircraft may now be on SMAKR, not reflected below. Refer to the Index for other kits of this type.

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