GB-40 1/48 Vickers Wellington Mk. III - Heavy Hitters III

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Nearest I can figure is there are a few variations of the 4lb I.B.. The X type, shown in your pic above and below had a 2-4 minute fuse so perhaps the 240 had a shorter fuse time.

1541767218193.png

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If you really, really really want to read up on all things incendiary I can send you this 227pg. beast...

1541767371001.png
 
Sorry Geo, I didn't see your post before responding to Terry. I do have that and other docs on British ordnance. I was hoping to find something on the SBCs in them but wasn't successful. They list several Cluster Bombs which they state are "rapidly replacing" the SBCs at the time of writing.

Terry, the picture showing the smaller SBCs could nail down the first part. 6 - 40stick containers would give us 240 sticks. The 24x30 lb IBs is logical, though I don't know how these would have been rigged in the bay. The 30x4's is still a question though I take Karl's point that there may have been something rigged up for that.

As I said, I think I'll abandon the idea of replicating this particular load unless something new comes up.
 
Possibly. I think though that there could be a fair amount of scratch building and scrounging involved as there doesn't appear to be much on the roof of the bay in the way of detail. No UBCs or framing it seems.
 
I posted this question over at Britmodeller and got a logical take on this bomb load. A chap named Selwyn writes:

The Small bomb containers were nominally 250 lb in weight and could carry 90 x4lb bombs. the bomb load states 240 4lb and 30 4lb "X" type. The Standard 4lb bomb had an instantaneous fuze (it operated on impact). The "X type" were a variant of the 4lb bomb that had a 2 or 4 minute delay built in. These "X" types would be probably be randomly mixed in with the standard 4lb bombs in the SBC.

So for 4 lb bombs, 240 standard + 30 "X" type= 270, which equals 3 full SBC's.

The 30lb incendiaries were also carried in SBC. One SBC carried 8 X 30lb incendiaries.

So your bomb load would be six SBC's; 3 carrying a total of 270 of both types of 4lb bomb, and three SBC carrying 8 X 30lb.

Makes sense to me! And now I'd love to have a pic of how the 30 lb IBs were carried in the SBC. If I can get this, I may have a crack at scratch building the bomb load.

EDIT: Found the attached pic of 30 lb IBs in SBCs"

MA06YN.jpg
 
Last edited:
Crimea_River said:
I posted this question over at Britmodeller and got a logical take on this bomb load. A chap named Selwyn writes:

The Small bomb containers were nominally 250 lb in weight and could carry 90 x4lb bombs. the bomb load states 240 4lb and 30 4lb "X" type. The Standard 4lb bomb had an instantaneous fuze (it operated on impact). The "X type" were a variant of the 4lb bomb that had a 2 or 4 minute delay built in. These "X" types would be probably be randomly mixed in with the standard 4lb bombs in the SBC.

So for 4 lb bombs, 240 standard + 30 "X" type= 270, which equals 3 full SBC's.

The 30lb incendiaries were also carried in SBC. One SBC carried 8 X 30lb incendiaries.

So your bomb load would be six SBC's; 3 carrying a total of 270 of both types of 4lb bomb, and three SBC carrying 8 X 30lb.

Makes sense to me! And now I'd love to have a pic of how the 30 lb IBs were carried in the SBC. If I can get this, I may have a crack at scratch building the bomb load.

EDIT: Found the attached pic of 30 lb IBs in SBCs"

View attachment 516538
Click to expand...
Nice one Andy, that does make sense
 
I made a very limited start on this kit a week ago but got some more done last night so it's time to get going with some pics.

I started in the cockpit - surprise, surprise. Oddly, Trumpeter have moulded the pit with dual controls so the first order of business was to lop off the second control column and the floor extension that picks up the right-hand rudder pedals.

18110701.jpg


Here we have the modified floor and single control column glued to the section that supports the w/o and navigator's area. The seat for the pilot is quite nice but those for the other two positions aren't quite right. Rather than fuss over those though, I'll leave them be as all that will be seen through the glazing is a fuzzy representation anyway. In the below pic, I have left the slot that supports the instrument panel but more on that later.

18111605.jpg


The topic of the kit instrument panel was discussed at length in Jeff's build thread. Just to recap, Trumpeter have chosen to mould the entire panel face in clear plastic so that the instrument glass faces can reveal the dials behind them. These are printed on a clear film which is supposed to be pinched between the clear face and another grey part in behind. The latter part contains the tongue that fits into the slot on the cockpit floor mentioned above

18111601.jpg


After realizing that the instruments on the clear film would need the grey part to be painted white to bring out the details, I opted to go down a different path. The main reason for this decision was not having to paint that part white but that the detail provided is not quite correct in that the panel does not extend to the floor. Rather, there was space under the center console and this was taken up by an underslung compass which Trumpeter have ignored. (Note: Terry's pics in Jeff's thread along with others found online were very useful in this regard.) I therefore opted to discard the grey plastic part and pinched the clear film between the IP face and a new piece of white sheet styrene as seen below.

18111602.jpg


Flipping the assembly over reveals a rather unconvincing looking instrument panel. Of course the face still needs to be painted but the disadvantage of the clear panel is that you can't spray the thing black without masking every instrument face. The alternative is to brush-paint the whole thing, taking care not to get paint on the instrument faces. I chose the latter option as I didn't want to fiddle with tiny masks, nor did I want to go out and buy a bottle of liquid mask, something I've never used before.

18111603.jpg


Here we have the panel painted Tamiya Rubber Black using a very fine brush and things are looking much better now. I thinned the paint down a fair amount and allowed it to run up to the raised instrument faces. More importantly, you can see that I lopped off the bottom of the console and scratch-built a compass. The discarded grey part can be seen underneath the assembly.

18111604.jpg


All of this now means that the IP will need to be glued to one of the fuselage halves rather than to the floor, a small price to pay for a more realistic result in my opinion. As this area will be easily seen through the beautifully clear canopy glazing, I wanted to get it right. This also means that the slot moulded into the floor, shown in the second pic, can be removed.

Thanks for checking in and, as always, comments are welcome.
 
Sweet. I have Microscale liquid mask and the only time I use it is for small round corners in clear parts that I can never seem to get with tape. Works good with well formed panel lines but with shallow lines you run the risk of getting the mask where its not supposed to be and will lift paint. I tried it on a wing aileron once and it was a right pain in the keester to get out of deeper engraved lines
 
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