The
Schlastas had been quite successful in close support, and the
Halberstadt CL.IV was introduced in 1918 to supplement the CL.II. The CL.IV was a refinement of the CL.II, retaining its compact, nimble form while improving control surfaces. As with the CL.II, provision was made for two fixed machine guns, but in practice only one was usually carried.
When it was introduced in June 1918, the crews reported it was the best CL-class aircraft at the front. Their only complaint was that the shortened fuselage made for some longitudinal instability, making tiring to fly and somewhat unstable as a machine-gun platform. Halberstadt addressed that complaint by lengthening the fuselage by .4 m (1 ft 4 in). The longer fuselage was found on all
Roland-built CL.IVs (also available), but it is not clear what proportion of Halberstadt-built machines used the long fuselage.
This model comes in both 1:144 and 1:285/6mm/1:288 scales. The 1:144 model has the shorter Halberstadt-style fuselage.
The 1:285 product includes two aeroplanes -- one with the short Halberstadt fuselage and one with the longer Roland fuselage, connected by disposable links. In Detail Plastic, detachable translucent propeller disks are included.
For more details and gaming information, see
https://linen.miraheze.org/wiki/Halberstadt_CL.IV.