Eduard Mosquito FB Mk.VI Nose Guns (for Tamiya 1:32)

[Mike]

Mosquito FB Mk.VI Nose Guns (for Tamiya)
1:32 Eduard Brassin

Following our review of the belly-mounted gun pack here, this new Brassin set includes the parts for the nose gun bay, which gave that bit of extra punch and a total (depending on fit) of 8 guns firing along the centreline with no convergence to deal with.

The Tamiya kit is a work of styrene art, but you can always improve on styrene with the right media. This set is made up of resin and Photo-Etch (PE) in the standard rectangular Brassin box, with foam packing keeping the bagged contents safe during transit and storage. There are three bags of resin, a sheet of PE, and a small sheet of decals in the box, plus a chunky instruction booklet consisting of four pages of A5 printed landscape with 18 construction steps. The first part installed into the nose bay is the resin bulkhead, which has a number of decals and various gauges of wire added, which you must provide from your own stocks. Lead fly-tying wire or florist's wire would be of use here, and is cheap to buy if you know where to look.

The gun mounts are added to the floor of the bay in order to receive the four .303 Brownings with their ammo feeds and breech stands, plus the PE and resin recoil tubes at the rear. The centre two are added first, wired in, then joined by the outer two, which are in turn wired in. The ammo cans hook into place above them, and each one has a number of decals and tiny PE parts added before they are set in place in the correct order, each with a number stencil on their feed chute. They are linked by a retaining rod made from wire, and the four ammo feeds are then put in one after another after painting and decaling, ensuring that each end finds the input on the gun breech. The nose cone can be left off or added to retain the shape of the aircraft, and this is also improved by the addition of a gun camera on its mount (again with decals), and a PE ring around the aft end to provide the correct lightened framework. This fits slightly inside the lip of the part, so shouldn't interfere with its assembly onto the model.

It isn't a simple proposition, but given the care and attention to detail that it deserves, it will seriously improve the look of the bay if you intend to leave it open, or place it in a maintenance diorama setting.

Very highly recommended.

Review sample courtesy of