Special Hobby Barracuda Mk.II 'Home Fleet' Plastic Model Kit
Fairey Barracuda Mk.II Home Fleet The Barracuda carrier-borne torpedo and dive bomber aircraft was already kitted by our company many years ago, in a shape of the then-standards for short-run models. Now we would like to bring you something really completely different. This new Barracuda kit is being made using three all-metal mould tooling blocks and its highly detailed grey styrene plastic parts will be accompanied by one clear parts sprue. The decal sheet caters for two options, both of which saw action over the Atlantic, one adorned with a striking nose-art. There will be also an option for the modeller to arm his Barracuda with either the torpedo slung under the fuselage or to use a 1600 lbs bomb. The model comes also with under-wing bomb racks.
The Barracuda was a shoulder-wing aircraft fitted with a set of large Youngman wing flaps mounted at the wing trailing edge and featured also rather unusually looking L-shaped undercarriage legs. The aircraft was capable of anti-shipping torpedo attacks, level and dive (up to 70 degrees angle) bombing and was also used for long range reconnaissance duties. Its electronic equipment consisted of an ASV IIN radar set. Although the Barracuda had primarily been designed as a torpedo bomber, the number of actual attack missions with this weapon was rather low and these took place only in Norwegian waters. The Barracuda was most of the time used in a dive bomber role, saw action during the Allied landing in Italy, carried out attack against German battleship Tirpitz (some of the planes being equipped with ex-US 1600 pound AP bombs) and also, taking off from either land bases or aircraft carriers, flew missions against German maritime traffic off Norwegian shore and patrolled the sea against German U-boats.
