Academy 1/48 USAAF B-25B "Doolittle Raider"
By Ken Murphy
Introduction
The B-25 Mitchell medium bomber is one of the most iconic aircraft of WWII, in no small part for its role in the most famous air raid in American aviation history. Jimmy Doolittle's counter punch to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor is an epic that has been told a thousand times, and if you're at all interested in this subject I'm sure you know the story.
If not, Wikipedia has a detailed account here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doolittle_Raid or read the book Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, by Captain Ted Lawson (a pilot during the Raid) or see the 1944 movie of the same name staring Spencer Tracy. One of the latest and most comprehensive accounts can be found in the book Target Tokyo: Jimmy Doolittle and the Raid That Avenged Pearl Harbor, by James M. Scott (2015) .
It is based on scores of never-before-published records, as well as new interviews with survivors. Or if you prefer a fantasy version, there's always "Pearl Harbor", the movie (where 6 foot tall Alec Baldwin plays Jimmy Doolittle! Well, don't get me started...).
The Kit
The Academy kit (#12302) is a re-boxing of the excellent Accurate Miniatures kit of 1999 (I'm glad to see that Academy includes their logo on the box cover). This is a big model of a big plane and it comes in a big, sturdy box befitting its subject. The excellent cover art depicts plane no. 11 "Hari Kari-er" lifting off the USS Hornet.
In the box you will find 8 sprues of plastic, 7 of which are gray and 1 is clear. An extra 20 parts are included. These could be used for later versions, including the C and D. Accurate Miniatures released C and D versions and a G in the early 2000s; the C/D was later released by Italeri. Academy released the G in 2013. Though the fuselage does not include a cutout for the forward upper turret, with a replacement for those moldings the H and J may yet be on the horizon. All of these releases are a testament to the high quality copper-beryllium molds Accurate Miniatures had produced in Korea (which no doubt explains how Academy came to own them when Accurate Miniatures sadly went out of business).
Speaking of moldings, the ones in this kit are stunningly sharp, crisp and detailed. They are every bit as nice as anything being done today, with fine recessed panel lines and rivet detail. The inside of the fuselage halves are detailed with ribbing and delicate representation of the insulation fabric. Control panels, radio and other interior details are beautifully rendered. The only knock on them is a tiny amount of flash and a few minor sink marks that will have to be addressed.
This kit includes a clear control panel, which can be painted or you can opt for a decal instrument panel, and interior bulkheads with extension into the wings to provide support and proper dihedral. The tires are weighted and the engines are finely detailed with separate delicate wire harnesses.
With all this fine detail an impressive build can be made right from the box, but if you just can't get enough detail, Eduard offers aftermarket sets for the interior (Cat. No. FE322), exterior (Cat. No. 48525) or both sets from their BigEd line (Cat. No. BIG4861) for just slightly less than you will pay for the whole kit! Personally, I'm not much for aftermarket, but these are excellent products and if you just have to go there, well here's your opportunity. I should point out that very little interior detail will be visible past the nose and cockpit glazing, which is why one thing that would be good to have is Eduard's canopy masking set (Cat. No. EX134). There's a lot of glass on this bird!
The decal sheet features options for the six planes, for which there is some verbal or photographic record:
1) Plane No. 3, 02270 "Whiskey Pete" (simply spelled out in white)
2) Plane No. 7, 02261 "Ruptured Duck" (with the most colorful artwork)
3) Plane No. 8, 02242 "3" (with a simple number on the nose)
4) Plane No. 9, 02303 "Whirling Dervish" (with lettering and a swirling graphic)
5) Plane No. 11, 02249 "Hari-Kari-er" (featured on the cover art)
Plane No. 15, 02267 "TNT" (with a chemical formula for TNT on the nose)
The sheet includes serial numbers for all sixteen planes so you can do any one you want including the unadorned No. 1 (02344). There are two black and white instruction sheets; one 8-page foldout with diagrams, and part numbers with icons indicating procedures and a color index for enamel and acrylics referencing Humbrol, GSI Creos, Lifecolor, Testors/Model Master, Revell and Vallejo.
Given the simplicity of the paint scheme, this should be an easy plane to paint. The planes were all painted just before putting out to sea, so any weathering would have been minimal. The second 4-page sheet shows decal placement for the 6 featured schemes and photos of the sprues for easy identification. There is no history beyond the names of the planes, but as I mentioned above, there are plenty of references available.
One Last Thing
I have the original Accurate Miniatures kit and it has been interesting to me to see the differences between these two releases. The cover art is better on the Academy box, but the Accurate Miniatures boxing has more to offer, overall. The 24 page instruction booklet features the same illustrations as the Academy version, but much larger and with written instructions. How quaint! The instructions also include a brief history and pertinent notes about features of the aircraft throughout.
An unexpected addition is an exact copy Doolittle's 8-page after-action report. There are also two helpful features: vinyl masks for the canopies and a set of brass weights for the nose. Both would have been nice to have in this kit. Without those extras, this boxing feels like a "Weekend Edition." However, though it's possible to pick up this kit in its original iteration, that will only get increasingly harder as they vanish from shelves and shows, so we can thank Academy for re-releasing it.
Conclusion
By any measure, this is a fabulous kit and tremendous achievement for its time. There is simply no competition for it in this scale. You can certainly build an impressive model right out of the box. With the 75th anniversary of the raid coming up in a few months, now would be a good time to add your favorite raider to your collection! I highly recommend this kit and I would like to thank Model Rectifier Corporation for providing the review sample.
Postscript
After I finished my review I was contacted by web developer Peter Vukcevic, who wrote the following:
"Hello Ken, I'm Peter from First Site Guide and I came upon your post on how to make decals on your own, where I liked how you pointed out that vector graphics is formed from geometrical shapes which allow for easy image resizing. I wanted to inform you about our cheat sheet aimed at beginners where we've explained what are vector and raster graphics together with their pros and cons.
You can check it out here: https://firstsiteguide.com/vector-image-creation-cheat-sheet/
Would you consider including our cheat sheet in your post in order to help your readers learn more about vector and raster graphics and then follow the tips you provided?
Looking forward to hearing from you,
Peter Vukcevic, First Site Guide"