ICM 1/48th German Luftwaffe Pilots and Ground Personnel (1939-1945) By Mike Whye

The Kit

Judging from the art on the side panel of the thin box, this kit of Luftwaffe personnel appears to be one of set of five new ones by ICM that feature the pilots and ground personnel of WWII air forces. Shown on that side panel are one kit of seven RAF figures plus a romping dog and three kits of USAAF figures; the five American personnel in those kits are identical but one kit comes with a P-51D, another with a P-51B and the third with just the figures.

Color art work on the front of the box of Luftwaffe figures shows three pilots and four ground crewmen. The one in the greatcoat resembles Adolph Galland; actually, the other standing officer could be painted to look like Galland too. Two of the mechanics are posed to work on aircraft while a third holds a toolbox and a fourth helps a third pilot put on his parachute. On the back of the box is another color illustration, a painting guide for each figure with a reference to Model Master paint numbers. That was excellent to have.

There were two oddities which may be understandable because this is a new product: 1) the box flaps have smaller versions of the boxtop illustration but they referred to the personnel as 1917-1918....oops, wrong war; and 2) inside the box was an instruction sheet that was for one of the USAAF personnel kits. I don't know if there was supposed to be an instruction sheet for the Luftwaffe personnel but hey, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what goes where by just looking at the art on the box top and back panel. Also, although the sprue has no parts numbers on it, each figure and all of its components occupy a subdivision of the sprue tree so no one needs to be a computer whiz to figure out what piece goes to what figure.

About the figures: they come on one styrene sprue tree of 41 pieces. All are finely crafted and molded. There are slight seam marks which disappear with a quick flick of the knife blade or a swipe of fine sandpaper. A faint trace of flash was seen on some of the smaller pieces, such as the holsters and the screwdriver a figure was holding. Detail was excellent...you could see the holes on the figures' belts, the ribbing in their cuffs, the zippered sleeves, fancy stitching at the bottom of one's overcoat, a fur collar on a leather jacket, medals, and the engraved seams on some figures' pants--be careful to not remove those! The only sink marks I saw were on top of two mechanic's hats but the slightest dab of putty or super glue will easily fill those.

Six of the figures are upright; they're molded as upper and lower bodies with some having an arm or two molded in place. The seventh figure is kneeling and his main body is in three pieces, two legs and upper torso. From then on, you're dealing with arms, heads, caps (fitting the heads with appropriately flattened crowns), holsters, a parachute pack and a mechanic's toolbox.

For those looking for a group of figures to populate a diorama set on a Luftwaffe airfield, this kit's for you. I don't know what the price will be....such wasn't included in what I was given to review....but this is an excellent collection of figures. I highly recommend it.

Thanks to ICM Holding for the review sample.