Roden 1/72 Albatros D.III By Michael Benolkin

Background

The Austrian-Hungarian Oeffag plant began building the Albatros D.III under license, the using an Austro-Daimler 185 hp engine. When 200 hp versions came available, these were quickly adapted to the Albatros D.III airframes and the Series 153 was born. This version of the Albatros D.III quickly became a favorite of pilots for its easy handling characteristics and soon became the mount of choice among aces. Production of the Series 153 ended in June, 1918 when the Series 253 became available.

The Series 253 differed from the 153 with a 225 horsepower engine, armament installed at pilot's eye level (also applied to some Series 153 aircraft) and later aircraft featured scalloped trailing edges. The Series 253 retained the same flight characteristics of the Series 153 and was in production until the end of the war.

The Kit

Roden has released both the Series 153 and Series 253 Albatros D.III fighters in 1/72 scale. Molded in light gray styrene, the two kits contain the same parts trees as each set contains the parts variations for these two aircraft series with additional parts to represent early and late versions of each Series. Given that there are some parts that are not used in either version, there may be another Albatros D.III version on the way (if not already released).

The molding of the kit is crisp with exquisite detailing provided in such a small scale. Four trees are provided and one look at the photos will reveal all of the detail that is crammed into such a small subject. From what I can see, there are no ejector pin marks in any visible area of the kit after assembly. While there is a touch of flash on some of the parts, the molding is quite nice, complete with a nice rib-and-fabric structure of the wings, right down to the concave undersurfaces on each wing.

While the ailerons are molded onto the upper wing, a couple of X-Acto knife strokes will easily seperate each aileron and allow installation and repositioning of the old ailerons or the optional scalloped ailerons. This attention to detail is provided throughout the kit.

The only differences between these two kits are the box art, instructions, and decals. The Series 153 sheet has an extensive array of markings for 21 different aircraft (as you can see from the size of the sheet). From the variety of colors schemes and distictive markings, you'll need at least a dozen of the Series 153 kits just to catch the highlights!

The Series 253 sheet is a little more modest, covering four different aircraft, but each of these schemes are also quite nice, especially with the mottled camouflage.

Conclusion

It never ceases to amaze me how the state of the art in injection molding is progressing with details that were difficult to achieve in 1/48 scale now appearing in 1/72 scale. Roden has done a great job with this release and we'll look forward to their future releases! With the numerous delicate parts of this kit, I would be reluctant to set a novice modeler on this kit, but if you have a little experience modeling and working with WW1 aircraft in 1/72, this kit is highly recommended!

My sincere thanks to Squadron Mail Order for this review sample!