ICM 1/48
German Luftwaffe Pilots And Ground Personnel

If you have been giving thought to wanting to do a 1/48th scale Luftwaffe airfield diorama, ICM (based in the Ukraine) has just what you need in this kit.

This kit comes in an end-opening type box, which seems to be the type of box that ICM uses on all their kits. The box art shows 7 figures posed around a Bf-109F or G in the background. Three of the figures are maintenance men, one is a ground-crewman and the remaining three are officer – pilots.

One of the maintenance men is standing holding a wood tool box. The two other maintenance men are working on the 109. One is kneeling on the wing, holding a screw driver. The third maintenance man is standing on a wheel of the main landing gear and he, and the guy with the screw driver are working on the engine. All three of these guys are dressed in black uniforms. One of the officers is being helped into a parachute by a ground crewman. This officer is wearing a light tan uniform.

The ground crewman is dressed in intermediate blue. In the foreground is an officer in a black leather coat. He is depicted with a mustache and this could be an attempt by ICM’s box art artist to depict Adolf Galland. Heck…paint a mustache on that figure and put his ever present cigar in his hand…and you have old Adolf. The last figure is an officer that is talking to Adolf. He is wearing intermediate blue Jodhpur pants, jack boots and a leather jacket.

A side panel of the box shows the box arts of 4 other ground crew sets of figures in 1/48th that ICM markets. A set of RAF pilots and ground personnel (kit no. 48081 seven figures), a kit of a P-51B Mustang with pilots & ground crew (kit no. 48125 five figures), a P-51D Mustang with pilots and ground crew (kit no. 48153 five figures) and a kit of just U.S. pilots and ground crew (the same guys from the previous kit, kit no. 48083 five figures).

The back of the box has color illustrations to use for painting of the figures. There is a color listing of Model Master paints listed, with color swatches next to them.

Colors are called out on the figures with alphabetic tabs.

Inside the box is a single tree of very light gray parts. It holds the parts for the 7 figures shown on the box art. The instructions and a sheet of IMPORTANT INFORMATION CONCERNING THIS kit complete the kits contents. This last sheet is printed in no less than 20 different languages and each paragraph has ICM’s address below it.

The instructions consist of a single sheet in 8” x 10 ¾” format, that is printed on both sides and folded in the middle to fix the box. One side is the parts tree drawing. It has the part numbers on it, but the tree itself does not. This is not a big deal, because the figures on the tree are each in their own partition with all their parts needed to complete them. However, you still will have to refer to these drawings to find a particular part number on the trees. The parts tree drawing is followed by CAUTIONS in Ukrainian and English and an alphabetic listing of colors suggested to decorate the figures (also in these 2 languages).

The other side of the sheet has illustrations of each of the 7 figures, done in black and white. Colors here are called out with alphabetic tabs (like the illustrations on the back of the box). However, on these illustrations the part numbers are called out.

This is a neat kit. The figures in it are the source for an instant diorama. I found no flash or ejector pin marks on parts. The price of the kit is a better bargain than the price of a 1/35th scale figure kit that I just reviewed, that only had 3 figures in it, vs 7 here, and is 2 bucks more expensive.