1/48 Tamiya J2M3 Raiden

by Nick England

--------------------

 

I bought this kit purely on the basis of it looking like a mean little street fighter, and the Raiden’s involved in Japan’s home defence at the end of WW2 certainly saw some fighting.

The Raiden got its primary use during the defence of the Japanese home islands.  Its good performance, powerful armament, and armour protection made it perhaps the best bomber destroyer employed by Japan in the latter stages of the war.  It had a good high-altitude performance, and was one of the few Japanese fighters able to reach the high-flying B-29 Superfortress.  Its armament of four 20-mm cannon was sufficiently heavy that it could do major damage against B-29s.

However, I won’t go over the history of the aircraft, but will just focus on the pictures!  As my first Tamiya build, I really enjoyed the ease with which it went together, and there’s a build thread on this in the ARC forum (by Dylan the Rabbit) and that pretty much gives you a detailed breakdown of the trials and tribulations of building this aircraft.

Click on images below to see larger images

  

  

  

The paints used were a mixture of Tamiya and Citadel acrylics, and Revell and Xtracolour enamels, and the panel lines were highlighted with a black chalk wash, and the whole lot sealed in with a coat of Xtracrylix satin varnish.

I used a turnbuckle provided by Bob Booth (ideally used for rigging WW1 planes (www.bobsbuckles.co.uk) for fitting the aerial wire (hair) to the tail, and that’s it!

I hope you enjoy looking at the pictures.

Cheers,

Nick

Photos and text © by Nick England