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Doing a little more digging and I guess its normal. You can see the raised plates in some of the pictures. Pictures came from different B-25 manuals.It appears to cover the life-raft hatch which really surprises me.
Found this on my hard drive, guessing source is web. Not sure if they where trying to add armor or what the deal. Possible battle damage patch.
Well unfortunently this is not my bracket I was looking for. Took me quite a few manuals before I could find something to match the bracket but here it is. Oh well the search continues.So I have been looking at this photo for a while now. Note the camera man is free holding the camera. Both in the Med and in China I know that the bottom turrnet was removed and in some instances it was replaced with a single or double 30 caliber machine guns. Note the bracket over the hole. I am wondering if this isn't one of them with the 30 caliber machine gun removed so they could take pictures with the camera. If so it would be one of the only sources I have seen as far as showing the mounting brackets for this type of setup.
Thoughts?
Thanks Paul
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Amazing details, Paul! I have never heard of this "Mitchell" before! It's from the J-15 block and one detail caught my attention:
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In one of the modelling threads we already discussed (years ago) the bigger plate added in the nose of the a/c with 2 fixed guns on the right side (not all of them though). The flexible gun in this case was 4 " higher. This change is known to be done first on block J-20.If the one on the photo is not a completely new plate (looks very clean and some of the screws are modern ones IMHO) it's an interesting detail to think about.
But the second hole is of bigger interest. Could this be a gun camera mounting?
I haven't seen (so far) cameras mounted in this location. The standard gun camera position was in the cockpit (glazed nose airplanes). The H-models had the camera in the nose, above the 4 guns.
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If this was a used a/c with field mods etc. one would say, they added something there. But that's a completely new frame. Whatever was there should be original, unless the whole plate is a new addition to the restoration.
Cheers!
P.S. Here is a photo of a brand new B-25J for the USSR:
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The big plate is there but I can't figure out what's below the gun.
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It could be the bombardier's windshield wiper mechanism for example. The drawing below shows the earlier small plate though. Detail A shows the motor and the actuator in the exact same area where the second hole in the later (bigger) plate is:
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P.S. And yet another original photo of a Soviet B-25J-25 s/n 44-30004 with a big nose plate - I don't really see anything under the flexible nose gun.
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LOL I think I need my glasses checked. You are right but looking at the whole circle it kind of looked like a bag of some sort hanging under the wing to me or a tent. Wow time to go back to bed.The retracted Bendix under turret (if I'm understanding your circle).
Ummm, could be!!!I thought it was the crew chief's laundry.