Revell 1/72 Douglas A-20C Havoc

REVELL 1:72 DOUGLAS A-20C HAVOC

Reviewer: Tim Beales (rec.models.scale)
Kit Review submitted: 17 May 2003

Douglas A-20 Havoc by Revell in 1/72

The Aircraft

I always think of the Douglas Boston and Bristol Blenheim as being very similar aircraft, in the sense that they were both designed just before the war started, and ended up serving in all theatres, in many different versions, as both fighters and bombers, and were the unsung heroes of WW2. The Blenheim was the smaller and older of the siblings.

The French Armee de l'Air first placed orders for the Douglas A-20 in 1938. However, France had surrendered before the A-20 arrived in any numbers, so the RAF took over the delivery. These early versions of the A-20 in the RAF were called the "Havoc". Because of its size, the Havoc was able to carry the bulky radar of the time, and so it was used as a night fighter. From 1941 onwards, the designation of the A-20 can be a bit confusing. Following some minor design changes, the RAF began to rename the "Havoc Mks. I and II" as the "Boston Mk. I", and for a while, these names seemed to have been interchangeable. Following ongoing minor airframe and/or armament changes, later RAF A-20 versions were designated as the "Boston Mks. II, III, and IV". To confuse matters further, the US Air Force now began to call their versions of the A-20 by the old RAF name of "Havoc", to which the RAF were happily referring to their versions of the same A-20 as the "Boston". (As another parallel, the Blenheim had a similar, but less confusing, interchange of monikers with the Blenheim IV/Bolingbrook and Blenheim V/Bisley).

There were many variants of the A-20, which like the Blenheim, flew on active service right to the end of the war. The most numerous version used by the RAF was the "Boston Mk. III", which was equivalent to the USAF's "A-20C Havoc".

The kit

Dating from the 1970s, the kit instruction sheet is a very detailed four-page A4 booklet. The front page provides an (English only) "Boys Own"-type rousing comprehensive history of a kind that you never see anymore, which discusses actual wartime incidents (example subtitles: Rugged raider and Brilliant design) which are intended to get you all stirred up to make the kit. There's also a three-view profile of an unidentified RAF aircraft. The ensuing three sheets provide exemplary assembly instructions for making the model. Detailed and accurate artwork is provided, and at each construction stage, a list of the parts' names linked to the kit number, painting instructions for each part, and written assembly instructions are provided. At the top of the second page is a set of neat graphics listing the tools needed for modelling and how to assemble the kit. The kit is moulded in a light sky blue plastic with rivet detail typical of the period, and thickish clear parts. The Boston was a tricycle three-wheeler, and Revell provide a rear prop for those schoolboys who would absent-mindedly rush into the construction, only to find a tail sitter once the model was complete. The total number of parts is 50.

Construction

The cockpit is the initial part to be constructed. This consists of a cabin floor, pilot's seat, pilot figure, and forward fuselage bulkhead. Once painted and cemented, this assembly is glued into locating slots in the starboard fuselage main body. This stage of the construction is finished off by cementing into place the rear fuselage bulkhead and rear gunner. The rear fuselage bulkhead is a single piece with a moulded-in chair for the gunner. A tiny oval window is then glued into place near the feet of the gunner. Watch out for the moulded-on pitot on the tail, or it'll be off in no time!

For the benefit of super detailers, there is no further cockpit detail (in particular, there is no control panel). If one chose to have an open window in the rear gunner compartment, then there is no gun provided, and the vast cavernous hole of the empty rear fuselage exists at the feet of the gunner. Therefore, if one were planning to have an open cockpit, then a lot of extra detail would be needed here. As I have a perverse pleasure in making plastic kits as they were intended to be made by the manufacturer, I had my windows closed. Therefore, I painted all the internal parts RAF interior green (Humbrol 78), and painted the pilots with flying jackets and leather helmets and boots in appropriate colours. For aficionados, the pilots are the old-style Frog-type figures with flying masks set in place, and they strongly resemble those white Imperial troopers out of the original Star Wars movie.

The second construction step was simply to glue into place the port lower oval window using Humbrol Clearfix, add the front part of the tricycle undercarriage into its mating holes, and then to glue the two fuselage halves together. The locating holes for the undercarriage are very good in this model, as one side is recessed, which means that the parts can only fit in one-way, and so it is not possible to attach them the wrong way round. At this stage, I added a lot of nose weight by cementing fishing weights to the back of the front fuselage bulkhead. In addition to being a convenient hiding point within the body of the kit, this is still some way ahead of the main undercarriage centre of gravity, and so allows for a torque to act against the weight of the tail section. There is no room in the front section to do this, as one can see right up into the front undercarriage section recess (the cockpit floor doubles as the bulkhead, and in this version of the A-20, the nose is fully-glazed). The fit of all the parts was very good indeed. The only seam line that needed minor remedy using a sharp blade was along the bombardier's seat in the front glazed section.

The next stage was to construct the port and starboard wings from their two respective upper and lower halves, and to cement them into the two locating positions on the fuselage sides. The two single-piece rear tailplanes were also cemented in place, followed by the two front undercarriage doors. Minor filler was used around the joints.

The landing gear was easy to construct, being one-piece single-leg undercarriage port/starboard units, with the two wheels being in two halves apiece. I thought the wheel detail was good considering the age of the kit. The port/starboard nacelles were also in two parts, and the undercarriage landing gear crossbar fitted into the nacelles using Revell's neat "one-way" fit method. Attachment of the nacelle pods to the wings was via shaped recesses on the lower wings. Filler was required around the joints to fill gaps that existed between the bottom of the wings and the nacelle pods.

The engine installation was straightforward: the engines were composed of a front and rear section, with the propeller shaft unit fitting through the front engine section. The engine then mounted inside a single-piece cowling and this mated onto the engine nacelle unit attachment point on the lower wing. I found the alignment here a little tricky, and I managed to get the engine nacelles slightly misaligned. This was corrected for by the usual filling and sanding

After fixing in the bombardier figure to his seat formed from the joining of the two fuselage halves, the lower nose section was constructed from port and starboard halves that fitted onto the front of the aircraft. The aircraft was completed by attaching two gun pods to either side of the lower node section, and by adding a nose transparency, pilot's canopy, radio mast, rear gunners canopy and gun cover, and landing lights in the lower part of each wing. (Note there is also the spike-like part (No. 50) that is designed to act as a prop under the tail unit for those who have forgotten to add nose weight - they thought of everything in those days). You don't see much through the canopies once they are in place and the frames painted.

Decals

The decal sheet is very simple and is composed of a set of RAF roundels and fin flashes along with a set of US white stars. No information is given as to the origin of the aircraft the decals relate to. The painting guide on the instructions sheet on page one shows a generic RAF Boston III in green/brown over an unidentified colour!, while the box art shows a US A20-C which has white blotches over the RAF disruptive camouflage and the US stars over the RAF roundels. The decals were still usable with a little care.

Accuracy

The Boston had a wingspan = 61ft 4in and a length of 47ft 7in. In 1/72 metric these are 25.8 cm and 19.9 cm, respectively. My model measured span = 25.8 cm and length = 20.8 cm. There was no end tail transparency.

Other comments

A nice little kit that is probably up for a reissue by Revell, although still very common on the aftermarket circuit. Recommended for all really, as anyone at any level can get something out of it.

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