Special Hobby 1/72 Fairey Barracuda Mk.II "Home Fleet" Plastic Model Kit

SH72306 Fairey Barracuda Mk.II "Home Fleet" 1/72 The kit contains three grey styrene sprues and one with clear parts. The decals cover two machines as operated in the Atlantic, one of which carrying a nose art. Our Barracuda offers the option to display it with either an underbelly torpedo or a 1600lb bomb. The kit also contains the underwing armament pylons. The shoulder-wing Barracuda aircraft was fitted with large Youngman-type wing flaps at aft of the wing trailing edge, it had an unusually looking "L" shaped main undercarriage legs retracted to the fuselage sides and was capable to attack enemy ships using the carried torpedo or bomb armament, which could be dropped both from a level flight or a dive of up to 70degrees. The Barracuda was fitted with an ASV IIN radar and was also used for long range reconnaissance missions. Even though originally designed as torpedo bomber, torpedoes were used only on limited occasions in the Norwegian waters. Barracudas were mainly seen as dive bombers and took part in the Italy landing, several attack sorties on the Tirpitz (at first using the US-made AP 1600lb bombs). Until the end of the war in Europe, Barracudas kept attacking German shipping in the Norwegian waters from both ground bases and aircraft carriers and they also carried out anti-submarine operations.