The SSW D.III was an excellent late war German fighter, much admired then and now, but there were too few of them, too late, to make an impact. This particular aircraft belonged to Germany's second most successful fighter ace, Ernst Udet.
Siemens was an electrical engineering company which underwent a long series of mergers and acquisitions. As Siemens Schuckert Werke it produced a series of giant bombers in WWI, but realising their financial vulnerability to such costly units, branched out into fighter aircraft when the Air Force demanded a competitor for the successful French Nieuport scouts. The SSW D.I was a close copy of the Nieuport 17, verging on the obsolete when it finally appeared, but powered by an innovative rotary engine designed by Siemens Halske, another of their companies. Further development led to the Siemens Sh.III engine, one of the most advanced engines of the war. The notable element of their design was that unusually the cylinders rotated in one direction, but the crankshaft in the other. This allowed much more power to be extracted from the large rotating mass of a rotary engine. The Sh.III's promise led to its choice for several fighter projects at the end of the war, but it mainly manifested in the parent company's own later fighter types, especially this SSW D.III and the following D.IV, the same basic design except for having both wings featuring narrow chords. They had impressive climb rates and much of the production went to home defence squadrons.
Unfortunately for Siemens, introduction of the D.III was delayed by problems with the synthetic castor oil used by the Sh.III, which ground to a halt after only a few hours' operation. It was only resolved by changes to the cowling and elsewhere which improved engine cooling, and also when production was supplemented by Rhemag-built engines which didn't experience problems with the oil. By August 1918 production of the D.III and D.IV (now recognised as an outstanding fighter despite contemporary prejudice in favour of the Fokker D.VII) began to pick up again, but their always limited numbers led to much of their production appearing only after the Armistice. There's no record of Udet actually flying his late model D.III in combat. But he was a natural flyer and one assumes he liked the type - he quickly had its main body painted in his trademark red; it's thought he intended to have the wings painted red as well in due course. Published illustrations vary in the details of the scheme of his plane. I've painted this model in the version most seem to favour.
It's strange to me that such a charismatic aircraft has been modelled so little. True, its wartime service was limited, but it's aggressively good looking, was known to be a superlative performer, and it did appear in plenty of attractive schemes - Swiss and Belgian for the D.IV, as well as German. The main kits we have, of the D.III, are by Eduard in 1:48 scale, and Roden in 1:32. This is the latter kit. It's sad for me, because although Roden were a major factor in creating a thriving market for 1:32 scale World War One aircraft models, they gave up when they saw the astonishingly good kits of Wingnut Wings. No one could really compete, because Wingnuts wasn't a normal business; it was the creation of Lord of the Rings film director Peter Jackson who wanted to see his favourite planes modelled in plastic. Wingnuts eventually went under, apparently due to problems elsewhere among his businesses, but us WWI modellers have been bereft since, at least of 1:32 scale plastic kits. Why haven't Roden returned to the fold? Well, they have tried, but life has been very difficult for them, being Ukrainian.
And this kit of the D.III is especially saddening, because it was one of the very last to appear before Roden backed out of this market. Many feel that this shows, in that many areas of the kit maybe look a bit rushed - see the uncharacteristically crude panel lines on the fuselage. But Roden's SSW D.III is actually a very nice kit. It benefits from several features of the full scale design, such as the shape of the interplane struts, which makes mounting the top wing a breeze - a huge saving grace since there's a problem with the cabane struts - more of that later. It presents some challenges, but don't they all? It approaches various aspects of the original pretty well. There are certain weaknesses common to a lot of Roden kits, which can't really be helped because of their location in Ukraine and need to work to a viable price point.
The main weakness which must be mentioned is the quality of the decals, which until recently was a major let down. Roden were legally obliged to source them inside Ukraine, and home manufacture of decals only improved later (than this kit). A big deal with this kit, because these much loved lozenge fabrics can only be satisfactorily rendered via decals. Besides a tendency to fall apart, the colours of the kit's decals aren't the best, to be honest. I turned to Aviattic's wonderful range of decals, which apart from boasting well attested accurate colours, have a beautiful 'fabric texture', and are backed with a distinctive highly manageable carrier film. Furthermore, the top wing of the D.III had its fabric twisted 45ยบ, and Aviattic produce a special sheet for that. So the lozenge decals you see here, upper and lower wings with their separate colours, are Aviattic's.
I bought a few other aftermarket accessories. I'd found a wooden replacement prop, which was surprisingly awkward to fit into the spinner; I had to carve out a bit more of each of the blade slots and if I overdid it or slipped up with the very sharp blade, I could lose the only spinner I had. It was worth doing because like most German planes the propellers were put together with alternating light and dark laminations, ie. very distinctive and hard to replicate convincingly with paint. Also, it had the correct manufacturer's logo (Wotan).
Then, I used several dials from an Eduard set of cockpit instruments. This introduces a bit of a wow factor, along with (also Eduard) seat belts: the SSW D.III had an unusually wide fuselage (for that big powerful engine) and the cockpit detail - busy though it is - is very visible. I did make a point of fitting the control lines for the first time. Unfortunately the way Roden have you installing the control column makes this tricky, and those lines can't really be seen now. Oh well, I know they're there.
Finally, I used this set of figures from Black Dog, of a pilot having his picture taken by one of his colleagues. He's not Udet, sadly, too tall, and Udet had a distinctive face I think. I'd have loved to pose Udet with his girlfriend Lola Zink (the 'Lo!' he had painted on all of his planes), but this little scene is nice. Especially the old plate camera on its tripod. The resin is fragile but it paints up prettily.
What was I saying about the cabane struts ie. the short struts between fuselage and wing centre section? Ah yes, I was grateful to be warned by a couple of people in the modellers' forum, that if I fitted them as they are, I could end up with a bowed top wing. The struts are a tad too long. Thanks to that advice, I decided to dig out the fuselage attachment points, so that the struts could sink a little of the way in as they wanted. Photos of the real thing suggested it could look right. It seems to have worked, at least, the top wing looks straight to my eyes.
So much to talk about with this model. I could expand at length about the gruelling session required to cut and place all that lozenge decal, in particular the rib tapes - I think I had to slice getting on for 100 tapes. Accidentally cutting one of the rigging lines - easily repaired as it happens. Dripping some Bostik on the top wing - not a substance decals like in any way - dealt with as well as I could manage by painting and spraying another satin coat. The rigging between wing and the top of the fuselage - I'm getting a nervous twitch just thinking about it now (you can just see it in the gap right under the top wing). Then there was the photographer jumping off the table and breaking his leg in two places. I had little sympathy. He should be grateful for the expert surgery I performed, with a prosthesis - I never found the ankle section.
Enough! Despite all the aforementioned, I'm proud of the end result. The new techniques and materials I've tried out will help enormously with other projects. And I'm still a fan of these Siemens Schuckerts. The thing I'm most sad about is that we never got, and there's no prospect currently, a kit of the D.IV, one of the very best of the 'nearly' planes of WWI. And after all these years, while this kit of the D.III is still a very decent one, I reckon we're ready for a new edition of this fab little aeroplane.
That really does look stunning Mark!
ReplyDeleteThanks, much appreciated!
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