Wydawnictwo Militaria # 64

Blohm & Voss Bv 138

reviewed by Mike Horchler

Introduction

As I stated in my recent review of the Ju86 book of the same series, the Wydawnictwo Militaria series of soft cover books are a little frustrating to me, in that the books are extremely useful, but all of the narrative text is in Polish.

Most of the books in this series are around 50 pages stuffed with reference photos, scale plans, color profiles, and histories of the planes and variants. There is a ton of useful information, and fortunately, all of the photo captions are in both Polish and English. Overall, these books are very valuable to modelers and should be an essential part of every reference library.

Contents

Like the other books in this series, this one is stuffed with fascinating pictures of the Bv138 in action. Weather it's tied to a dock in Norway, shooting off a support ship catapult, or meeting with a U-Boat, the pictures are all here. All of the pictures are black & white and are captioned in English and Polish. The book starts with a section on the history of the Bv138 and the prototypes. The center of the book features removable scale plans in 72nd scale. Interspersed are color profiles, both side profiles as well as top and bottom. There is a small section in the back with a drawing of the P.111 asymmetrical flying boat project. If you scratchbuild that one, it'll surely get you some strange looks. Valuable to the modeler are the numerous line drawings, schematics and skeletal views of the interior and detail parts of the plane. The book also features a 4 page chart listing every known Bv138, including model #, werk nummer, unit, fuselage code and where and when it was lost (if known). All in all, an invaluable resource for anyone building a Bv 138.

Conclusion

At around $18, these books represent good value for your modeling dollars. The plans are especially valuable and the color profiles, captioned photos and detail drawings all combine to make you forget that you can't read the text. I highly recommend this book.

Kits

At this time, the only model available of this plane is the MPM/HML all-resin kit in 1/48th scale. At around $250, not exactly a bargain, but you're not likely to find this in 48th scale from anyone else. See our preview of that kit here.