Hasegawa

1/72 Lancaster B MkI with Grand Slam

Kit Number: 00819

Reviewed by  Jim Pearsall, IPMS# 2209

MSRP: $63.95 Thanks to Hasegawa for providing this review kit. The Aircraft: In early 1944 Sir Barnes Wallace was at it again. He had already designed the Wellington bomber and the Dam Buster bomb. Early in the war he had suggested bombing the Reich with huge bombs which would do great amounts of damage. The problems to be overcome were that there wasn't an aircraft which could carry this type of weapon to Germany from England, the RAF couldn't guarantee hitting anything with a single bomb, and there wasn't any way to build such a big bomb. But as World War II continued, technology made some great advances. The Lancaster could carry the bomb Wallace envisioned. But there was no reason to build such a big bomb. There were no viable targets, and the RAF still was committed to area bombing at night. Then there was another step in technology, this time on the German side. They were building submarine pens along the French Atlantic coast, particularly the Bay of Biscay. These heavily fortified servicing areas for the wolfpacks had immensely thick roofs and walls, generally 12 foot roof and 8 foot walls, and were impervious to standard high explosive bombs. The standard wisdom was that if the U Boat pens were attacked with 2000 pound bombs, the German response would be to send a Gefreiter and a work party to the roof to repair the paint. No other damage would be expected. Sir Barnes now came up with one of his offbeat and clever ideas. Sure, the roof is impenetrable, and the walls are heavy too. But how thick is the floor? Six inches? Maybe a foot? Drop a huge bomb NEXT TO the fortification. Make the nose of the bomb strong enough to penetrate 50 feet into the ground before it detonates. The result was usually a mini-earthquake which shook the roof right off the walls, causing all that concrete to fall. Alternately, the blast might follow the path of least resistance, up through the floor. Either result was bad for the submarine and anyone inside the complex. The first weapon was the 10,000 pound Tall Boy. It worked. But being an engineer, Sir Barnes wanted an even more effective weapon, and the result was the 22,000 pound Grand Slam, the largest conventional air weapon of World War 2. It worked, but there were some drawbacks. The big problem was that in order to penetrate to the desired depth of 130 feet below ground level, the Grand Slam had to be dropped from 40,000 feet. On a really good day, a standard Lancaster could get a Grand Slam up to 20,000 feet. The result was the Lancaster B Mk1 Special. All armament except the tail guns were removed to save weight, the bomb bay doors and mechanism were removed, since the bomb wouldn't fit anyway, and the latest version of the Merlin engine was installed. Now they could get up to 25,000 feet. The final problem, which was never really fully solved, was that these bombs had to be dropped quite close to the target, within 50 feet. This is quite a feat from 25,000 feet, and the bomb sights and bombardiers were not up to the task. The bomb was remarkably stable, as the fins were offset to make it spin as it fell. When the shock wave built up near Mach 1, the spin kept the bomb moving in the right direction, even though the tail fins became ineffective. Grand Slams were used in the closing months of the European Theater, mostly to drop large bridges to prevent last ditch moves by the Wehrmacht. A Grand Slam dropped next to the abutment where a bridge anchors into the river bank or canyon wall would shake the abutment and cause the span to drop. Dropped next to a support pier, it would drop center sections. The Model This is not my first Lancaster with Grand Slam. I converted the old Revell Dam Buster to a B Mk1 Special about 30 years ago. But this build was much easier, and the result was far superior. For one thing I didn't have to sand off all those rivets found on the Revell Lancaster. There are 18 sprues, with 5 clear, one poly plastic and the other 12 grey plastic. There was no flash anywhere, no mold sinks, no ejector pin marks, and no flow distortion. The clear parts were just that. I dipped the canopy, top windows and rear turret in Future, but dispensed with this step for smaller windows, as this was simply unnecessary. The instructions are printed on both sides of a 10 by 28 inch sheet of paper. One great feature of the instructions is the Marking and Painting pages. These provide 4-views for all 3 aircraft, so there's reduced guessing. They are printed in 1/144 and 1/288 scale, so that to produce a 100% size painting guide it is only necessary to print them at 200% or 400%. The color information is a little less user friendly for the American modeler. The paint references are for Mr. Color and GSI Creos colors, with the interior listed as "Cockpit Interior (Nakajima)". On the other hand, the exterior colors were listed with the British Standard colors. Once again David Klaus's IPMS Color Cross Reference Guide proved to be an invaluable resource. Construction: I started out following the instructions, but eventually departed from the steps, because I didn't want to put the small fragile parts on until last. I may not be clumsy, but I have a poor track record for keeping landing gear and radar antennas intact while I'm putting on decals. The interior was a little sparse, but the decal for the instrument panel and the other panels was good, and fit the areas nicely. I was impressed with the engineering which went into the fitting of the wings and horizontal stabilizers to the fuselage. Each wing fits onto a pair of spars, and the stab fits onto a single wide spar. The wing spars are part of the fuselage interior, the stab spar fits through slots in the fuselage.

Once I had the main assemblies done, it was time to start painting. Here is where those blown up color and marking sheets came in super handy. I painted the underside Ocean Grey, then masked the underside. I then painted the entire upper Dark Earth. I then cut the Dark Green portion off the blown up painting guides, and cut masks from 3 inch masking tape to cover the brown while I painted the green.

I inserted the 15 small windows on each side of the fuselage, plus the two clear ports on top of the fuselage. I used Micro Kristal Kleer ©, which worked just fine. I was impressed at how well these windows fit. I was also impressed at how quickly one slipped out of my fingers and disappeared onto the floor. I lucked out, there was a spare. Whew. OK, time for markings. Decals: The decals worked very nicely. My usual brew of water mixed with some Elmer's Glue and a spot of Micro Sol worked well. I have read that Hasegawa decals tend to be thick. These weren't. On the wing and fuselage roundels you can see where the masks have been removed from the green/brown paint demarcation and there's a little step there. Because of the small size of the marking instructions, I had some trouble determining exactly where some of the decals went on the wings. I should have kept one of those 400% blow ups I cut up for masks. Final Finish (The Fiddly Bits) I'm sure someone will come out with a set of masks for the canopy and rear turret. I masked and painted them with individual frames, and it took me 4 evenings just to do the canopy. The rear turret was quicker, but still not fast. I was impressed at how well the canopy and side windows fir the fuselage. I was also happy with how well the landing gear went together. The individual parts could be fiddled with to get alignment, but once the glue set, the whole assembly was strong and true. I was also impressed at another bit of Hasegawa engineering. Where the sprue connects to the clear parts, the connector doesn't come into the side of the part, but rather bends around and comes in on a side which will be hidden. In example A, the sprue comes into the side of the canopy, which will require careful cutting and polishing. In example B, the sprue comes in where the canopy mates to the fuselage, which will only require cutting, then flattening with a file. Overall Assessment I was impressed at how well this kit went together. It's not a box-shaker kit, but it goes together nicely and time is well spent getting things to align. It took a while to build, but there was not a lot of time spent cleaning up seams or getting parts ready to assemble. Just the sheer size of the project made it slow going. Otherwise, there was never a time when I was stumped, or looking for a creative way to get around some problem. Fit was excellent, the engineering was top notch. Even one of my personal betes noir, prop installation, was taken care of through provision of those 4 little poly plastic inserts in the nacelles, so the props just slid into place with no fuss. Truly a state of the art effort by Hasegawa. This is advertised as a limited run kit. If you're interested in bombers, particularly RAF, you'll want this kit. It's a great build, and an interesting subject. Thanks to John Noack and Hasegawa for a good build.

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