B-24D: FINALLY FINISHED!

Hey Brian, I'm sorry to say I've never built the kit and don't know very much about the B-24...however, I found this website which seems to have lots of information...if you scroll down to almost the end there's a section on the waist gunner (as well as every other position) and has some pictures of the interior in combat. These might help. It also says that many waist gunners placed small metal plates directly behind the guns to have some semblance of protection. Hope this helps.

EDIT: Seems like I forgot the link, sorry... http://freepages.family.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~webermd1/Liberator-Info.html

Here is what you want from the USAF Museum Virtual Cockpit Tour:

www.nmusafvirtualtour.com/.../B-24D%20Waist%20Gunner.html

One nice thing is that it has only been semi-restored as you can see by the faded zinc chromate.

richs, thanks for that link. That confirms what I thought, that the hatches were hinged. I built a 24 H a couple of years ago and had the hatches open, with one being opened by a crew man. So glad I got that bit right.

the waist windows were hinged at the top and were stowed in the open position on the inside of the a/c attaching to the backbone on the inside of the a/c, hope this helps

dave

Here's a photo of what I ended up doing with one of the hatch covers,  based on all the great info you folks passed along. Thanks again!

I decided to put up the rest of the photos I have of my Liberator on this post, rather than make a new post entirely. As some of you can probably tell, I'm hand painting this sucker. Between rent, student loan payments, and car payments, procuring a nice airbrush/compressor is kind of a dream at this point rather than a reality! Here's what I have so far:

The instructions say to glue the majority of the sub-assemblies into the side of the main fuselage before gluing the front/nose fuselage on. Well this creates a problem. So I ended up hanging most of the fuselage off of my table, then taped it on so it wouldn't fall off. By doing this, I ensured that I could lay both sides flat so they would line up correctly when I glued them together.

I'll post more photos when I get a chance to work on it again. Not sure when that will be, but I'll be sure to get some more shots up asap :)

I'm putting together that same kit as well.  My first foray into modelling since I was a teenager.  I had kits that fit better in the 70's unfortunately.  It is tedious and I'm close to setting it aside.

The 24 is coming along nicely.

Sofa, if its that bad, set it as hide and try something with a few less issues. You can always come back to it.

I didn't realise the Minicraft kits werte such a problem. Makes me kinda glad I went for Hasegawa.

Very nice.

The seatbelts look awesome!

Bomb rack?  I looked at those and said no way.  Bomb bay doors closed!!!

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Okay here's something that's a bit perplexing. I've cemented the two tail turret halves together, as you can see. I've glued one of the gun barrels to the front of the turret, and dry fitted the other. As you can see, the gun mounts that are molded into the clear plastic aren't lined up, which makes one barrel stick out longer than the other. So my question is this: is this a kit defect? Or were the tail guns on D model B-24's staggered like this? Hopefully someone out there knows the answer, I've checked some reference but haven't had any luck solving this riddle. I'd just like to know how best to approach this before I continue. Thanks! 

-Brian

Yes, the A-6 turret guns were staggered with the right side gun being the longer of the two.  This was the same even when they grafted the A-6 turret to the nose of D models.  Those converted were known as drop snoots.

This is my Great uncle Sgt. Glenn D. McCarty, posing at the right waist gun of his B-24D Jose Carioca.  Ploesti was NOT their first mission as was reported but their 7th mission.  The crew was lost, crashing into town ..... a sad story.  Anyway, check out the gun and window.

V/R

Dan

Its correct.  On early B-24D the guns were staggered like that.  I'll see if I can find a photo of one...

V/R

Dan

Found one April 43 training class

Thanks Rich and Dan for clearing that up! And thanks for the photos! Do you know where your great uncle's squadron flew out of? I'll see if I can't scan some of my grandpa's old photos of the war to show you.

Acft 42-40617  code N                         named "Jose Carioca"  93rd BG (H) 409th BS

Here they all are, stateside when they became an official combat crew.  This photo should be, I think, Tuscan AZ..........

I noticed after I posted this that you can see the side windows for the tunnel gunner just aft of the waist windows, low on the fuselage.  Yes, 42-40617 had a tunnel gun and not a turret.  On their crew, they rotated gun assignments because the tunnel gun sucked so bad......On mission plans, the waist gunners and tunnel gunner were rotated and at Ploesti, My Great Uncle was the tunnel gunner and not on the list for camera duties.  I can't imagine what those last 2 minutes were like at 25-50 foot altitude

I can't imagine either. Wow. They were brave guys to go on that mission! I never knew that they rotated the gunners either. I also never knew that there was a base in Tuscon! My grandfather was sent to Muroc before going over seas to Africa in 42'. Said the first week they were there someone found a bunch of rattlesnakes under the barracks they were staying in!

I should have taken a photo of the fuselage of the kit I'm working on, I used my rotary tool to drill/scribe out the tunnel gun windows, which I'll fill up with clear part cement. The kit also came with the tunnel gun window and frame for the .50 which is nice.

Very nice model and tribute to the B-24 crews. My grandfather flew B-24s in India

Thanks 7474! Here's another photo of the waist guns. I decided to be daring and detail the MG's. Last night I applied tiny lines of Testor's wood colored paint where the handles would be. I may end up making some ammo belts as well.

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Looking good, I cant wait to see more!

rocker286

...I may end up making some ammo belts as well...

Were the belts fed directly into the guns from boxes, or was there a trough system on this model?  If it was a trough, you might be able to use a cable tie to represent the trough with a belt feeding through it.

Awesome Idea....a bit of thinning for scale and "Presto"!  great Idea rocker286  

Thanks for the ideas and encouragement, guys! I ended up looking around online and found a website of a gentleman who took a ride on a 252534, a Liberator called "Witchcraft", and sure enough the waist gun ammo is box fed. Time to break out the sheet styrene!

www.histomin.com/.../HMJ%2015%20Photo%20Tour%20-%20B-24%20Liberator%20Flying%20Museum.htm

A better choice is to use the USAF Museum's B-24D, Strawberrry B, as a pattern as it is darn near original in paint and configuration to WW II specs:

www.nmusafvirtualtour.com/.../B-24D%20Waist%20Gunner.html

I was JUST looking at that site before i logged back on to the forum. You're right. And it looks less complicated to scratchbuild! Thanks again for sharing it again, richs26!

I glued the nose wheel on last night, used a pair of tweezers in a clamp to make sure the part went on straight.

Make sure your nose gear doors are folded inward into the fuselage, not outward like on G models and beyond (except for some J models in certain blocks).