The Martin Baltimore
remains one of the lesser known combat aircraft of the Second World War. It was
developed from the Martin Maryland which had been rejected for use by the US
military. With its very respectable performance, however, the Martin company had
little trouble finding other buyers. The British were the largest operator of
the Martin 187 Baltimore, as it was known, ordering over 1000 of the various
models by war's end. They ordered only 50 of the Mk I that I chose to model as
the improved Mk II and turreted Mk III were soon to be available. Azur's kit
comes with parts for the Mark I through Mk V though decals are included only for
the I & II. The difference between the Mk I and Mk II being mainly defensive
armament. The Mk I had only a single dorsal Vickers "K" gun and the Mk
II had the improved and slightly more lethal twin Vickers setup. Later models
were to incorporate first a Boulton Paul turret and finally a superior
Martin-built electrically operated turret with twin Browning
"fifties".
It was soon
discovered that while it could be vulnerable to fighters, the Baltimore was a
very capable aircraft that was generally liked by its crews once in the air...it
could be a handful on the ground due to its tendency to ground loop.
Click on
images below to see larger images
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The kit is very
nicely molded in gray plastic and the clear parts are well done and are injected
rather than vacuform. There are several resin parts included as well such as the
engines, wheels, control yokes and propellor hubs. The wheels come with the
wheel centers exposed but all the photos I found of Mk Is have the dust covers
still attached so I simply filed the wheel centers with putty and sanded them
smooth. I added some detail in the interior including a set of photo etched seat
belts for each crewmember station. I cut the wing leading edges to install
landing lights made from spare clear sprue, drilled out the holes for
the wing mounted guns and improved the pitot tube as the kit supplied
item is not accurate and was too thick. I painted the Baltimore with Polly Scale
Zinc Chromate green on the interior. For the exterior Modelmaster British Dark
Earth and Floquil British Middle Stone were used topside and Modelmaster RAF
Azur Blue was applied to the undersides. The model was pre and post shaded and
exhaust stains were added using a mix of 80% black and 20% rust. The kit decals
were used and they went on very well after the usual coat of Future. The build
took about three weeks and was very enjoyable with no major "issues".
I look forward to doing the Maryland sometime soon to complete this Martin family
tree!
Joe
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