Thanks for the interest, all.
I have an update on the landing gear bays (suuuper exciting, I know) and wings.
Parts count (counting lower wing)
Tamiya: 1
Eduard: 16
Special Hobby: 7
All three have the lower wing as a single part. Tamiya molded the gear bays into it (top). Eduard decided to make the gear bays complicated, but everything fits extrmely well, and theres a lot of depth and detail that the others just don't get. And it's a really easy assembly. Special Hobby left me scratching my head a bit. There are two boxy parts to house the legs, two end caps for those that have some rib detail, and two ribs, which don't close the outer section of where the wheels store.
Tamiya and Eduard both have the wheel well detail molded into the upper wings. Special Hobby seems to have phoned that part in on this one, and there is no detail. I don't really care, as mine sit on a shelf and never get seen from below, but others may want to add them in.
Parts count (Not counting lower wing or gear bay pieces)
Tamiya: 2
Eduard: 4 (+2 ailerons and weapons to come later)
Special Hobby: 6 (+2 ailerons and weapons to come later)
I got the wings together, and when laying them on top of each other, they are all almostexactly the same size. Eduard may be a bit thinner in the fuselage area, but it also goes together slightly differently at that join.
Tamiya's wings have the wintips molded to the top, and the lower wing fits flush. They went toether flawlessly, and even though the control surfaces are molded to the top and bottom, the trailing edges are nice and thin.
Eduard's top wing parts almost snapped into place. Fit was excellent, and the ailerons are molded separately, as are the wingtips. The flaps are top and bottom, but the top wing part has the 1mm-wide portion of the lower wing behind the flaps molded into it, and the trailing edge is nice and thin. The wingtips fit in with a tab, and it almost didn't need glue. (clipped wing variants can be made with this kit, using the clear plastic wingtips that give you a nice clear navigation light).
Special Hobby was significantly less polished on this part. The leading edges don't go together well at all, and there is almost an indentation instead of a rounded leading edge. This will require some putty. Also, the gun bay covers are molded separately, allowing different variants to be built from the same mold. This is fine if the parts fit, but these don't. I had to do a fair amount of trimming and test fitting before they got to where they'd fit, and then the curvature didn't match that well. I will try to hide it with putty, but this is probably going to show and look less polished. The wingtips aren't a perfect fit, either, and there's a step on one of the joins that needs cleanup. There is no locating tab, but the join itself is stepped, so it's easy to see where it goes.
The front scoops for all three are two-piece setups and all look to fit pretty well. I haven't added the Special Hobby one yet because I need to work on the wings a bit first.
Parts count (counting the covers and front scoop that will be fit later)
Tamiya: 5
Eduard: 16 (plus two PE hooks to come later just inside of the scoops)
Special Hobby: 8
Tamiya handles the scoops with a one-piece design for the small one and a three-piece design for the large one (two screens and a cover). I left the cover off for painting purposes. Perfect fit.
Eduard provides left and right sides and front and back screens for each scoop. The tops are two pieces, with separate actuator arms for open or closed positions (so, seven parts for each scoop). Fit was flawless.
Special hobby provided the small one as two parts, which took some time to get to fit correctly into the slot in the wing. It also leaves a seam that needs to be cleaned up. The larger scoop is two screens and a two-piece cover so you can position it open or clised.