Junkers Ju 87 Stuka
A Complete Guide to
the Luftwaffe's Famous Dive Bomber

by Richard A. Franks

Valiant Wings Publishing
Airframe and Miniature No. 14

Reviewed by Graham Carter

This range of superb reference books need no introduction as they have become the go-to sources for modellers and those interested in specific aeroplanes since they first started to appear eleven years ago. It is a solid A4 240 page volume, well bound with a glossy card cover and printed on quality glossy paper that allows excellent reproduction of images and drawings. While primarily aimed at the modeller, there is much to appeal to the historian and technically-minded person as well.

The glossy card cover has a nice bespoke illustration of Ju87 B-1 of I5/St.G77 being attacked by Spitfires of 602 Squadron on 18th August 1941, by Jerry Boucher. Inside we find a Preface of thirty-odd pages tracing the lineage, development, and variants of the aircraft, all illustrated with masses of clear photos. Here, also, is an overview of the aircraft’s service history with the Luftwaffe and various Axis nations such as Rumania, Slovak Republic and Yugoslavia among others .This section concludes with a detailed coverage of captured airframes in the UK, USA and Soviet Union and list of survivors and their locations.

The meat of the book is the two sections covering the ‘Airframe Chapters’ and ‘Miniature Chapters’. The first looks at:

• the prototypes and Ju87 A series series in five pages,

• the ’Ju87 B & R series in seven pages

• the Ju87 C, E, F, H and Ju187 and 287 projects, with six pages of photos and side profiles to show the developments of each variant.

There follows a large section on the Camouflage and Markings carried on these different airframes and what a wonderful variety there are, all illustrated by Richard Caruana in full colour. Most have  photo to back up the drawings and there are some fascinating model possibilities.

The ‘Miniatures’ section begins with a list  of the available kits in all scales from 1/144 through to 1/24, with an assessment of the pros and cons of each, after which are four very detailed kit builds of an AIrfix 1/72 Ju87 B-2 Trop ( Libor Jekl), Fujimii 1/72 Ju87 D-3( Libor Jekl), Special Hobby Ju87 A  in 1/48th (Steve A Evans) and the Trumpeter 1/32 Ju87 D (Steve A Evans). Both builders are well known for the quality of their modelling and their clear photos and explanations of how they produce their models are worth a detailed read.

The next section, ’Building a Collection’, is a twenty page one showing in isometric drawings by Juraj Jankovic the differences between all the different variants. These annotated sketches are invaluable to the modeller although I occasionally think that it would have been useful to have had some undersurface drawings as well.

The ‘In Detail’ section occupies almost seventy pages and give the reader an enormous number of colour and B&W photos from modern and contemporary sources, along with technical manual drawings and excellent notes. This is really a highlight of this and other volumes in the series and provides an invaluable source of information for the interested technophile or the super-detailer. 

Finally, there are four appendices covering, in alphabetic lists by scale, all of the kits that have been available, accessories, decals and a three-page bibliography of books, official publications and periodicals. The work that has gone into compiling these lists is quite astounding. 

The volume concludes with two fold-out double-sided eight-page sets of 1/48 scale drawings - sixteen pages in all - showing side and upper and lower views of a number of variants.

This really is an exceptionally useful volume that should be in every Stuka modeller’s library, regardless of which scale one works in, and I recommend it wholeheartedly.

This really is an exceptionally useful volume that should be in every Stuka modeller’s library, regardless of which scale one works in, and I recommend it wholeheartedly.

Thanks to Valiant Wings Publishing for the sample.

Review Copyright © 2021 by Graham Carter
This Page Created on 26 May, 2021
Last updated 12 July, 2021

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