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  1. Douglas Boston IIIa 'Over D-Day Beaches' 1:72 Special Hobby The Boston / Havoc was relatively fast, manoeuvrable and rugged. That coupled with the fact that it had no real handling vices, it was well liked by aircrew. The aircraft was born from a USAAC specification for an attack aircraft in 1937. Douglas designed the Model 7a powered by two 1100hp P&W Twin Wasp engines in competition with North American, Stearman and Martin. Despite its manoeuvrability and speed, there were no orders made initially from the US, but there was interest from France. Overlooking the ‘Neutrality Act of 1935’ development continued with support from France and an initial order was made by them of 270 aircraft. With the collapse of France in 1940, the aircraft that had been delivered were shipped to North Africa, but fell under the control of the Vichy government although never got much use against the Allies. The remainder of the order was sent to the UK. The Boston I was underpowered at 1050hp using P&W Wasps and lacked the range needed for daylight operations in to Germany. The Boston II brought further power from the Wasp engine delivering 1200hp, but the Boston III was a major improvement and was brought in to service with the RAF in the summer of 1941. Using Wright Cyclone engines of 1600hp, it had much larger fuel tanks important for the ‘Light Bomber’ missions the RAF needed from it and better armour protection. Amongst its first combat missions, 99 & 226 Squadrons took part in an attack against the German warships Scharnhorst, Prinz Eugen and Gneisenau which were returning to German ports from Brest in Feb 1942 in what has become known as the ‘Channel Dash’. In 1943, 342 Sqn (Free French) became the fourth squadron to operate the type. Under the control of the 137th Wing of the 2nd Tactical Air Force along with 88 & 107 squadrons, they focussed on bombing targets in Northern France including coastal defences, communications and German Airfields. Bostons were also used in the night intruder role across Europe and in Northern Africa contributing to the fall of German occupied Tunisia in May 1943. In all, 13 RAF squadrons operated the Boston with a further two SAAF squadrons supporting the North African front. The kit The A-20 series of aircraft from MPM have been around since 2007 following the first release of the A-20G with its solid nose. The first ‘glass nosed’ British / French kit came in the guise of the later Mk.IV/V. Having built this kit, it was very impressed with the quality of both detail and general fitment and it builds up in to a beautiful rendition of the Boston. There were a few minor issues I had to deal with and I’ll pick them up later. This new Boston III under the ‘Special Hobby’ brand differs most notably from the later version by having a rear gun opening rather than the Martin turret as well as a panelled nose glazing. On opening the kit, you’re presented with 5 medium grey sprues, one clear sprue and a resin one containing the smoke laying tubes used on some aircraft. Detailing on the parts is extremely well done. The fine smaller parts are exactly that, very fine and well detailed. Surface finish is superb, finely recessed panel lines leave you in no doubt as to the quality of the kit. I can’t see any signs of sink marks and flash is minimal. The instruction booklet is A5 in size printed on good quality gloss paper with colour throughout. The steps are clearly drawn and easy to follow. Assembly starts with the cockpit and rear gun station interiors. Detail here is more than adequate for the most part. Separate side wall detail is supplied to enhance the detail in the cockpit. The only thing that is lacking is the dingy that resides behind the pilot which if you decide to leave the canopy open will be an obvious omission. I made one out of rolled up tissue paper for the mk.IV I built soaked in Kleer before painting which gave a good representation when complete. Assembly of the engine rear nacelles comes next. Again, more than enough detail is presented both internally and externally. With the interior complete, they are simply fitted in to the fuselage halves before sealing them up. Be aware at this point, the kit is a tail sitter (guess how I know? !!). An instruction included for a 10g weight at the front but there isn’t much room. My suggestion would be to include more weight located below the dingy stowage which is a little further backwards but much more room to house it. There will be a little space in the nose section below the floor later in the build, but better to have too much than too little! As mentioned previously, surface detail on the fuselage is very refined with finely recessed panel lines and the fabric effect on the rudder subtly represented. The carburettor intakes above the wings come as separate parts and fitment is good. Quality of surface detail on the wings mirrors that of the fuselage in terms of quality. Assembly of the engines and cowlings comes next. Be careful here on which version you want to build as two variants have the type with exhausts protruding through the cowling covers, whist the other two have the exhausts backed together in a ring behind the cowling. For the former, the small exhausts protruding from the cowlings are individually fitted which is a little time consuming and fiddly to place accurately as per the instructions, but look good once in place. Both banks of cylinders are provided with good representation of the cooling gills on each cylinder block and a separate gearbox. Assembly of the gear is again a little fiddly due to the framework that has to be assembled for the main legs to sit on. My recommendation here is to dry fit the nacelle around the assembly before the glue dries to make sure that it doesn’t foul correct fitment of the nacelle once everything has hardened. I found fitting the clear parts to be a little problematic on my previous build. Having heard of others who had the same issue, be prepared in case this arises in your build albeit a different version but the same configuration. The windscreen on mine didn’t quite align to the contours of the fuselage and I ended up snapping it on the Mk.IV trying to bend it under hot water. The nose part was also a little difficult to align to the main fuselage, so I’d recommend plenty of dry fitting before you insert the floor part in to the glass section to see how it all lines up. The issues I had could well of been self- induced on the glass nose, but looking at it on the shelf now, everything looks well. The floor section within the nose includes the side panel details and an additional bomb sight and seat is supplied too. The rear gun station instructions are leaving me a little confused. The drawings show the guns to be positioned protruding rearwards over the top of the fuselage, but the clear part is supplied in the ‘closed’ position. I can’t see how this will work unless you cut away the clear section that opens up on the real aircraft. The rest of the detail pretty much ‘bolts’ on to the built aircraft including gun side blisters, aerials, props, wheels and gear doors. The interior of the gear doors and opening canopy section are nicely detailed too. If you decide to do the version with the smoke generators, the resin parts are fitted to the lower fuselage bomb bay doors. The decals Four schemes are provided in the kit, all from the D-Day period as you would expect from the title! They are printed by Aviprint. Register is good as is colour richness. I don’t remember any issues affixing them on my earlier build. The schemes are: 1. BZ264 / RH-B – 88 Sqn RAF operating from RAF Hartford Bridge, Hampshire 1944 2. BZ389 / RH-E – As above but with smoke generators (Operation Starkey) – operated as decoy to D-Day plans 3. BZ208 / OA-G – 342 ‘Lorraine’ Sqn sporting French roundels – RAF Hartford Bridge July 1944 4. Unknown serial / OA-A – 342 ‘Lorraine’ Sqn sporting British roundels – RAF Hartford Bridge July 1944 Conclusion Having built the Mk.IV version a couple of years ago, I can thoroughly recommend this kit if you’re wanting to build a Boston. The detail and generally assembly is good but watch for the few issues I mentioned with the clear parts. MPM also do a coloured etch set to accompany this if you prefer a little more detail, but the basic kit looks good without. Review sample courtesy of
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