Brengun 1/72 Bachem Natter

[Medicman71]

Great work Borg!

[BorgR3mc0]

I have not done the boosters yet. But I have started on the base. It is an old cheese board, painted and covered with sand paper. I then brush grey paint with a toothbrush for some more depth. I added some foliage. I am also making two tarpaulins with tissue soaked in water and white glue. These are white now but will be painted.

[mostrich]

I'm a bit late to the party, but I enjoyed reading the first three pages. The way you're going to present the model is very adequate I think.
The Natter was made of plywood, except for the heat exposed parts. To take off with one of these came close to a suicide mission. Only one manned start was performed with the experienced pilot Lothar Sieber. He'd flown some top secret rescue missions with KG 200, before he managed to oversleep his watch after a party night with comrades. He was sentenced to jail and was degraded to airman basic. The flight with the Natter was his chance to redeem himself. But the whole Operation Krokus (operation crocus) was ill-fated from the beginning: the gyro compass wasn't installed for unknown reasons. The start went promising, the booster rockets fell off the Natter after they'd burned out. But suddenly, at a height of approx. 700 m, the canopy disengaged and the Natter fell into supine. Sieber managed to bring the Natter back in stable position and disappeared into the clouds at 1,500 m. It is to believe that Sieber passed out due to the high speed flight shortly after he broke through the clouds. His flight ended after only 55 seconds as a fireball in a nearby forest. He was only 23 years old.

Sorry for this depressing story, but this insights are based on the latest historical research and are only published in a German TV documentary (of course Hitler and Wunderwaffe are part of the title, otherwise no one would watch it ):

[Stikpusher]

Yes, both this and the Komet were dangerous aircraft to fly. Rocket planes, due to multiple issues with the technology at that time, had a very high fatality rate. Ever notice that even today's space rockets some 75+ years later still explode on occasion, or have some other inflight mishap.

[BorgR3mc0]

Thanks for the link to the German documentary. I have a working knowledge of German so I should be able to understand it.

And yes, rocket planes have always been very dangerous. But they fascinate me as a concept. I therefore have serval rocket planes build (Komet variations, DFS 194, He-176, Susei) and several more in the stash. The Natter fits nicely within that theme.

[BorgR3mc0]

So here is the current state. I have painted the tarpaulins, Germans and am halfway with the us soldier. (Still no work done on the boosters)


A little shot of the bench. I love my new daylight lamp for this type of detail work.



Fritz



Heinrich



John



The place of the action

[Scruffy]

Nice work on the base and the figures, that is going to look so good when they are placed all together.

[Stikpusher]

Nice work on the base and the figures, that is going to look so good when they are placed all together.

Agreed!

[jkim]

The Natter looks great and those figures and base are very well done. Can't wait to see them all together!

[KSaarni]

Those figures are very nicely painted!

I have not dared, even closely, to try figurepainting. Mostly because I am afraid they would look like "painted small figures".
But you have really succeeded with a number of realistic shades on all of them. The German pilot (?) is excellent !

- Kari