I’ve heard great things about this series and am planning on picking one up. My plan is to model a B-25D that served in the Aleution Islands here in Alaska. Now I know that in the Aleutions they flew B-25C’s and D’s, however everything I saw listed about the AM B-15C/D shows it as an Air Apache. The ones that served in Alaska had the B-25B style bombardier glass nose, and not the gunship style nose of the Air Apaches. Some of the Alaskan birds had the gun packs on the side, but most did not. So is the AM B-25C/D going to work for me? I’d hate to shell out the bucks and find that it’s not what I’m going for.
It will work. The AM B-25s, the whole series in fact, is made with the modeler in mind, and the designers know we don’t build from the box all the time (or in our case, rarely), and have made sure you can get just about any B-25 you want out of it. I wish they would release the H and the J, because those two are the only models of the B-25 that truly had major changes from the B model. (Even the cannon nosed G was built from refitted C models – some sources say the first 70-something G’s, some say all 400 of them were originally C’s). But the point is that until the last models, the H and J, where side windows were standard, the top turret was moved forward and replaced with a new model, and hydrolically boosted controls were added, changing all the plumbing around, if you have one B-25, with some work you can have pretty much all of them. I’m getting ready to do a modification job myself on the C/D model, but for a different branch of service, and it will only require minor surgery. So, the answer to your question is, if you have the markings, or can make them, go for it. The glass nose is in the box, even in my B-25G kit from AcMin, which never had a glass nose, but the C did. BTW, when you build those early-model C/D kits with the bats and hawks on the glazing, you paint over the glass nose, as well as decal them. The clear stuff is under there. A few planes had the glass replaced in the field with sheet metal, but I understand that generally it just that thick, tough Plexiglass (yup, they had it back then) painted over. I strongly recommend you get the book B-25 in Detail from Squadron. It’s cheap and it’s one of the better numbers in a fine line of references for modelers.
Tom
Go ahead and buy it, you’ll be glad you did. Make sure to check out Bruce Radebaugh’s fixes for the few errors that crept in. There’s a metric f-ton of reference material online, I won’t spoil the thrill of the hunt for you by providing links. [;)]
I’m up to my eyeballs in quarter-inch Mitchells right now (AcMin B and C, and Monogram gun and glass-nosed Js; still need to get a Monogram H model and the AcMin G . . . ). As it turns out, the B-model had a small oval window over the trailing edge of the starboard wing. This detail isn’t included on the B-25B fuselage half, so I cut a hole and installed some clear acrylic with the idea that I would mask the oval window when the time comes to paint the model . . . then I noticed the window IS included on the right C-model fuselage half . . . but it is to be painted over to replicate Dirty Dora!!! Screams of impotent rage ensued.
Anyway, if you’re building a Doolittle Raider and a Dirty Dora from the AcMin kits, save yourself some hassle and just swap the right fuselage halves. Scribe an oval where the “window” would appear on Dirty Dora.
Thanks guys! That’s the info I needed. I’m in hot…fangs out…