Kagero JG 54 Green Heart Fighters

A new book from Kagero Publishing covers the JG-54 Green Hearts. The unit served during WW2, mainly in the Eastern Front, and is the second highest scoring wings during the war. A lot of aces were born in this unit.

Jagdgeschwader 54 (JG 54) Grünherz (Green Hearts) was a Luftwaffe fighter wing during the Second World War. It was known as the Green Hearts Wing, and it was the second highest scoring wing of all time, JG 52 being the highest. JG 54 flew on the Eastern Front, racking up over 9,600 kills, with aces such as Walter Nowotny, Otto Kittel, Freiherr Peter Grunhertz, Hans "Phips" Philipp, Gunther Lutzow, Emil "Bully" Lang (Lang holds the record for most kills in a day,18), Max-Hellmuth Ostermann, Dietrich Hrabak, Werner Schroer and Hannes Trautloft being the most famous Experten. 

Source: Wikipedia

The aircraft flown by the JG-54 were BF-109 and FW190 of many variants. With the units forming in 1939 and disbanded in 1944, JG-54 served in all fronts.

The Modeling News has review of the book in their "Kagero's Units: 2 - JG 54. Green Heart Fighters in review". From their review:

This is a A4 landscape book of thirty two pages given over to the unit. The text is in English and the pictures are a plenty and in good quality right throughout the book. We see many different types of aircraft the unit flew with as the text meanders through the short history of this unit. From the early combats in France and the battle of Britain where the unit was in the BF 109E types, through to the Balkans and Operation Barbarossa (the invasion of Soviet Union) where the unit was converted to Bf-109F models, and the heavy fighting around Leningrad, right through operation “Zitadel” (Kursk) when JG 54 was transitioned to the Fw 190 A aircraft. Although we only have one picture of a “Dora” Fw 190 – and a small one at that from the final months in Western Europe  – the lack of pictures of this aircraft which wasn’t used that much  considering the time scale - doesn’t for one minute detract from the wealth of the other 49 images here. 

Source: The Modeling News

While The Modeling News coverage seems to be in favor of the FW190-D. I am sure many of us will have our favorite and find something from the book to build on. The book is out now and should be available in your local hobby shop. If not, you can always visit Amazon.

Image Credit : Kagero

Luftwaffe Baptism of Fire

Kagero Publishing is a Poland based publisher of reference books. Today, I am going to cover their Mini Top Colors 30 : Luftwaffe Baptism of Fire. What is inside the book ?

The book covers Luftwaffe aircraft during WW2 and gives side profiles and top down paintings of 8 aircrafts. The list of aircraft includes:

- Junkers Ju 87 B-1; coded '29•8' of 5. K/88, Legion Condor, Sanjurjo airfield, Zaragoza, Spain, late 1938, 

- Messerschmitt Bf 109 E-1; coded '6•119', flown by Hptm. Siebelt Reents, Staffelkapitän of 1. J/88, Legion Condor, León, Spain, spring 1939, 

- Messerschmitt Bf 109 E-1; 'Black 14' of 2.(J)/LG 2, Poland, mid-September 1939, 

- Messerschmitt Bf 109 E-1; W.Nr. 4048, 'Yellow 7' of 3./JGr. 101, Hoya, Germany, 18 November 1939, 

- Messerschmitt Bf 109 D-1; W.Nr. 630, 'Black N+7', flown by Oblt. Johannes ‘Macki’ Steinhoff, Staffelkapitän of 11.(N)/JG 2, Hage, Germany, April 1940, 

- Messerschmitt Bf 109 E-3; flown by Oblt. Wilfried Pufahl of Stab II./JG 53, Mannheim-Sandhofen, Germany, April 1940, 

- Messerschmitt Bf 110 C-2; coded 'L1+KK' of 14./LG 1, crew: Uffz. Hans Bechthold (pilot), Uffz. Wilhelm Harder (radio operator); Mannheim-Sandhofen, Germany, late spring 1940, 

- Heinkel He 111 P-2; coded '1G+HL' of 3./KG 27, crew: Uffz. Otto Keiser (pilot), Hptm. Robert Sichart von Sichartshoff (observer, CO), Uffz. Gustav Bergmann (radio operator), Uffz. Paul Kleinitzke (flight engineer); Neukuhren, East Prussia, 15 September 1939 (1:32 and 1:72 decals only). 

Source: Kagero Publishing

The book is marked Part 1, so naturally it covers aircraft of the early war period in the 1939 - 1940. Not only do they gives color profiles of the aircraft, they also included two big decal sheets by Cartograf for the 8 aircraft in 1/32, 1/48 and 1/72 scale.

The listing price is €13.35 ( 17.36USD ). For full review of the book, you can visit The Modelling News coverage.

Visit your local hobby shop to purchase, or check with Amazon or purchase direct from Kagero Publishing.

Image Credit : Kagero Publishing