Having given up on finding the Hasegawa boxing of this variant I'm now preparing to scratch build the balloon defender and using the Hasegawa/Revell H-6 as the basis for the model, however I have a couple of questions before I get going please.
The H-8 was basically a modified H-5 (or H-3) so is the H-6 the correct start point given that based upon the crash site photos the example I'm building definitely had the later exhaust manifold typical of the P variants and the H-6, which would seem to rule out using the H-2/3/4 presumably?
Also the aircraft had 4 crew members so I'm wondering which machine gun positions it would have had as I thought the addition of the fuselage beam guns required an additional crew member to operate them?
Any other finer details anyone may have about the H-8 would also be very welcome such as the likely bomb load (internal and/or external), roles of each crew member etc...
Regards
Colin.