Hasagawa 1/72 B-25J Mitchell |  | Overview First impression is this thing has a LOT of parts. Second impression is that if any of you guys cheated and bought one of the Accurate Miniatures B-25 kits you kinda know what to expect. In many ways this is an accurate miniature of the Accurate Miniature kit. Nuts and Bolts  The entire interior is detailed from the five guns in the nose compartment to the two in the tail turret. There are ribs on the inside of the fuselage and doors, lots of stuff to hang on the interior walls and bulkheads. A Complete cockpit down to the two different types of seats for the pilot and co-pilot, and even the cockpit rear bulkhead is accurate. It includes the open upper half as well as the open crawlway under the cockpit floor for access to the nose compartment.
 A very complete bomb bay with accurate bomb racks and a detailed ceiling, (no the bomb bay did not go clear to the top of the fuselage. There is a crawlway up there) One nice feature is the front and aft bulkheads for the bomb bay also incorporate two spars that support the wings. A pleasant surprise is two pretty decent 1000lb. bombs are included. Hasegawa has a reputation for not including that kind of stuff as apparently they want us to buy their aftermarket weapons sets. Of course they never did any for WWII stuff. A minor (I hope) complaint is the separate bomb bay doors. Sure the bomb bay just cries to be shown with all that detail. But how many B-25s are you going to do with it open?
 The top turret is complete clear down to the pedestal base. Speaking of turrets, the guns in this thing are about the best I have ever seen in a dinky scale kit. The cooling holes in the barrel jacket are represented, as is the smaller diameter actual barrel that sticks out the business end. Also the recoil buffer cover assembly on the back end is clearly recognizable.
 The horizontal tail is split with a single top part and left and right under sides. The two vertical tails are one piece. The scribed detail on this is just outstanding. The rivets and panel detail are going to require some super fine painting to be preserved. It is a pity the fabric representation on the control surfaces is not as good. Just raised lines where the rib taping should be. Perhaps the best solution here is to remove it all and then just apply very thin strips of decal for the rib tape prior to painting.
 The engines are separate twin rows with another piece for the crankcase. They are decent and probably adequate considering you will bury them in the cowling. The props are retained with the little nylon (?) bushings trapped between the two engine rows. I like this as it allows me to leave the delicate props off until I finish the thing, and I can still remove and reinstall them if I need to. The little square bumps for the first row of exhausts are separate parts for the engine nacelles, but the back row is molded into the nacelles. The only serious oops for me is the opening in the front of the engine cowlings. It measures out to be about .040 too small I measured a couple of head on photos of the bird, and it should be just about exactly .5 inch. I think a bit of work with sandpaper wrapped around a wooden dowel just might fix the problem.
Another interesting feature is the main gear doors are molded closed. Of course this is correct as the doors closed after extension or retraction, leaving only a small opening for the strut. The nice thing about this is no wheel well detail to worry about and best of all, no doors to have to try to make fit properly.  There are two different clear nose caps, one for a five gun nose and another for just a three gun nose. All of the markings options in this kit use the five gun part. That unused part and an apparently needlessly separate armor panel under the co-pilot’s side and an unused nose gear wheel cover are clear indications that Hasegawa intends more versions. In fact they have already announced at least one more.
There is neither any mention of how much weight would be required to make this a proper nose sitter, nor any help determining where to put it. With the extensive interior detailing, it will be hard to find a place to hide any lead. Hasegawa has solved the problem in a rather innovative way. They have open entry hatches for both the front and aft compartments and then give you a small work stool to place under the aft hatch. Decals  Three markings options are provided. The box art OD/Gray “Jaunty Jo”, and “Bottoms Up” in all natural metal with black verticals, and yellow primer on the engine nacelles and horizontal tail surfaces. The interesting thing about this one is the yellow primer on the engine nacelles and horizontal tail. The Osprey book “B-25 Mitchell Units of the MTO shows this one on the cover with the kit recommended black verticals, but the illustration inside the book strongly suggests it might be OD. The third option, “Miss B Havin” shares the same colors and squadron markings with “Jaunty Jo”. The quality of the decals is good. Perhaps it is just me, but other than a slight nudge regarding “Bottoms Up”, none of the three markings options is real inspirational. But I am sure the after market folks will provide plenty of other options.
Conclusions All in all, this is a very nice kit. The price has been much discussed, but having seen it I think the value is there for me. And the 1/48th size box is really full. This is by far the best 1/72nd Mitchell around. If you like building WW II U. S. twins, then start saving your money. You will want a couple of these. Other late model Mitchells are surely coming, but I would not hold my breath and expect the earlier models.
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