SIEMENS-SCHUCKERT D.III INTERCEPTOR

by George Grasse

EDUARD 1:48 SCALE INJECTION KIT EU8256 SIEMANS-SCHUCKERT SSW D.III

EDUARD EU8256 BOX ART

 

SIEMANS-SCHUCKERT SSW D.III THREE-VIEW DRAWING

This 3-view drawing is credited to J. D. Carrick or F. Yeoman and appeared in Fighter Aircraft of the 1914-1918 War compiled by W. M. Lamberton and published by Harleyford Publications Limited, page 169.  Other sources for detailed drawings are Windsock Datafile Nr. 29 by Peter Grosz and Siemens-Schuckert Aircraft of World War I by Jack Herris especially the latter.  More reference information is available in the bibliography section below.

THE MODEL TO BE BUILT

The model to be built is SSW D.III 1626/18 as depicted above in this Bob Pearson color profile.  The SSW D.III was particularly known for its exceptional altitude climb rate and made it the mainstay of German air defense interceptors.  Improved versions were employed on the Western Front but in no way came close to displacing the Fokker D.VII.  Of special note is the high power rotary engine and attached four-bladed prop which rotated in the opposite direction of the crankshaft via geared drive.  Much more information is available in the bibliography below.

PHOTO OF D.III 1626/18 and PILOT

The above photo is taken from Jack Herris' volume on Siemens-Schukert Aircraft of World War I, page 106.  It shows Vzfw Reimann leaning against D.III 1626/18 probably in the Fall of 1918.  The photo below from the same source but page 82, shows a nice overall view of the same aircraft probably photographed before or after the one above.  Kest 4b stands for Kampfeinsitzer Staffeln 4 (Bavarian) part of the Kest home defence units protecting Germany from penetrating Allied bomber formations typically after industrial targets.  Although a few Western Front Jagdstaffeln had the D.III, it was not a favorite of fighter vs fighter pilots who preferred speed to rate of climb.

The Eduard assembly booklet shows the color scheme for 1626/18 with a medium blue fuselage but with the notation that brown was also possible.  This photo in particular caught my eye because the end of the fuselage not covered by the shadow of the top wing appears light so I assume it is the natural brown varnished finish.  The color profile appearing in Herris' book rendered by Bob Pearson shows this same aircraft in brown and for these reasons I will adopt brown as the fuselage color.

 

 

CONSTRUCTION PHOTO #1 17 March 2024

As with most World War 1 airplane kits, you start with the cockpit.  The fuselage halves were first with 0a few formers and the side-mounted fuel tanks.  I use Vallejo VC0876 Brown Sand for the wood interior, VC0864 for metal components, and a semi-gloss black for a couple of steel rods.  The engine is in three pieces as shown.  The lower wing units houses the remaineder of the fuselage interior detail including the rudder pedals, control column, seat support, and seat.  The seat sides are pre-painted PE and are wrapped around a plastic seat which is painted red brown to be stained later.  The seat supports are painted semi-gloss black.

 

 

 

CONSTRUCTION PHOTO #2 20 March 2024

You will notice the pattern direction of 5-color upper camouflage at a 45 degree angle to the right on the right side of the top wing but angled to the left on the left side.  This is because the standard width of camouflage linen was made to a fixed width.  The other top surfaces (lower wing, wing and tail elevators, and the tail stabilizer were usually covered in arrangements that best used available pieces and scraps.  I used 1:48 scale sheets of 5-color camouflage by Mirage #D0003.  The upper surface lozenge decals in the kit seemed quite subdued or off-color to me. I would say that the fit of the upper fuselage to the bottom section was remarakably tight and without a problem.  I was skeptical at first but my initial trial fitting was perfect.  Also, I substituted the kit's Spandau machine guns with two Eduard PE guns.  The panel between the guns was painted in my mix of Vallejo German Gray-Green used to cover all exposed wood and metal components unless otherwise finished. I made quite a few glue mishaps on the top wing and fuselage.  I used 800 black emory paper to sand off the excess without leaving undue scratches.  Of course, finer sand paper would be better as a final sanding.

 

CONSTRUCTION PHOTOS #3a & 3b 30 March 2024
All camouflage decals are on.  Upper and lower ailerons and tail unit are glued in place.  The disparity of the upper lozenge on the elevator was in error as the tail unit will be painted white with black stripes.  Rib tapes will be added next.

 

 

CONSTRUCTION PHOTO #4 3 April 2024

The wood fuselage is painted in two coats of Vallejo VC0914 Green Ochre.  When dry it will be finished with wood grain effect.

 

  

CONSTRUCTION PHOTO #5 29 April 2024

The landing gear has been added and supported by .o25 steel piano wire crossing the rear LG struts for strength and .005 MFT supporting the front LG struts.  The cowling, metal top panels, and landing gear struts are painted in green-gray.  The wood fuselage is touched up in Vallejo VC0914 Green Ochre.  The white tail has an added coat of white paint on which black decal stripes will be added. The wheel covers on both sides have pre-printed camoufalage decals and the tires are painted in my mix of WW1 rubber.

 

CONSTRUCTION PHOTO #6 5 May 2024

The obvious addition is the four-bladed propeller properly finished in, first, dark brown painted stripes and, second, rubbed in several different shades of colored pencels to achieve the laminated look.  The spinner was painted the same green-gray as the panels and cowling.  The next project was to "tape" the wing edges using strips cut from the pre-printed camouflage rolls, but here, I hand-painted the strips using approximate colors of the 5-color pattern.  This sealed the camoulfage decals that were starting to chip.  The next step will be to located all PE fittings representing turnbuckles and control horns.

 

CONSTRUCTION PHOTO #7

Several steps are shown in this photo.  The edging of the lower wing and upper wing (not shown) was hand-painted with Vallejo colors to roughly match the pre-printed decals.  This is evident on the far left wing tip.  The rigging stretchers (as Eduard calls them) were glued into pre-drilled holes adjacent to the outboard struts and fuselage/wing joint.  .005 MFT was then glued to each stretcher to facilitate rigging when the top wing is glued in place.   Rigging at the tail is in the future.  The tail was. however, painted with another coat of Andrea white.  Using a fine brush, I traced out all the panel lines in the fuselage and tail unit.  I was going to "stain" the fuselage a darker red-brown as depicted by many profile artists but I'm not convinced this was done because the photographs of the day were notorious for falsely imparting shades darker or lighter than actually present.  The photographs shown at the top of this article suggest strongly a lighter shade of naturally varnished plywood.

 

CONSTRUCTION PHOTO #8

The top wing is installed and wing rigging completed.

CONSTRUCTION PHOTO #9

This view shows that all construction is now complete and two steps remain: 1) decals and 2) hand-painting the black tail stripes unique to this aircraft (decals for the tail stripes were not supplied).

CONSTRUCTION PHOTO #10

The tail stripes appear mis-shappen but the contour of the fuselage is the cause.  Note the hand-painted struts to roughly match the upper surface pre-printed camouflage colors.

CONSTRUCTION PHOTO #11

Another view of the Balkenkreuz insignia and the black tail stripping.

CONSTRUCTION PHOTO #12

This view shows the black tail stripes and the wing insignia.

FINISHED PHOTO #13

FINISHED PHOTO #14

FINISHED PHOTO #15

FINISHED PHOTO #16

 

 

 

-------------------------------------------------------  FINIS  ------------------------------------------------------

 

Bibliography:

Bar, Ronny.  Ronny Bar Profiles, German Fighters of the Great War (Siemens-Schuckert D.III pages 271-280).  Horncastle, UK: Tempest an imprint of Morton's Books.  ISBN: 9781911704096.

Gray, Peter and Owen Thetford, German Aircraft of the First World War, scale drawings by George Haddow.  London: Putnam & Company Limited, 1962.

Grosz, P. M. Siemens-Schuckert D.III-D.IV Windsock Datafile 29, Colours and Markings section by Ray Rimmel, scale drawings by Dick Bennett, color profiles by Ray Rimmel.  Berkhamsted, UK: Albatros Publications Ltd,  1991.

Herris, Jack.  Siemens-Schuckert Aircraft of World War I, color profiles by Bob Pearson.  The Internet: Aeronaut Books, 2014.

Lamberton, W. M., Compiler, and E. F. Cheesman, Editor.  Fighter Aircraft of the 1914-1918 War.   Los Angeles, CA: Aero Publishers, 1962.

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1 July 2024