ModelCollect – UA72215 – German Luftwaffe Weapon Set 3

Description:

Unassembled 1/72 scale accessories set depicting late WWII German aircraft missiles and bombs to use in other models.

Kit contains 3 different weapons inside, 2x BV 246 Hagelkorn, 4 x Fritz X and 2 x Henschel Hs 293.

The BV 246 Hagelkorn was a guided glided bomb intented to be used from a Junkers Ju 88 or a Heinkel He 111 bomber. Early designs of the bomb were just glided bombs, proving to be very inaccurate. In 1945 the design was used to test an anti-radiation missile using a passive seeker, but never was tested in combat.

Fritz X was a guided anti-ship glide bomb, was the world’s first precision guided weapon deployed in real combat and the first to sink a ship in combat using a radio control system that require keeping visual contact between bomber and the bomb as well as required mother aircraft to reduce speed and keep the same direction. The bomb had some success in Anzio and Salerno but later, ship-mounted jammers, reduced the effectiveness of the weapon which was also replaced by newer designs (Henschel Hs 293). For sure, records of combat usage were using Dornier Do 217 aircrafts, through development tests also used the Heinkel He 111.

Henschel Hs 293 was a radio guided bomb, it replaced the Fritz X in the anti-shipping role and is considered to be the the first world anti-shipping missile and considered responsible of damage or sink at least 25 Allied ships from 1943 to 1944. Increasing jamming measures by the Allies ended up by made the weapons less accurate as well as the air superiority that prevented the German bombers even to fly, at least on day conditions, reduced the impact of such weapon. Heinkel He 111, Heinkel He 177, Focke-Wulf Fw 200, and Dornier Do 217 were the aircrafts able to operate the Henschel Hs 293.