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Revell Halifax B, Mk II, Srs I


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All,

Revell is driving me up the wall sometimes.

This set is loaded with different options, but without any reference or explanation (as ususal with Revell).

Please help!

The variant I wil be building is the Halifax B, Mk II, Srs I (not Ia). It states it is from RCAF, England, 1942. So far soo good.

Looking at pictures from 1000aircraftphotos.com reveals some strange things.

1) Did it have the top gun turret in 1942? was it a 4-gun turret or 2-gun turret?

2) The nose is solid on some of the RCAF pics, but Revell has it at the 'chin type' nose. I trust the chin type is correct?

3) Were the bombs in 1942 still yellow or had it changed to green?

4) I have the interior green (h:78) as the main colour inside. But (as per Lancaster)black at the flight deck. That should be fairly correct, I think

I think I have the gear and the propellers right, but even that is a bit confusing.

It will surely have the triangular fins.

Just sometimes, really, Revell is a royal pain!

Thanks in advance for the assistance.

Ivan

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Sorry, I don't have the kit in front of me so am not quite sure about the individual aircraft covered. However, I can clear your mind about some points.

The B Mk.II series 1 had the nose turret. (Boulton Paul Type C)

The B Mk.II series I(Special) had the solid nose. Annoyingly, it was shown on the original sprue shots from the fairs.

Initial B Mk.II series 1 had no top turret, but the majority did have the 2-gun Turret. (Boulton Paul Type C)

No B Mk.II series 1 had the 4-gun turret (Boulton Paul type A)

Yes, the triangular fins.

There may have been some buff bombs around but the majority will have been green by 1942 (I believe, but pretty sure.)

I'm not surprised you are confused if you are trying to make sense of photos without looking at histories that describe the technical and operational development of the type. There was a lot of variation in build and in service. There is a lot more that can be said about the Revell kit, generally uncomplimentary regarding the oversize and mis-shapen engine cowlings, but best not dwell too much on that. One point fairly easily adjusted is that the bombs should be three abreast in the bay not two: this requires some tweaking of the doors to ensure clearance but is no great problem. Getting the extra bombs is another problem! There are kits available for various RAF weapons, and of course the new Airfix Bomber Support kit provides several options - just stay away from the bigger bombs.

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Thanks for this.

Always good to ask here for quality information.

And especially on the bomb business!

I picked this from wiki:

"The maximum bomb load was 14,500 lb (6,600 kg), carried in a bomb bay in the fuselage with six separate bomb compartments, and three bomb compartments in each wing inboard section."

Does this dovetail with the the rack of 3 bombs?

Ivan

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It didn't have six separate bomb compartments in the fuselage but one open bay. The original design bombload was either sixteen 500lb or four 2000lb (the narrow SAP bomb that most prewar RAF bombers were sized around), which suggest two rows of two heavy carriers but says nothing about the lighter weapons. The best photo I have to hand is unfortunately for the longer stores packages dropped on SOE operations, but these show three rows of three in the bombbay. On entry into service, the maximum internal payload is listed as fifteen 500lb or 250lb, which suggests three rows of three carriers, plus six in the wing cells. Not all at once, perhaps - at least not if flying very far. I believe a normal payload would be 8000lb, but this would vary with the target.

The carriers were not fixed structure themselves but were attached to the bomb before being winched into the bombbay and attached to the appropriate structure. So perhaps it was possible to carry these bombs as Revell suggests...perhaps, but it wasn't usual, and not at their spacing. AFAIK. My model is to carry the SOE packages, so I may be a little blinkered. You could of course mix the 500lb bombs with 250lb and/or incendiary packages.

If you look inside the Revell wing parts, you will see the position of the wing cells marked out: another indication of the original ambitious aims of this kit.

OK, I've had a look in the CD "The Halifax B Mk.III Explored" which gives diagrams of the approved bomb loads. In all cases they show three rows of three for the standard bombs, although mainly 1000lb not a single load of all 500lb. I've corrected my comment above to reflect this. Although supposedly for the B Mk.III the wing cell diagrams do not show that one had been removed to fit an extra fuel tanks, so they are clearly more appropriate for the Mk.II.

Edited by agboak
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It does get complicated, suddenly.

I looked at the wings. Yes, there are indeed the cells for bombs, although it looks as 2 rows with 3 bombs each wing. It may just be the way it is marked for cutting purposes.

I am not so good with opening these things up, so I think I will leave it alone. However, how to mark it externally that there are cells although closed?

I have some spare bombs from the Lancaster, so that should be OK. Just need to check which one's.

The bomb bay stuff will be a challenge, but I will indeed try my hand on it.

The landing gear is Messier. I believe that is OK

I found another piece in the kit. It is to be situated afer the landing gear and is a box with four legs. No clue what it is. Revell has marked it with a "?" which means optional. Help! I have seen no pics with that.

Is it correct though to have the inside painted Humbrol 78 Cockpit green? and black at the flight deck?

I am starting to think Revell is a 4-letter word.

Ivan

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Sorry, in the aftermath of repairs to my ceiling the hurriedly packed-away kits have not all re-surfaced - or at least the Revell Halifax hasn't, so I can't help you with that odd part.

It has now. The part behind the tail wheel is for glider tugs only. I should perhaps add (or perhaps not) that the tailwheel provided is for the retractable version and they were fixed down on the Mk.IIs. Use some filler to make the fuselage flush. If you still haven't glued the fuselage together remove the flight engineer's seat - behind the pilots.

Edited by agboak
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Four directly across is new to me - I wonder how they managed that? Must be 500 pounders rather than the heavier ones, with that many aboard. Only two wing cells a side suggests a Mk.III, so was this an improvement introduced late in the day?

Edited by agboak
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Thanks for all this info.

I haven't put the tail wheel in its place yet. Thanks! That I can fix.

Those bomb load pictures are great. It adds to the quest for something authentic. It really looks like the Halifax could have a variety of bombs. Much more than I had ever imagined.

The bomb compartment in the first picture looks a bit 'home made'. would the entire box drop with the bombs?

The bombs in picture 2 look yellow, but maybe it is just the picture.

It was close with gluing the parts together. Only lack of glue prevented it happening today. The seat goes.

Thanks for all this. It is very valuable, but I am very close to use profanity with this one.

Ivan

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The boxes are SBCs - Small Bomb Containers:

http://img580.imageshack.us/img580/4610/undersidey.jpg

they could carry a variety of small bombs, 4lb & 30lb incendiaries mainly but also 40lb GP bombs among others. The SBC stayed with the a/c, drop bars held the bombs in place until released.

The caption in the other pic says the location was in Libya so most likely the bombs were just faded by being in the sun.

Jari

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You might also want to look at Freightdog Models website where they offer some resin kits to improve the kit as these are quite worthwhile. They don't fix all the engine nacelle problems(even Freightdog say they can't do that) but do improve the situation greatly plus fix the tailwheel situation too. Seriously think about getting the set relevant to the version you are building. Freightdog are great to deal with so no concerns in that regard. I believe Quick Boost just did resin exhausts of the type you need for the 408 bird I believe you are doing (kit CDN markings) and these might be helpful. You can use the kit parts but I found you need to look carefully at pictures to put the parts together properly as the kit instructions are not too clear on the point. HTH

Cheers

Bruce

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More accurate replacement nacelles, cowlings and resin parts are produced by Aeroclub, but there's more work in fitting them and even these have compromises with the nacelle width and shape of the fairings over the wing. To be brutally honest, there is little that is correct with the wings other than the span and chord. You really do have to decide just how much work you wish to put in to making changes, and how much it matters to you. The fuselage, on the other hand, is pretty good.

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All,

Thanks. There is a lot to do on this kit.

I am looking at the freightdog kit. It looks as though this is the bare minimum which can be fixed without major problems. The price, considering exchange rate, is nearly what I paid for the kit to begin with (2 years back), but I think I have to do it. Thanks for this advise.

I am reluctant to do major 'surgery' on my own as I have a good chance of messing it up. I am not 100% proficient in that art.

The bomb environment I can fix. I have enough 'things' left over from a Lancaster and a Stirling.

Maybe a stupid question: In my youth(a lot of moons ago) when I started building, Revell was very much the benchmark. How come it is now so in-accurate on something simple as just getting the engine bits right?

It seems I have plenty of things to do!

Ivan

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Well, I've been modelling for many moons myself but I don't think I've ever had Revell in the top spot! Near, yes. All manufacturers did and do make mistakes. Having got those two comments out of the way I don't think this kit is representative of the few modern Revell-tooled kits, for example their Ju88 is generally reckoned to be superb. A more direct comparison might be with their Fw200, BV222 and He177, all of which may have some flaws but are far superior to this abortion of a Halifax.

From the evidence of the kit parts they set out to produce the ultimate Halifax kit with a wide range of options permitting almost every version. At some stage they abandoned this, and pushed out a kit with strong evidence of unfinished thinking. It is possible that they simply saw that they would (or had) overrun their budget and needed to cut back. I understand that the design of the kit had been subcontracted. It is possible (but only a presumption) that the Revell staff were every bit as disappointed as we are with the end result, but were unable to start again, this time with a designer having a clearer idea of what the aircraft looked like.

To be fair that there's not much wrong with the fuselage. It is certainly far better than the Matchbox Halifax in that respect, and the Matchbox wings are every bit as wrong but in different ways. The lower half of the aileron is worth saving... I have tried cutting down the Revell engine parts using reworked Matchbox intakes, but this was hard graft and in the end a failure because I overdid the narrowing of the nacelle. It certainly would be possible to do a better job than I did, but would still be hard and potentially unrewarding.

I agree that using the Freightdog parts will give you something looking much more like the original. They are still too fat, being designed to match the Revell parts, and the kit still would lack the correct over-wing fairings. The aileron should have a greater chord underneath. Sometimes you just have to accept that getting it "Right" will take too much effort.

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  • 2 weeks later...

All,

Thanks for all the help and assistance on this.

It is finished and does not look too bad despite all the short-comings. I fixed as much as I could without taking chances of messing it up instead.

Will it have a place hanging from the ceiling like the rest of the 4-engine bombers? YES it will

It is like the homeless cats my daughter is coming home with. You may not want them, but you have to love them anyway. So, it is there, having a special place after all. Just like the last kitten she found.

Ivan

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This is likely too late to be of much use, but here's a link to a walkatound of the world's only complete, orignal restored Halifax, at the RCAF Museum in Trenton, Ontario. I shot these pics last summer. Granted, she's a Hercules-engine version, but hopefully you can get some helpful information from them.

Halifax Walkaround

Cheers!

Steve

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That is a nice walk-around. Is it restored to a flying condition?

I have tried my very best to do some pics of the finished product - with my cell phone - as I cannot find my daugther's camera. Not great. I will try when she surrenders her camera.

Ivan

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  • 3 years later...
On 2014-02-26 at 2:50 PM, Finn said:

The boxes are SBCs - Small Bomb Containers:

http://img580.imageshack.us/img580/4610/undersidey.jpg

they could carry a variety of small bombs, 4lb & 30lb incendiaries mainly but also 40lb GP bombs among others. The SBC stayed with the a/c, drop bars held the bombs in place until released.

I am looking for pictures that show an SBC with the 30lb incendiaries installed... what did each bomb look like, dimensions, etc.    Need to see how 30lb'ers were side-by-side, how many front-to-back, etc

Sources say that an SBC carried 24x  30lb incendiaries... is that correct?

 

I have the Belcher Bits SBC set but they have the thin 4lb incendiaries installed (15 per row, 6 deep)... but I need to convert these to have 30lb bombs instead.

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Here is a Halifax with a load of 30lb incendiaries:

 

RCAF_Halifax_bomb_load_WWII_IWM_CH_17362

 

The normal SBC carried 8 30lb, or 90 4lb, the larger SBC could carry 12 30lb:

 

Mildenhall.jpg

 

Here is a large file, 50MB,of British ordnance during WWII with details, drawings, dimensions, etc  including the 30lb incendiary bomb, pg 71 with a drawing on pg 72. 
 
Some time ago someone said the large SBC could carry 236 4lb incendiaries, or 24 30lb ones, they had their numbers wrong, 150 or 12 is the correct numbers that could be carried but everyone took the 236/24 as the right amount so that is why when you google small bomb container you get the wrong answer. 

 

Jari

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To follow up...   does anyone offer 1/72 SBC (regular size) with 30lb IB ?     

I can get SBC with 4lb incendiary from Belcher Bits & Airfix resupply set... but that's not what I am looking for.

Even separate 30lb IB would be okay... though I would need a lot of them!   :D

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Glenn i think your best bet is to scratch build which shouldn't be too hard for the 30lb bombs, just make the bottom ones look more presentable while the ones mostly hidden out of sight can be reasonable looking. As for SBCs you can either scratchbuild them or gut the ones with the 4lb incendiaries. How many SBCs do you plan to have?

 

Jari

Edited by Finn
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