Scale: 1/72

Maker: Airfix (Greif), Heller (Natter)

Cost: $8-$10

As with my brother, Adam, who has already made his presence felt in a big way on this site, my primary modeling interests are mecha and “what-if” WWII German aircraft.  Also like my brother, I enjoy building kits that have long ago been abandoned by the modeling mainstream; to this end, it gives me great pleasure to write this review of my much-modified Airfix He-177.

With the introduction of the Revell Germany He-177, the poorly fitting, poorly detailed Airfix kit has lost just about all of its value.  However, this makes it an excellent starting point for an original “Luft ‘46”-inspired creation.

At the same time as Adam bought the Greif, he also obtained the Heller 1/72 Natter/Fi-103 Reichenberg IV two-pack, the latter half of which went into his awesome Fi-203 conversion.  Being one who loves last-ditch, desperation weapons, the absolutely insane concept of the Natter really appeals to me J.  It was when I noticed that the Natter would fit quite nicely into the Greif’s bomb bay that the ideas started to flow!  From this brainstorming was born the idea of an anti-bomber He-177.  Packing a Natter and a couple of anti-aircraft guided missiles, I reasoned that the ol’ Airfix kit could grab some attention once again.

Let us now examine the build-up!

Heller’s Ba-349

In actuality, when this project started, all I really wanted to build was the Natter J.  Although Heller isn’t known to be the best manufacturer in the world, the Natter, probably due to its simplicity, was a respectable kit.  The wings and horizontal tails fit well enough to the body that filling and sanding were not required.  Unfortunately, the canopy did not fit as well; as can be seen from the picture below, there is quite a gap between the windscreen and the body in some parts.  To be honest, though, it isn’t unbecoming for such a rattletrap.  The pictures I’ve seen of real Natters reveal a lot of build inconsistencies, too.

Because my Natter would be launched from the air, it didn’t need the side booster rockets.  As well, instead of needing to be camouflaged amongst trees, it would need to complement a low-visibility aircraft scheme.  Thus, a pale blue made of Tamiya blues, greys and whites (I can’t recall how much of which colours) was created and used for the whole aircraft.  The end result is a Natter that looks like no other!  The craft, or rather its reusable engine component, was given a high-visibility ID number, and panel lines were marked on with 0.5 mm pencil.

Airfix’s He-177A-5

The Cockpit:

Luckily, the Airwaves photoetch sheets for the 177 came with the kit when Adam bought it, so I had more to put into the cockpit than just two seats and a steering wheel.  The interior walls, floor, etc. were all painted a dark grey with silver and black dials and aluminum wear patterns.  A blackwash or two gave it some depth.  It seemed like it was going to be easier to install all of this before gluing the body halves together, and so that was done.  Really, there isn’t much more to say about this part!

The cockpit glass was quite badly scratched and terribly formed; the bars were almost indistinguishable from the panels of glass themselves!  I thus opted to sand down the entire glass surface and create my own greenhouse pattern, one with better visibility than the A-5’s configuration.  350 grit helped to wear down the surface detail, followed by grades up to 2000.  Mother’s Scratch Remover (useless on real paint, but great for sprue!), followed by two coats of Future floor polish, restored the clarity of the clear plastic.  Tamiya tape was used to mark off a new set of glass frames.

Assembly and Body Modifications: 

This is where it gets really interesting J.  At about 4000 lbs, the Natter’s all-up weight would be far less than the theoretical limit of the Greif; however, we all know about the massive overheating problems suffered by the type.  This, combined with the potential need to run away from escort fighters, inspired me to make my anti-bomber Greif as light as possible.  Removed and filled was every turret or fixed gun position; the picture below demonstrates the not-so-pretty “boarding-up” process.

In typical Airfix fashion, the Greif’s body halves and wings did not fit worth a toot.  I am not brave enough to re-drill my own rivets, so it was a very delicate process to sand the body seams and wing joints without eliminating too much of the factory-provided detail.  Many will argue that the kit’s rivets are far too big and out-of-scale; that may be so, but they look cool to me J.  In between body fillings and sandings, I would lay down the occasional coat of ColourPlace gray primer so as to better inspect my progress.  It took many, many iterations before the whole process was completed satisfactorily!

Inside the weapons bay, I wanted a totally smooth, featureless surface on which to build a custom launch gantry for the Natter.  A full front bulkhead was fabricated from sheet plastic (it was actually a coffee can lid J) since Airfix’s provided piece was only half the height of the body.  A sheet of acetate, reinforced with aluminum tape, was then curved and glue into the bomb bay; this covered up the messy body seam filling and gave the clean slate that I was looking for.  The whole inside was painted a typical interior green colour.  I should note here that something similar was done for the inside of the tailwheel compartment, for which Airfix provided no parts or detail whatsoever.

The inside scaffolding was made from balsa wood stringer, shaped where necessary to work with the Natter’s stubby little shape.  Wires and piping were made from lengths of solder and, well, wires!

The surface detail was enhanced (prior to gloss coating) by way of rubbing 2B pencil lead over top of it, and then erasing the bulk of the pencil, leaving only trace amounts around the rivets and such.  The effect works quite well, giving a somewhat aged look.  A heavy dose of this treatment gives good results for mild exhaust smoke.  Further aging was done by dry brushing some aluminum along the wing edges and other high-wear surfaces.

Final surface details that were added include radio guidance antennae for the Akrobats, which are visible on the side of the fuselage in front of the wings, and inflatable airbags at the front and back of the bomb bay.  These devices, being lighter alternatives to conventional bomb bay doors, would be used to cover the gaping hole left in the underside of the plane once the Natter was launched (see the story at the end of this article for more details).  The rolled-up bags were made from Funtac and black thread.

Conclusion:

Considering the limitations in the subject material, I’m quite pleased with the end results of this project.  It is hard to complain about the Heller Natter, simply because I do not think that there is another 1/72 Natter kit available!  However, the availability of the Revell Germany He-177 has pretty much doomed the aged Airfix to the bargain bin.  The fit of the Greif was poor in almost every regard, and the raised surface detailing leaves much to be desired.  Other annoying features include the super-flexible propeller blades and the questionable inclusion of moving (read: floppy) control surfaces.  A moving rudder and ailerons may have been novel 30 years ago, but when combined with brittle plastic and poor fit, the novelty certainly wears off fast today.

Painting and decaling is my favorite part of any kit, and in this regard everything went well.  I would highly recommend Testors’ decal making kit to anyone looking to make their own decals; however, as a word of caution, one may need to apply two of the same decal, one over top the other, in order to mask any cracks in the ink.  This cracking phenomenon probably depends more on the type of printer you use than on the decal paper itself.

Operational History of the He-177C “Schlangenbeschwörer” and Ba-349C Natter

Please note that most of the following story is FICTIONAL, included for entertainment purposes only so that the reader can get a feel for how and why I built my model the way I did.  I make no claim that my creation is depicting a real or proposed piece of equipment, and actual timelines have been changed as necessary.

Near the end of WWII, Germany was forced to put more and more emphasis on defending its own land from attacks by Allied bombers.  The need for offensive weapons, such as long-range bombers (or bombers of any sort), was being overshadowed by the simple instinct of survival.  The Ba-349 Natter (Viper) was one of a number of cheap, simple, and virtually disposable weapons that were introduced to help thwart the Allied efforts.  Although piloted testing of the 349 was scheduled for the end of February 1945, the need to get the weapon deployed sooner helped to advance this timetable.  So it was that by January 1945, the RLM proposed an ambitious plan to have fixed Natter launch points established in major Allied entry corridors, each with up to 20 Natters ready to launch at any time.  It was quickly realized, however, that such sites would be “sitting ducks” for attack, not to mention the fact that getting craft, parts, fuel and manpower out to these facilities could prove daunting – and slow – for an already stretched-thin military.

Rather than having Natter bases spread across large distances, the idea of having many craft launch from a single, centralized (and thus, it was hoped, safer) point seemed more logical.  However, the 349’s range of only 30 miles meant that even a large flock of Natters could never hope to stop a bomber stream before it reached a critical target.  Thus, in order to keep Natter operations centralized and give them sufficient range to keep the bombers away, it was decided to try carrying the craft aloft in a larger “mothership”, preferably based on an existing platform to reduce development time.  Heinkel’s He-177 Greif  had more than enough range, a good (theoretical) payload and decent high-altitude performance.  Unfortunately, the Greif had suffered a disastrous ground attack career, plagued as it was by overheating engines; it was hoped that the colder air at its highest operating altitude of about 27,000 ft could help to combat this heating.

By the third week of January, 1945, engineers at Bachem and Heinkel had begun the marriage of an He-177A-5 and a Ba-349B.  The conversion required to the Natter was minimal – a benefit, given how many “regular” Natters had already been assembled: a steel “spine”, essentially a single beam running from just behind the cockpit to just before the vertical tail, was added to provide a secure base for attachment points.  To avoid damage to the valuable rocket motor on landing, the spine would stay with the front portion of the Natter after separation.  The solid rocket booster attachment points, no longer needed now that the craft would already be airborne when launched, were removed and smoothed over.  The standard Föhn rockets were kept as armament, and the finished product was dubbed the Ba-349C.

The modifications to the Greif were far more extensive, mostly in an effort to reduce weight.  At 4000 lbs, the 349C was nowhere near the maximum payload of the Greif; however, a lighter plane is necessarily faster and more maneuverable, qualities that could help to save the Greif from angered Allied escort fighters.  In addition, anything that could reduce stress on the DB-610s to avoid engine fires was a plus.  To this end, every defensive turret was removed and “boarded over.”  This not only saved the weight of the gun positions, but also the number of crew members was reduced to only three (not including the Natter pilot).

A further weight reduction was born out of necessity:  Engineers quickly discovered that the Natter’s wings, although stumpy, were still too long to allow the inboard landing gear to retract.  A landing gear system similar to that used on the Bf-109G-2/R1 was thus employed for these inner positions: after takeoff, the inner gear would be jettisoned by explosive bolts and be recovered on the ground.  It was believed that the Greif’s reduced weight, after the Natter had launched, could be sufficiently carried by only two main gear.

In order to get the Natter high enough in the bomb bay to avoid dragging its tail on the ground, such a large hole had to be cut in the closed-off Greif bomb bays that it became easier to simply leave the bay doors off.  Thus, once launched, a vast hole would be left in the belly of the bomber.  In order to cover this hole and to reduce the resulting drag penalty, airbags at the front and back of the bomb bay area would inflate after Natter launch.  Tracks along the edge of the bay would guide and hold the bags in place.  The Natter was held in the bay by a system of rigid beams, which also served to reinforce the Greif itself, and would be released by the bomber’s copilot once an enemy bomber formation was sighted and the Greif was lined up, head-on, to the formation.  To aid the copilot in his sighting task, a gamboling telescope was mounted in place of the front canopy machine gun position.  A new, higher-visibility canopy design was also incorporated.

By mid-February, 1945, the He-177C V1 was ready for testing.  With the Allied forces advancing, the RLM was so eager to get the plane into service that it demanded the scheduled unmanned Natter launches be skipped.  The first manned Natter launch from the converted bomber, now known as the “Schlangenbeschwörer” (snake charmer), took place on February 20^th, 1945.  The few manned, ground-based launches of Natters that had been done to date had mostly ended up in disaster; however, the 349C’s more rigid backbone and reduced-stress launching environment allowed it to launch and be recovered successfully in each of three trials.

The mothership itself did not fare quite as well.  Although faster than the A-5 from which it originated, the airbag system was finicky, deploying correctly only once during the trials.  When the bags failed to open correctly, the hole in the bottom of the plane caused excessive buffeting and top speed was greatly reduced.  This extra drag lead to inconsistent handling; considerable damage was done to one main strut during landing after the second trial because of this condition.

It was after the third trial that Heinkel engineers proposed the inclusion of additional anti-bomber weapons to the 177’s platform; using an entire Greif just to launch a single Natter did not sit well with the very pragmatic design staff.  A variety of air-to-air weapons were under development at that time in Germany; however, because of its compact design and simple control apparatus, the Hs-299 Raketenbomb was deemed to be the most suitable weapon.  The 299 was a small, stubby weapon that was to be guided by radio control into a stream of aircraft and detonated, either by acoustic fuse or radio detonator, into a storm of shrapnel.  Preliminary tests showed that the weapon could take out as many as three or four B-17s if aimed accurately.  Unfortunately, the Raketenbomb possessed quite a tall vertical tail, which made it awkward to mount under the wing of an aircraft.  Thus, for application on the Schlangenbeschwörer, it was decided to mount the missiles upside down; an internal gyro and some basic mechanical “computer” hardware was installed that allowed the missile to flip over immediately after launch, thereby making it ready for guided flight.  This incarnation of the Raketenbomb was renamed the Hs-331 Akrobat (acrobat).  The Akrobat’s solid fuel motor featured a delayed-start colouring agent that helped the copilot (who was also responsible for spotting the bomber formations) to visually locate and guide the missile to its intended target.

Within five days of the delivery of the first Akrobats to the Heinkel plant, the 177C V1 was modified to take two such weapons and the FuG 220c set required to guide them.  A transmitting antenna for each missile was located on the outside of the plane’s fuselage.  Two tests, this time without the Natter present, helped to confirm that the Akrobats were viable weapons for the 177.  The flip-over routine worked well, and when tested on ground targets, the missiles were found to be quite controllable and reasonably accurate.

Pleased with the results, the RLM ordered 10 He-177 A-5s to be converted to C standards.  By the end of March, 1945, the first of these craft were delivered to Kampfgeschwader z.b.V. 10, complete with crews who had been trained during the course of the project.  Flying out of a makeshift airstrip near Berlin, the first combat mission for the z.b.V. 10 occurred on March 31, 1945.  Five 177Cs, fully equipped with Natters and two Akrobats each, took off at 12:10 pm to intercept an incoming B-17 flight headed for Berlin.  It was hoped that the snake charmers could cause enough disarray in the bomber flight to allow what few regular interceptors were left to do some real damage.  Upon sighting the B-17s, the Natters of z.b.V. 10 were launched first; six to ten B-17s were mortally wounded, with the loss of only one 349; the craft was lost when the pilot (accidentally?) slammed into the side of a B-17.  The pilots of the remaining Natters all escaped relatively unscathed from their rickety contraptions.

After the 349s had caused their chaos, the Hs-331s were launched, one from each bomber at a time.  Targeting different portions of the now somewhat-broken bomber formation, the Akrobats performed amazingly well.  Out of the ten Akrobats launched in total, eight successfully exploded amongst the bombers; it is estimated that between 14 and 20 bombers may have been destroyed or forced to turn back.  The motherships of z.b.V. 10 were not harassed by Allied escort fighters, most likely because the fighters did not know from where, or what, the attacks were coming.

On the return flight to base, plane 9Z+BH was lost due to an ever-dreaded engine fire and the subsequent forced landing.  The other craft landed safely.  Unfortunately, this mission would be the first and only combat mission carried out by z.b.V. 10; three days later the airstrip was jumped by surprise by a small flight of B-24s, and all 177Cs were lost or heavily damaged.

Although the He-177C was too little, too late, it did verify a number of interesting concepts and realized a number of firsts, most notably the first successful use of guided air-to-air munitions.  After the war, the remains of the z.b.V. 10 planes were scrapped, although an example of the Hs-331 was reportedly taken back to America for study.  Its current whereabouts are unknown.