ANT-7202

1/72 Junkers Ju 488 V-401 long range bomber

Product Description

The kit features more than 60 resin parts, 33 white metal parts, decals, vacuformed canopies (a spare set included) and instructions.

In 1944 The RLM accepted the Junkers proposal to provide the Luftwaffe with its missing strategic bomber by doing the obvious: put together an assortment of parts of the Junkers Ju 88, 188, 288 and 388 to create an impressive four engine bomber. The first two prototypes, V-401 and V-402, were manufactured by Latecoêre at Toulouse, France. The pressurized forward fuselage and outer wings came from the Ju 388 K, the centre and aft fuselage of the Ju 188 E, the wooden ventral bomb pannier of the Ju 88A-15 and the tail of the 288 C. Latecoêre finished the parts in mid July 1944 but a team of Maquis saboteurs destroyed them as they were about to be shipped to Germany for the final assembly. The redesigned V-403 with steel tube/fabric fuselage and much greater bomb and fuel loads was started after this incident, but all the program was abandoned in November 1944 due the critic status of the war.