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1/72 B-25J Mitchell Gun Barrels For the Hasegawa, Revell, Italeri B-25

Stock Number: 72-055

Reviewed By  Jim Pearsall, IPMS# 2209

MSRP: €3.35 ($4.22 US) Thanks to Aires/QuickBoost (www.quickboost.net) for this review set. The Aircraft Way back in the dark ages (before the Internet, or even color TV, about 1956) I found my uncle's collection of old Boys Life magazines. The magazine was sent to all members of the Boy Scouts of America. What made these interesting was that they were 1943 to 1945 vintage. On the back cover of one was an ad for North American Aviation, and the subject was the B-25, and what a superior ground attack machine it was, with 8 .50 caliber guns in the nose, plus gun packs for 4 more fifties, the upper turret weighing in with 2 more, that comes to 14 .50 caliber machine guns. My father, who spent most of WW2 in New Guinea with the Fifth Air Force, told me that a B-25 "gun ship" could saw a Japanese freighter in half with all that firepower. This may have been an exaggeration, but still it sure sounds impressive. B-25s were feared by their foes, with good reason. A one-second burst from the 14 fifties, using the standard 720 grain bullet gives you 12.8 pounds of projectiles in and around the target. Using the standard F=1/2 MV2 formula, considering the muzzle velocity of 2800 ft/sec, I arrived at an answer somewhere in the neighborhood of 10.9 million foot pounds of energy on target. The Kit It looks like there's not really much here. The package is a clear envelope with a printed card inside, with the parts. 15 cleanly molded, very fine resin gun barrels. They're so fine that I have to use a magnifier to see all the detail. That's a US dime in front of the parts. Here's what the parts look like up close and personal. Note that the barrels have the muzzle hole and the cooling vents. Also, this is a nicely designed mold, with protection for those fine little parts built in. The B-25J was a gun ship. The guns provided in the kits (I include Revell and Italeri here) are just little cylinders. This is the additional detail that adds the guns to the gun ship. And that's why if you're going to buy a Hasegawa B-25J, along with a resin cockpit, corrected cowlings, wheels, photoetch, and special decals, you ought to buy these gun barrels. Or even if you don't buy all the other stuff, this would be a decent addition. Assembly I painted the guns with Testors Anthracite Grey Metallic, with a light overspray of Testors Gun Metal. I'm going to put them on a B-25, but I'm waiting for the decal (I want to do a 5th AF Air Apache) and the corrected cowlings. The Problem OK, I have waxed enthusiastic about this product, what's the hidden flaw? Well, if you're going to do the 8-gun nosed, full strafer version of the B-25J, you're going to have to buy 2 of these sets to have enough gun barrels to do the waist guns and the tail guns too. It'd look odd to have the front of the aircraft all nice and spiffy with super detailed gun barrels and the back has those little plastic cylinders. Sigh. If you're going to do a glass-nose version of the J, you have enough barrels in this set to complete the kit, and have a couple of spares.

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