It’s interesting how the things that captivate you when you’re 8 years old can still dictate the way you spend your time almost three decades later.
Riding side-saddle with my long enjoyment of action figures has been my love of militaria. And any time the two could meet, all the better. G.I. Joe sums it up better than just about anything else. And one of my favorite Joe vehicles of all time was Sgt. Savage’s P-40 Warhawk. World War 2 was an area of focus for me long before I wasted my money in college, so long after academia got the bird from me, I still loved the beautiful machines that defined so many.
So as my vehicle ranks have grown these past couple years, I’ve always kept scanning for some kind of warbird to join them. I’d often hoped I would come across a decent generic plane that I could build into a fighter. And I always check the 1/18 offerings because, sometimes, if it’s just big enough, you can do something with them. And with G.I. Joe basically giving me the bird, that means watching the Corps Elite and Chap Mei lines. Which is how I found this over at BattleGrip.com:
I quickly went about locating one and getting dimensions. It was instantly recognizable — this Beast Bomber was a stylized North American B-25 Mitchell. And it was damn good size: 3 ft long and a 2 1/2 ft wingspan. Thirty-six inches scales pretty well to the 42 feet of the real deal, and wingspans are always a compromise, for good reason. I bought it and started gathering resources.
Which brings us to the big question: How does one go about building a WW2 medium bomber that can fit a couple 1/12 figures in it? Well, we start with making a list of things that you hope to accomplish:
- Needs to fit at least two-three figures. A single pilot would be okay, given the size restrictions, but a nose and a turret gunner would be perfect.
- Needs functioning landing gear. From the factory it rolls on big old wheels; that’s not going to cut it.
- Work with existing features and build, compromise for realistic/toy look, in the lines of the HM Armed Forces of Madelman vehicles.
While waiting for that big old box to be dropped off from the UK, I started gathering research material, so I had good reference art. I own lots of older aircraft and militaria books, and these are far superior to just Google searching. Most of them have excellent painted renderings with lots of details. But for something as monumental as a B-25, I knew I could do a little better.
I headed up to the Hill Air Force Museum in Roy, Utah. I’ve been many times, but it’s been at least a couple years since my last visit. This was a great excuse for another.
Hill has a truly fantastic static display that ranges every major air conflict of the last 100 years, and their World War 2 collection is extremely impressive. And right as you walk in the hangar, you can get up close and personal with a restored B-25J.
In person, even on risers, one of the things that surprises most is just how relatively small this bomber is. Next to a modern fighter plane with a single pilot, the six- to eight-crewed B-25 usually shorter, and their payload occasionally less. That doesn’t make this thing any less lethal, though — those 10 forward-mounted .50 Brownings, plus four more in turrets and two more in the waist, would still make for some fearsome ground support today. And the beautiful flowing lines somewhat obscure the robust flying and rugged survivability of this warbird. The type stayed in the US inventory until 1960, by that time surrounded by bigger and faster jets at every level. Even so, types like its wartime contemporary and museum neighbor the Douglas A-26 Invader saw combat even in Vietnam.
A couple days later, I broke open the box and started taking stock. There was a lot of potential here to turn a really nice 1/18 vehicle into a 1/12 legend. Time to get to work.
