GB-55 1/48 B-25D-1 Mitchell - MTO III

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Thank-you gentlemen.

Nav's compartment has the plywood now painted as bare wood, the back rest done in green "leather" and all has a matte coat.



I just noticed from the photo that the little eye piece on the drift sight went AWOL so I need to rustle up another. In the nose area, I'm starting to think about the gun arrangement noted by Yves on page 1. I found a 50cal from my spares box (from a Revell P-38 built in the mid 70's!) that I will use for the floor-mounted fixed gun. I'm now looking at the B-25 Weapons thread and Yves' earlier pictures for clues on the ammo box installation. If I find nothing, I'll make one up.



Back when there's something worth showing.
 
Crimea_River said:
I'm now looking at the B-25 Weapons thread and Yves' earlier pictures for clues on the ammo box installation. If I find nothing, I'll make one up.
Click to expand...
I'll give you my answer to this question. It's based on observations and photos only. There are no real manuals or drawings for the MTO-mods (at least I haven't seen any).
The top ammo boxes are easy: 3 small ammo-boxes for the flexible nose 0.5 (it's not 0.3 any more!):



The dark or light strip is a frame of flat steel holding the boxes (all 4 sides around them). The shelf as on later blocks and variants does not exist yet. The bottom of the ammo-boxes is approx. where the bottom frame of the nose glazing is.
For comparison here's a J-model (BTW with the bottom fixed gun deleted), where the 3 big (double) ammo boxes on a shelf are visible. Note that the shelf is obviously lower and the amo boxes show less than in the previous photos:

For the fixed gun I have only a still from a documentary: there is 2 small ammo-boxes behind the gun (dark shadow in the lower left corner) going back to the feet of the bombardier, when he is in the "travel" seat. On the photo below he's on the "battle" seat.

Basically it's very similar to the standard variant with 1 fixed gun, only the ammo-box is further back - see below standard fixed gun drawing for comparison. The only difference will be that the standard ammo-box for the fixed gun was a two-partitioned (long, double sized) one, and the modified Mitchells with a great probability had the same boxes top and bottom (the single ammo boxes).

There might be an interior photo of the nose of a modified B-25C/D, but I can't find it.
Cheers!
P.S. O.K. here is a photo of a standard fixed nose gun (from a manual). Note the 5 single boxes on the shelf for the upper gun and the big one for the fixed one:

It's possible that the boxes on the floor are not in a straight line to the back - I really don't know but that's my best guess.
 
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Thanks Yves. I know from your earlier posts that there is no definitive info on this arrangement. With your input I should have enough to throw something together. I gotta wonder how the shell and link ejection worked with the floor mounted fixed gun. Did they just lay a bag on the floor?

BTW I suppose there would be a gunsight for the pilot?
 
Judging by the height of the barrel only, the gun is not exactly ON the floor. When I said it before, I was thinking of a bracket bolted to the floor holding the gun in place. Basically the second fixed gun on the late D and J-models was in the approx. same height so probably the case and link ejection were still possible with shorter "elbows" (don't know the name of that part).
I'm not sure about a gunsight for the single fixed gun. The G- and H-models had a gunsight (no bombardier!), not the D though. These were bombers, not strafers.
 

One less thing to worry about then. I'll leave the gunsight off.

Looking at your pics of the ammo boxes on the early installation with the low-mounted fixed gun, I'm wondering if there are not TWO sets of boxes? The stack seems quite tall and it seems to me that, below what you refer to as the steel rack, there might be another row of boxes, maybe for the fixed gun?

 
You might be quite right! I like this idea for a mod. I see now how the "cage" for the ammo-boxes has corners (maybe angles), verticle middle bar and a horizontal top edge. And then the top row of boxes is on top of the bottom one. Great! But it's also possible that the 2 rows of ammo-boxes were for the flexible gun only.
Let me check something....
Cheers!
P.S. This is probably the best I have (already shown in post #17):

I think I see the belt of the bottom gun going up and over that box on the side (doesn't look like ammo-box though), the belt of the flexible is hanging at the front...Maybe the belt of the fixed is really going back to the lower row of ammo-boxes, as you suggest. These parts are not in their final position on this photo though. Hard to say.
Yesterday I re-read (for 129-th time a passage from Norm Avery's book about the Sidi Ahmed-modification (even if we don't speak of this one per se): the guys in Africa didn't receive any blue prints from Warner Robins logistic centre for the initially modified planes. So they started producing their own drawings, copies, memos and photos (sic!) to keep the modifications of all planes exactly the same. I want to be the one to see this documentation!
 
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Yeah, I agree it doesn't look like an ammo box. Did the ammo always feed from the top of the box side or could it also come from the bottom? The reason I ask is because the top of the front face of the lower row of boxes in the photo I marked up is visible but I don't see a belt coming out of it like can be seen in the top row. If it can come out of the bottom as I've drawn then this might add to the plausibility of this layout.
 
IMHO it's top only. Never seen the reversed position.

Paul should know for sure - he's the technical guru.
This is my reason to think that the bottom boxes feed the top ones for the flexible gun only..
I found a photo of the empty "cage" for you reference:
 
Crimea_River said:
Neato. Calling Paul Micdrow to chime in on the above question of ammo belt coming out of the bottom of the box.
Click to expand...
In the meantime, looking at your sketch with the 2 rows of boxes. Do you agree that there is space for a third (bottom) row as well? There is a panel line in that same picture, slightly above the heads of the airmen. This is the level/plain where the curvature of the nose starts (below that level). One can fit 3 rows of boxes above that line.
I checked again a photo I previously posted (see post # 17) with the nose of an unmodified early B-25.


There are only 3 items in the back one must reposition (334, 335, 336) and after removing the small ammo-box storage that wall is empty, isn't it?
It's a pure speculation though...
 
Crimea_River said:
Neato. Calling Paul Micdrow to chime in on the above question of ammo belt coming out of the bottom of the box.
Click to expand...

Afternoon, sorry I had to verify a couple of things but I don't ever remember seeing ammo coming out of the bottom of an ammo can. Trying to drag ammo from the bottom of the can would have a lot of drag from the weight of the rounds on top if you dragged from the bottom and I would think cause more jamming.

With that said here are the ammo cans installed in the B-25J Sand Bar Mitchell along with a close up of the sticker on how the ammo going through the ammo cans.

 
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Here are some pictures of the ammo feed on the waist gunner positions. Note also that the ammo comes from the top there as well



Here would be for a J model tail, note also the ammo comes from top of can.



Side blisters same thing



H model B-25

 
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