Introduction
The following introduction is as supplied by ICM:
In the spring of 1937, based on the experience of the Spanish Civil War, the German Technical Department developed requirements for an attack aircraft. For the direct support of troops on the battlefield and the breakthrough of deeply echeloned enemy defences, a twin-engine aircraft with small dimensions, reliable armour protection, and powerful armament was necessary. Projects from four companies were considered on a competitive basis, including Focke-Wulf. Within the competition, specialists from this company converted their FW 189V-1 with two Argus As 410 engines into a two-seat attack aircraft. The main part of the conversion involved replacing the central gondola with an armoured cabin housing the pilot and gunner. Several variants were produced, and the third aircraft in the experimental series, the FW 189V-6, became the FW 189C attack aircraft. It was equipped with more powerful engines, and its armament included 2 MG-FF 20mm cannons and 4 MG17 machine guns, while the defensive armament consisted of MG81 machine guns. The aircraft underwent testing in Rechlin in the fall of 1940, but despite good results, it did not go into production. The primary attack aircraft of the Luftwaffe a bit later became the single-engine Hs 129A.
Review
This offering from ICM arrives in the usual flip top cardboard tray, with an additional card lid. Inside all of the model parts are packaged in a single bag, with the 2 clear sprues inside their own bags but inside the main package. The decal sheet for the model is protected within the instruction booklet. An examination of the sprues reveals no obvious concerns, or issues that will need to be tackled beyond some ejector pin marks that will need to be addressed.
This release from ICM caused me to do quite a lot of background work, as until this release I was totally unaware of this aircraft. This offering is possibly the last in a line from ICM, as the ground attack version of this aircraft only went as far as a single version and it is unclear if it was even used - even for trials. The aircraft did gain a very good name amongst pilots for it reliability, ability to return with heavy damage and excellent manoeuvrability. There are an awful lot of parts provided in this release, that are not used and so make sure you select your pieces carefully. The cockpit of the model and internals generally are very limited beyond machine gun mounts that if my reading of the on-line information should not be present in the model beyond a single MG in this variant facing rearward.
It should be noted that there are 2 versions of the rear facing machine station, which means that you know that one is wrong as only one version was built. With this being 1/72nd scale, I can forgive the lack of internal detail to some degree as details on this variant interior is nil that I can find, and vies within the aircraft are very limited. The twin booms were interchangeable and so should have duplicated detail on both halves, and that does appear to be the case with the horizontal tail plane connection point blanked off on the exterior of the booms. Where the booms travel under the wings, detail is again weak in my opinion. The engine nacelles have good exterior detail, the only question I ask myself is why it only had twin bladed props.
The lack of interior detail on the wheel bays is thankfully not the same case with the main gear doors, which offers some detail on both faces. The wheel struts are very nicely detailed for the scale, having what I believe are the balloon style tyres and the strut structures only really need some very fine wire to make them visually appealing. The tail wheel is unfortunately a single piece moulding, which to my mind always effects the detail. But it is quite nice that it is a retractable wheel. Despite this variant being, I believe a ground attack aircraft it has been fitted out as a light bomber and these are I believe 4 x 250lb bombs - but that is a guess judging by their size on my part. If you are going to use the bombs, check that the holes in the lower wing for locating them are open, as 2 of mine were blanked off, until I opened them. I will commend ICM for having included masks guides for the clear portions of the canopy, and when you see how small these are you will understand why I am not overly concerned about the lack of interior detail. A single finishing option is provided which is correct for this type, and that is an Fw 189C/V-6, Rechlin, Autumn 1940.
Conclusion
This release from ICM is not one that I was really expecting, but in this scale I am happy enough with what is provided. But the modeller will need to do some searches on-line to verify that they have everything correctly set up. My searches indicate a single machine gun as the rear is the correct set up, and detail generally from the photographs on-line would appear to be accurate. Detail on the forward firing cannons on the wings do appear to be lacking, as it looks as if shields covering the muzzles were utilised. So all things considered, this would appear to be a reasonable model of a trials aircraft, of this variant.