Guideline Publications Boeing B-29 & B-50 Superfortress – Warpaint #143

[Mike]

Boeing B-29 & B-50 Superfortress – Warpaint #143

ISBN: 9781916759176

Guideline Publications

 

 

The B-29 Superfortress was the successor to the B-17 Fortress with a similar family name, but utilising more advanced technologies to create a high-altitude heavy bomber that could out-pace and out-bomb most other bomber aircraft of WWII, and as a consequence its cost was higher than any other projects during the war, even the Manhattan project. The Superfortress also carried the Manhattan Project’s output in what was, and remains, the only combat deployment of an atomic bomb by an aircraft.  Let’s hope it stays that way.  The project began when the American War Department realised that the B-17 wouldn’t have sufficient range to reach the many isolated islands under Japanese control in the Pacific, and had even less chance of reaching the Japanese homeland, which necessitated a 6,000 mile round-trip, most of it over water.  As early as 1940 a specification was drafted, but most of the main competitors abandoned their entries, leaving Boeing with an almost clear field, which resulted in an initial order for two prototypes to undergo testing and trials that was later expanded to include more prototypes and an initial production run that was further increased to 500 airframes by 1942.  As the aircraft was required to be pressurised, a circular fuselage cross-section gave strength without increasing weight substantially, with a set of remote-controlled self-defence turrets cutting down on the area that needed to be pressurised, connected to the rear gunner’s position by a ribbed tunnel that passed through the bomb bays.  Because of its advanced technology, there were constant improvements and revisions to almost every part of the airframe, which the factories struggled to cope with, requiring visits to modification depots, sometimes straight from the production line, where the aircraft was rebuilt to the new standard.  The high level of technology incorporated into the design also led to frequent breakdowns and problems that were never fully fixed before the end of the war.

 

The first B-29s to enter service did so in 1944, although many problems were encountered whilst working-up, predominantly with the Wright R-3350 that was powerful, but prone to catastrophic failures that were finally addressed by simply replacing the four engines with the more reliable R-4360 Wasp Major after the war was over.  The remote turrets were also complex, and therefore prone to their own issues, as the aiming was done optically, while the electro-mechanical computers calculated the targeting and offset to account for their comparative speed and vector.  Airframes with their defensive turrets removed were flown by some squadrons, either because of their unreliability or due to the fact that the Japanese had few aircraft, let alone any that could reach the heights that the B-29 flew at.  They were able to carry either more fuel or bombs, depending on the mission requirements, thanks to the weight saved by taking the heavy equipment out of the fuselage.  These so-called ‘Silverplate’ airframes were also responsible for the dropping of the first nuclear bombs on Japan, first on Hiroshima, then on Nagasaki, which ended the war with the capitulation of the Japanese nation.  Post WWII, an upgrade to the -D model was undertaken to solve the most pressing issues with the aircraft, replacing the engines with the afore mentioned R-4360 Wasp Major, and a later model of these engine were also used on the heavily revised B-50.  Surplus aircraft were used by other nations after WWII, and were also utilised as test aircraft for various projects, some of which were more esoteric than others, such as airborne transmission stations and engine test-beds.  The jet-age finished off the B-50, eventually to be replaced by the B-47 Stratojet, then the enormous B-52 that dwarfed them all, and continues in-service today.

 

 

The Book

The book by author Kev Darling is in the usual Warpaint format of portrait A4(ish) with a soft card cover that utilises a perfect binding instead of the usual pair of staples to accommodate the genuine total of 116 pages plus content printed on all four sides of the glossy covers, including a two-page spread of plans in 1:200, penned by Sam Pearson.  The initial section details the ancestors, progenitors and birth of the type in detail, with some interesting titbits of information and photos of the earlier aircraft included, then the subsequent pages detail the finalisation of the type, originally painted in olive drab and neutral grey.  Some of the later photos are in colour, with some from the nuclear missions, included pictures of the bombs before and during the loading process, as well as the usual official sources and historical records that were kept by the developers, restorers, civilian operators, and manufacturers.

 

 

 

The pages include a lot of useful photos with informative captions of aircraft on the apron, on the field, in the air, during trials, and even a photo of a late model B-29 carrying a British Grandslam bomb under its belly, which American engineers had mated with a remote-control system to give an element of guidance to the bomb once released.  The Profiles section shows a range of colours in which the type was painted, including some of the more colourful schemes, which usually included at least some bare metal, but not all the time, with colourful tails, black undersides, and even cheatlines between a white and grey scheme, a few of which might be new to some of us. 

 

 

 

My favourite variant is usually the slightly weird one, and the Grandslam test airframe holds great appeal for this reason.  Of the schemes that are shown in the eight pages of profiles, the early olive drab examples are the most interesting, especially after a little weathering that the paint colour was prone to.  There are also some profiles of Washington B.1s as flown by the RAF, some of which have black undersides with a wavy demarcation.

 

 

 

There is no ‘In Detail’ section in this volume, mainly because there are plenty of high-quality detail photos scattered throughout the book that will be very useful to any modeller that has an interest in cramming more realism into their models.  There is a section that details the specification, operators and production batches over approximately eight pages, of both the B-29 and B-50, which will be helpful to anyone trying to track down extra information regarding a specific airframe. 

 

Because of the B-29’s importance in the Pacific theatre, there are injection-moulded kits of the type in 1:144, 1:72 and 1:48, with the most notable omission in 1:32, for reasonably obvious reasons, namely size and potential cost.  There are balsa and vacformed kits available in 1:32 however, but who has the space?

 

 

Conclusion

The Warpaint series always gets a thumbs-up due to their consistent layout and quality.  This is an excellent book that will see plenty of use by anyone interest in, or in building this monster of a WWII bomber.

 

Note:  You can buy either the traditional physical version of the book by following the link below, or the digital version if you’re more modern and forward thinking, or have limited storage space.  Digital reference is starting to grow on me.

 

Very highly recommended.

 

 

Review sample courtesy of