1/48 AM Tech Ta-183Z-2/U  

by Todd Pollock

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"A What if Story"

 

After the amazing successes of the Bf-109Z in the war in the east in 1943 and 1944, the luftwaffe decided to expand the concept onto it’s newest fighter the Ta-183B. Designated Ta-183Z, it proved to be a huge success in the all weather interceptor and Zerstorer roles. But where it really shined was as a night fighter. Nothing could touch it. With a huge speed advantage over the allied night fighters and bombers of the time. Plus the devastating X-4 missiles it carried made it all but invincible. The eight 20mm cannon turned even the large B-29's into scrap with a short burst.

The Me-262 and Ta-183 day fighter made the daylight bombing campaign suicidal. So in the summer of 1945 the allies moved to night bombing exclusively. The combined might of the Americans and British produced some devastating results in 1945 and 1946.. Destroying numerous key targets throughout Germany and occupied France. For a while they even produced better results than they did during their best months in 1944 before the Soviet Union fell to the Nazi’s forces. The main reason being the Mosquito night fighters in concert with the new B-29 bombers of the USAF. The Luftwaffe tried to counter this with the Ta-154 and He-219. Both were excellent planes but they were not enough to counter the threat. The B-29 was in particularly problematic in shooting down. It flew so high that they were hard intercept by the piston engined night fighters of the day. This produced a semi-stalemate, with the Luftwaffe controlling the air during the day and the Allies the air by night. Neither could gain an advantage through all of 1945 and early 1946.

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German high command knew this had to change if they had any hope of ending the war by invading Britain. Procurement of an advanced night fighter was placed as the highest priority By the time of the Second Battle for Britain in the fall of 1946 the Ta-183Z-2u’s were ready. On their first combat sortie four Ta-183Z’s shot down 2 Mosquito’s, 3 B-29's, and a Lancaster bomber without a loss to themselves. Soon whole squadrons were decimating the allied night bomber force. As D-day approached it reached it’s peak with the allies losing ½ it’s available bombing force in one night trying to break up the German invasion force which had assembled in northern France. So devastating was the loss that the allies had to stop any offensive actions for over a month.

The invasion went well and for the first time since the Roman empire it looked as if the British Isles would be concurred. The allies lost London and were pushed back to northern England and Scotland. But the allies had their own secret weapon which had been delayed in it’s development. The atom bomb. First dropped on Dresden on Sept 24th 1946 and next on Berlin 4 days later. It proved impossible to stop. Even the great Ta-183's couldn’t stop one lonely bomber all of the time. Fortunately the attack on Berlin killed both Adolf Hitler, Herman Goring and most of the other Nazi leaders.. After the 3rd atom bomb the German people had enough and went to the peace table. Thus ended the the bloodiest war ever fought.

All kidding aside it’s a good thing my story is a piece of fiction. As is the Ta-183Z. I have built a few of the AmTech Ta-183's and think they are wonderful kits. One day I was cruising the stash and started to daydream on how a Ta183 Zwillig would look? Next thing I knew I pulled out the 2 copies I had and took a closer look at how I could accomplish this. With the modular design of the kit it was simple. I built up the 2 fuselages as normal. As well as the 2 outer wing panels. I chopped the very end of the other 2 wing halves off. I used this as a template to glue on some thin sheet stock to make the wings airfoil shape. Being careful to around the leading edge. At the vary front is a larger diameter piece of sprue I found in the garbage bin from a completed kit. I cut everything to shape. Sanded out the front of the wing, which needed lots of filler to look smooth. I them was on to the tailplanes. I just used a piece of thick sheet stock sanded into airfoil shape. My first thought was to do a tail similar to the Ov-10 Bronco with no outboard fins. But once I placed it up there it didn’t look right. I finally decided to just cut inner half of the kits tailplane off and attach the straight middle section in between. Both conversion parts were then scribed with some panel detail.

At this point I was going to do a Heavy Fighter version. But again I was poking through the stash one night and came across my old Modelcraft F-82 which was a semi-successful night fighter at the beginning of the Korean war. And that’s when I knew I had to do it as a night fighter.. So I started to search the spares bin. My first thought was a more normal German design with all the aerials sticking out. But heck an advanced jet night fighter would never have such a cluttered look. I decided to mount a pod ala the F-82 twin mustang. A seach turned up an abandoned Airfix EE lightning front gear well which doubles as a intake shock cone. The pointy cone was discarded and I attached a cut off portion of a US bomb. I sanded it to fit the wing. Not to shabby for 30 min work.

At this point I glued everything up and got it ready for paint. The paint scheme is just something I thought looked cool yet was close to some real Luftwaffe schemes. Decals came from the AmTech kits. They worked perfectly, more like aftermarket in quality. I added a few unit insignia from an old Micro Scale unit insignia sheet. Flat coat, add the fiddly bits, and a little weathering and it was done.

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All in all I think this was one of the most fun projects I have ever done. I think that having to be more creative was the main reason. But also getting to build something the rivet counters can’t nit pit. That’s the beauty of Luft. 46 aircraft, no one can say you did this or that wrong. The fine AmTech kit made it a easy conversion.  Plus it's German, which for me is always cool. Now that has me thinking what would an American jet twin look like. Hmmnn.... Maybe an twin F-86 or F-84.

Ok  that’s too much. Maybe I should just stick with reality for a while.

Todd

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Photos and text © by Todd Pollock