These are the Trumpeter 1/200 B-25s, heavily modified. The first one (but actually the second one built) has a standard tail and nose guns, inspired by this image:
I didn't mean to give this one a solid (or painted over, as some early B-25s strafers) nose. The Trumpeter canopies have very deep frame lines, so I painted them silver and when dry... I just sanded the paint off with a 2000 grit stick. It did a good-enough-for-quarantene job. I liked the look of the solid forward nose and just added 4 cannon from sprue (0.4mm extruded ABS). I moved the top turret forward as well:
The second B-25 (first one built) was inspired by all the flush top B-25s
taidantomcat posted recently, in particular
Old Wombat's NA B-27A. This one took a lot of work and the canopy surgery wasn't as successful. I did follow Guy's advice on where to cut the back and that made it a lot easier.
I made the mistake of coating the canopy with Alclad clear, and it made it difficult to use the sanding trick to make the framework visible. I added a remote turret above and below, as well as a tail gun:
A minor issue was the national insignia. The Trumpeter kit has the markings for the Doolittle raid B-25s, but those markings were superseded in 1942. Luckily I found an ancient Techmod decal sheet in my stash. I bought the decals 16 years ago and they were old then. They were still good and went on without issue.
Here's a family shot, with a 1/200 figure from Herpa:
Despite
both planes having a small amount of nose weight and a rudimentary (but invisible...) cockpit, they are solid tail sitters!
