1:72 Messerschmitt Me 410 B-4 ’Hornisse’ night fighter; ‘G9+FN’ of the 5./NJG 1; Gelsenkirchen (Ruhrgebiet/Germany), spring 1946 (What-if/modified Italeri kit)

Some background:

The Messerschmitt Me 410 Hornisse (Hornet) is a heavy fighter and Schnellbomber ("Fast Bomber" in English) designed and produced by the German aircraft manufacturer Messerschmitt. It was flown by the Luftwaffe during the latter half of the Second World War.

The Me 410’s origins are closely associated with the preceding Me 210. Development of this aircraft had been projected back in 1937 as a multi-purpose successor to the Bf 110, which had some identified shortcomings even prior to seeing combat service. Early on, confidence in the Me 210 had been high, to the extent that 1,000 aircraft were ordered off the drawing board; however, it would be a troubled program. Flight testing revealed poor longitudinal stability and despite modifications was considered unsatisfactory. While quantity production of the type proceeded, the Me 210 had a relatively high rate of accidents. This heavily contributed to production being halted on 14 April 1942; officials were keen to remedy the Me 210's problems and return it to production to minimize the economic loss incurred.

Various modifications to the design were explored, including the Me 310, a radical high-altitude derivative that incorporated a pressurized cockpit and more powerful engines.[9] This option was not favored by many officials, who sought a less ambitious remediation of the Me 210. It was this preference that led to the Me 410’s emergence, which was visually almost identical to the Me 210. The principal difference was the adoption of the larger (at 44.5 liters, 2,720 cu in displacement) and more powerful Daimler-Benz DB 603A engines. These engines each provided 1,750 metric horsepower (1,730 hp; 1,290 kW) compared to the 1,475 metric horsepower (1,455 hp; 1,085 kW) of the DB 605s used on the Me 210C. The extra power increased the Me 410's maximum speed to 625 kilometers per hour (388 mph), greatly improved rate of climb, service ceiling, and the cruising speed, the latter being raised to 579 km/h (360 mph).

The more powerful engines also improved payload capability to the point where the aircraft could lift a war-load greater than could fit into the bomb bay under the nose. Consequently, shackles were added under the wings for four 50-kilogram (110 lb) bombs. The changes added an extra 680 kg (1,500 lb) to the Me 210 design, but the extra engine power more than made up for the difference. As with the Me 210, the Me 410's rear gunner used the same pair of Ferngerichtete Drehringseitenlafette FDSL 131/1B turrets mounted on each side of the aircraft, each still armed with a 13 mm (.51 in) MG 131 machine gun, retaining the same pivoting handgun-style grip, trigger and gunsight to aim and fire the ordnance as the Me 210 did.

 

The new version included a lengthened fuselage and new, automatic leading edge slats. Both features had been tested on Me 210s and were found to dramatically improve handling. The slats had originally been featured on the earliest Me 210 models but had been removed on production models due to poor handling. When entering a steep turn, the slats tended to open due to the high angle of attack, analogous to the slats’ opening during the landing approach, which added to the difficulty in keeping the aircraft flying smoothly. However, when the problems with general lateral instability were addressed, this was no longer a real problem. While the Me 410 came to be regarded as a relatively stable aircraft, it had a poorer rate of turn than the Bf 110 it was intended to replace.

The wing panels of the earlier Me 210 had been designed with a planform geometry that placed the aerodynamic center farther back compared with the earlier Bf 110, giving the outer sections of the wing planform beyond each engine nacelle a slightly greater, 12.6° leading edge sweepback angle than the inner panels' 6.0° leading edge sweep angle. This resulted in unsuitable handling characteristics in flight for the original Me 210 design. The new Me 410 outer wing panels had their planform geometry revised to bring the aerodynamic center farther forward in comparison with the Me 210, thus making the leading-edge sweepback of the outer panels identical to the inner wing panels with both having identical 5.5° sweepback angles, which improved handling.

 

During late 1942, six Me 210As were taken off the assembly line for conversion to Me 410 standards. Near the end of that year, the Me 410 V1 prototype performed its maiden flight. Shortly thereafter, the Reichsluftfahrtministerium (RLM) was suitably convinced by its performance to place a sizable production order for the Me 410. Deliveries of the Me 410 began in January 1943, two years late and continued until September 1944, by which point a total of 1,160 of all versions had been produced by Messerschmitt's facility in Augsburg and Dornier plant in München. When the Me 410 arrived, it was typically appreciated by its crews, even though its improved performance was not enough to protect it from the waves of high-performance Allied fighters that it routinely confronted at this stage of the conflict. There were various models produced to serve in distinct roles, including a light bomber, an aerial reconnaissance platform, a bomber destroyer and night fighters.

 

Among these the late Me 410 B-4 was the first and only dedicated version – earlier might fighters had been converted from existing Me 410 A machines and retrofitted with radar and extra armament. In contrast to this, the Me 410 B-4 had been re-designed with the new FuG 240 ‘Berlin’ radar. This device was an airborne interception radar system operating at the "lowest end" of the SHF radio band (at about 3.3 GHz/9.1 cm wavelength) and the first German radar to be based on the cavity magnetron, which eliminated the need for the large multiple dipole-based antenna arrays seen on earlier radars. Instead, a disk-shaped reflector antenna was used, which could be covered under an aerodynamic plywood hood, thereby greatly increasing the performance of the night fighters. The power output of the radar was 15 kW and was effective against bomber-sized targets at distances of up to 9 kilometers, or down to 0.5 kilometer, which eliminated the need for a second short-range radar system. The FuG 240 was introduced by Telefunken in April 1945 and immediately rushed into production.

 

On the Me 410 B-4 the static radar dish had a diameter of 70 cm and was mounted in a thimble-shaped wooden radome that occupied the area in front of the cockpit. This reduced the pilot’s field of view markedly (all windows under the windscreen were deleted), but since the aircraft was to be guided by the radar operator and not involved in ground attacks, this loss was regarded as acceptable. To aid the pilot in target identification and aiming a Spanner IV device, a passive infrared-sight, was added – it was mounted into the windshield. This lowered the field of sight even further but allowed the pilot to detect hot engine and exhaust areas at a range of up to 1.000 m, while the device supported weapon aiming at a range of about 600 m.

 

The Me 410’s bomb bay was re-purposed to house four 20 mm MG 151/20 cannon as primary armament; the doors were deleted but a single ventral hardpoint for an external load of 1.000 kg was added – either for a large 500 l drop tank to extend range or for additional guns in a pod, e. g. the so-called ‘Magirus bomb’, or ‘WB 151A’ weapons pod with two 20 mm MG 151/20 cannons and 150 rpg.

The rest of the armament was tailored to the night fighter mission profile, too: the heavy defensive FDSL 131 barbettes were deleted, and instead a staggered pair of MK 108 30 mm cannon with 100 rpg were installed behind the cockpit, firing upwards (‘Schräge Musik’), close to the aircraft’s center of gravity. It was planned to link these weapons to a SG 116 device, which would automatically trigger these through a photocell, reacting to the shadow of the target aircraft or its silhouette against the sky or coulds. This device turned out to be highly unreliable, though. The second crew member was now a dedicated radar operator who sat in the former observer/rear gunner’s position, but the seat was ‘reversed’ and now faced forward. The WSO had, beyond the bulky FuG 240’s display, a sight for the oblique guns so that these could also be triggered manually when the aircraft passed underneath its target.

 

Another dedicated night fighter modification of the Me 410 B-4 was its propulsion system. While the aircraft was still powered by the standard Daimler Benz DB 603A that provided up to 1,850 PS/1,360 kW, the night fighter was outfitted with handed reversible four blade propellers. The idea was to counter torque issues due to both propellers originally turning into the same direction, and the four blades were introduced to improve acceleration and especially decelration when the aircraft approached its relatively slow target at high speed and had to get into an effective and stable aiming position as quickly as possible. This also required handed engines, so that the Me 410 B-4's powerplants were designated DB 603A-1l/r to differentiate their working direction. Additionally, flame dampers were mounted as another standard night fighter measure to protect the crew from engine flares and hide the aircraft in the dark sky.

 

 

 

General characteristics:

Crew: two

Length: 12.75 m (41 ft 9 in)

Wingspan: 16.3513 m (53 ft 7.75 in)

Height: 4.280 m (14 ft 0.5 in)

Wing area: 36.2031 m2 (389.687 sq ft)

Airfoil: root: NACA 23018-636.5; tip: NACA 23010-636.5

Empty weight: 7,518 kg (16,574 lb)

Gross weight: 9,651 kg (21,276 lb)

Fuel capacity: 550 imp gal (660 US gal; 2,500 L) in four wing tanks

 

Powerplant:

2× Daimler-Benz DB 603A-1l/r V-12 inverted liquid-cooled piston engines, each providing:

- 1,290 kW (1,750 hp) for take-off

- 1,360 kW (1,850 PS) at 2,100 m (6,890 ft)

- 1,195 kW (1,625 PS) at 5,700 m (18,700 ft)

Driving handed 4-bladed VDM constant-speed propeller

 

Performance:

Maximum speed: 507 km/h (315 mph, 274 kn) at sea level,

624 km/h (388 mph; 337 kn) at 6,700 m (21,980 ft)

Cruise speed: 587 km/h (365 mph, 317 kn)

Range: 1,200 km (750 mi, 650 nmi) at maximum continuous cruise speed,

1,690 km (1,050 mi) at economical cruise speed

Ferry range: 2,300 km (1,400 mi, 1,200 nmi)

Service ceiling: 10,000 m (33,000 ft)

Time to altitude: 6,000 m (20,000 ft) in ten minutes and 42 seconds

 

Armament:

4× 20 mm (0.79 in) MG 151/20 cannon with 300 rpg in the lower fuselage, firing forward

2× 30 mm (0.79 in) MK 108 cannon with 100 rpg behind the cockpit (“Schräge Musik”),

oriented 65° above horizontal

Up to 1,000 kg (2,200 lb) of disposable external stores, including:

- 2x 300l + 1x 500l drop tanks

- 2x 250 kg or 4x 100kg or 4x 50 kg bombs

- 4× 21 cm (8.3 in) Werfer-Granate 21 rockets

 

 

The kit and its assembly:

Well, my Me 410 night fighter is certainly not the first one of its kind, but a personal interpretation of the subject with as much late-WWII hardware on board as possible, for a purposeful look and feel.

The basis of this build became the Italeri Me 410, mostly because it comes with “plugs” for the fuselage flanks where the original Me 410 carried its defensive gun barbettes – IMHO useless on a night fighter. The plugs are, however, quite useless, because they still have to be PSRed into the flanks so that they could be easily omitted anyway...

Another typical ingredient was a Quickboost FuG 240 thimble radome for the system's static dish antenna, originally intended for a Ju 88 G-6 night fighter but in this case mounted to the aircraft’s nose and PSRed into shape, too. The radome’s “flat” underside was also a plausible detail for an open field of fire for ventral guns in the former bomb bay – a conversion that had been done to many Me 410 heavy fighters with field modifications and cannon Rüstsätze.

 

The cockpit was insofar modified that the former gunner on the back seat now faced forward, and the workstation received some scratched devices like a radar screen and a tilted gun sight. The pilot received an IR sight, mounted through a hole that was drilled into the windscreen, and a separate bulletproof glass panel behind the windscreen. Since I did not want to open the already complex/fiddly three-part canopy I added two crew members.

 

The former machine gun barbettes were faired over, and instead two hollow steel needles were mounted behind the cockpit on sockets/bulges, plus a clear “sensor some” (all made from sprue material). Hollow steel needles were also used to simulate protruding gun barrels in the ventral cannon compartment and on the back. Under the wings a pair of OOB 300l drop tanks were added, a plausible payload, and to beef up the armament I scratched a Magirus-Bombe gun pod and mounted it on a central hardpoint from a Fw 190.

As an individual detail I lowered the aircraft's flaps, which was quite easy to do. The wing segments were simply cut out and semi-circular styrene profile used to create the hinges.

 

To make the Me 410 night fighter look a bit more purposeful I furthermore used flame dampers on the exhaust stubs; these were taken from an Italeri Me 110 night fighter, and this worked better then expected. I just had to modify one of the exhaust pipes due to the different position of the carburettor intakes on the Me 410. Furthermore I replaced the original three blade props with four blade alternatives (which had been tested on Me 410 V15 IIRC, but had not been adopted) from a FROG D.H. Hornet. Not a perfect match, because the spinners were slightly too big in diameter (could be trimmed down, though) and the props are handed, but that's only obvious at second glance.

 

Painting and markings:

I kept the livery conservative, and wanted to keep the aircraft relatively light overall, like a typical German late war night fighter. Therefore, the machine initially received an overall coat with RLM 76 (Humbrol 247), only with a few blurry fields and speckles with RLM 75 (Humbrol 246) on the wings’ upper surfaces and on the spine. Additionally, some mottling with mixed shades of RLM 76 and 75 were added, primarily to the fuselage, engine and fin flanks.

I initially considered additional mottles with lighter RLM 77 (RAL 7035, almost white) on the flanks and the upper surfaces, but when the two basic tones were applied I thought that this was already enough, so I kept the livery rather simple.

 

An unusual detail is a single black wing underside, though. This is/was not a camouflage measure, rather an identification marking for anti-aircraft artillery on the ground to avoid friendly fire. This was, just as in real life, done with water-soluble paint (acrylic tar black, Revell 06), so that the original light blue-grey paint would shine through here and there and the black paint would easily wear or flake off.

To achieve this effects and to blur the mottling the whole model received, after it had been painted, an overall treatment with fine wet sand paper. A similar method was used to simulate flaked paint on the wooden radome. After a light black ink washing some post-panel-shading was done, too.

The cockpit interior became very dark grey (RAL 7021, I used Revell 09 Anthracite) while the landing gear and its respective wells were painted in RLM 02 (Tamiya XF-22).

 

The decals were puzzled together from various sources. The code G9+F(red)N is plausible for an aircraft of the Nachtjagdgeschwader 1's 5th squadron. The unit emblem is fictional, though, the gauntlet motif came from an RAF Tornado. The black iron crosses were reduced to a minimum - except for the underwing markings, which were kept more complex even during the final war stages, and in the case of the black wing these markings also offer more contrast for a secure identification from below.

After some soot stains done with graphite around the exhausts and the gun muzzles the model was finally sealed with matt acrylic varnish and the wire antenna made from heated black sprue material was added.

 

Done