With the latest blog post on Zoukei Mura’s main website, it appears that sometime in the future (4) new kits are to be released in 1/32 scale.
- The Horton Night fighter version. Over 2 years ago Zoukei Mura released their original Horton in the single seater version. Now they are going to follow it up with a 2 seater night fighter version. The Horton as an actual fighter never flew in combat, and I am doubtful that it ever flew at all. The war ending before Germany had a chance to finish the construction and testing. However as an aircraft it was one of the first flying wing designs. The night fighter was a 2 seater thus this kit will have the cockpit arrangement different than the first kit. Odds are this will be out in the 1/2 half of 2025 as there was not that much Zoukei Mura had to do to the kit besides changing the cockpit and adding the night fighter equipment. However I am hoping that it will not be released in the same clear plastic as the single seater. That plastic is very hard to work with.
- The Fw-190 A8 which was the main stream version of the Fw-190 A series during the war and had by far the most number of builds as there were so many variants. Zoukei Mura as stated that they will be releasing a A3 version this year to go along with their already released A4. Both of these aircraft had a shorter engine mount (egg) so it would be easier to release an A3. The A8 will need a larger engine cowling as all the Fw-190’s past the A4 had a slightly larger engine, thus a larger longer cowling. There would also be several differences in the fuselage and wings. Looking forward to this kit, however I don’t expect it to be out until mid 2026. Way out.
- The Ki-100, by far of the best Japanese fighters of WWII. The Zero always takes the front when Japanese Fighters are mentioned, however the Ki-100 was a much better aircraft. By the middle of WWII, the Zero was outclassed and under powered. The Ki-100 was equal in combat with both the P-51 (as shown in the air work) along with the Corsair and Hellcat. Hopefully this kit will be out in the later half of 2025. Zoukei Mura has been talking about it for over a year now.
- The Bf-109 G4, which was not so natural follow on to their Bf-109 G14 released last year. I had hoped that we would see a G6 next as it was by far the most numerous version of the Bf-109. Note that in the artwork, the G4 is shown with the 20mm underwing gondolas, which did not make it to the G14, even though they were shown during the development of the kit. Zoukei Mura is showing the G4 in a tropical paint scheme, but there are plenty of after market decals available since Revell released a Bf-109 G4 last year. Since it’s possible to build a G6 from the G14 kit, I am hoping to get a couple of the G4 kits and swap the wings so I can build up a G6 with the 20mm underwing cannons.
This is the most I have seen from Zoukei Mura in over a year and all of these kits will be well received in the marketplace. Now that the Kotare Bf-109 K4 is coming in the first half of 2025 the G4 from Zoukei Mura will be well received.
I only wish that Zoukei Mura would release the version of the HS-129, RIII B2 with the MK 103 cannon. So far there has not been any more mention of this version and it’s going on 2 years now. I really wish that Zoukei Mura or someone would just release an upgrade kit to their current HS-129 with the MK-103 cannon. The cannon with the current kit is the Mk-101 30mm and it was a totally different gun. Barrel and magazines were totally different.
Written by Paul Caldwell for Arkansas Fine Scale Modeling.