Czech Master Resin 1/72 Supermarine Spitfire Mk. XII By Jim Schubert

History

In early 1941 the Air Ministry ordered two Spitfires be fitted with the new Rolls-Royce Griffon engine; the Griffon at this point had a single-stage, mechanically driven supercharger. The planes so modified were designated Mk. IV. The first of these, DP845, made its maiden flight on November 27, 1941; the second, DP851, first flew on August 8, 1942. About the time of DP 845's advent the Spitfire designation system was changed and the Mk.IV became the Mk. XX! Shortly thereafter – bureaucracy thrives on complexity and confusion – the Mk. XX became the Mk. XII; and stayed that way.

Only a hundred or so Mk. XIIs were built. They were essentially Mk.Vcs with a redesigned nose and strengthened engine mounts. Early production models had fixed tail wheels, later production had retractable tail wheels. All the XIIs had the "clipped" Vc wing with the usual large engine coolant radiator and small oil cooler underwing and were fitted with one 20mm and two 7.7mm guns in each wing. An oddity is that the XIIs had no wingtip running lights. The XIIs were fast and worked best at low altitude. Only two squadrons, Nos. 41 and 91 used them starting in April and May, respectively, of 1943. Both squadrons later converted to Mk. XIVs

The Kit

CMR's familiar resealable plastic bag contains:

46 parts cleanly cast in cream colored resin,
Four undercarriage parts cast in an extra strength white resin,
Two vac formed canopies,
Three A-4 size sheets of instructions,
A decal sheet and
A computer-generated color profile of one of the four decal options.

The kit provides for both the fixed and retractable tailwheel options and optional five-spoke or smooth hub mainwheels. You also have the option of having the pilot's flap-door open or closed.

Apart from the one-piece wings and tailplanes, engineering of the kit is conventional. The parts are all straight, bubble-and-void-free and are very crisp regarding detail. The trailing edges are all very thin. The, virtually, text-free instructions in the form of exploded isometric drawings, self instruct. The kit looks like an easy, straight forward project to build right out-of-the-bag.

All four decal options are for planes of 41 Squadron, which are all in Dark Green and Ocean Grey over Medium Sea Grey with Sky spinners, body bands and unit codes. The decal sheet includes the myriad stencil markings characteristic of Spitfires.

Conclusion

Built out-of-the-bag this kit will yield an outstanding model. What more can be said for a kit?

By my count, this is CMR's 16th Spitfire/Seafire variant and each new issue is better than the last. There are a lot of Spitfire/Seafire variants left unkitted. I wonder if they'll do them all.

References

(See the review of CMR's Seafire FR. 47 in the April issue of this magazine, availbale by clicking on ARCHIVES above.)