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KORPAC 1:72
BRISTOL BEAUFIGHTER
(with resin extras, propagteam decal
collection)
Reviewer: Myself
(smakr@bigpond.com)
Kit Built and Review submitted:
13 September 2001
Aircraft:
Nicknamed by the Japanese as the "Whispering Death" on account
of it's quiet engines and in its deadly effectiveness to which it was employed,
the Bristol Beaufighter was one of the more effective ground attack weapons used
by the Allies against the Japanese in the Pacific region. The Beaufighter
was also deployed in Europe and served throughout the World War II conflict.
The Australian Beaufighter Mk.21 was originally intended to be based on the British Mk.VI but it actually emerged as a derivative of the Mk.X variant and was built in Australia from 1944 onwards, with some 364 being built. Australian Beaufighters had a similar rated engine installed in the Hercules XVIII with both its supercharger speeds fully operational. The Mk.21 also had some 144 major modifications compared with the British derivative of the Mk.X, being the TF.X. The more obvious modifications included the deletion of torpedo carrying gear, removal of the dorsal fin characteristic of later Beaufighters, AI radar and the thimble nose. The Mk.21 gained 0.50" Browning wing guns in place of the standard .303's on other models, the ability to carry a 2,000-lb bomb in place of the torpedo, a longer ranging .303" dorsal machine gun, pressed metal undercarriage doors and of course perhaps the most notable feature in the bulged nose just in front of the cockpit, housing the inclusion of the Sperry Autopilot (although this was actually infrequently fitted to the Mk.21).
Five days after the aircraft was first flown on 26 May 1944 the Mk.21 was formally accepted by the RAAF and production began out of the Fishermen's Bend factory. One of the few surviving Beaufighters Mk21's A8-324 is currently undergoing restoration to become the only airworthy Beaufighter in the world.
The Kit:
This was one of the first kits I picked up from NKR Models back in '97 when I was
getting back into modelling again and thank god I left it til now to build, I
might have been scared off for a longer spell otherwise! What attracted me to this kit
was the overall sale because it was a good price and included bonus decal
marking sheet and
resin extras and of course it is an Australian subject = sold!!!
Korpac are a Russian company that basically rebox Frog and/or KP/OEZ kits or so I have been told. I wasn't surprised then to find when I opened the ends of the box that a large plastic bag fall out with a collection of fairly crudely molded parts encrusted with more flash than a vacform factory! This is not one for the non-flash minded. Still, with the right blade to employ and appropriately skilled techniques - cleaning it up as you go along presented no problem other than a bit of extra time wasting.
Boxart of the Frog kit of this same mold
Inside the large plastic bag is a yellowed, aged and vastly unusable decal sheet, instructions in a number of different languages and four sprues of typical 60's like styrene molding in light grey and fairly brittle plastic (as you would expect from that era). Detail is not the kit's strongest qualities but nevertheless it is still adequate and the panel lines are finely raised. Wings were floating loosely in the bag and not attached to any sprue. There are about 40 parts all up - although the box claims 68 parts. Ejector pin marks and plenty of flash as already stated need removing/cleaning, and on first glance it's enough to put you off making it! There are four clear parts which are a bit distorted but are not too bad considering the age and quality of the styrene, and this caters for the canopy, observers window, Loop-antenna glazing and the belly section of the aircraft to affix the torpedo to. I thought this last bit was a bit weird and it will be painted of course later on.
The sale with this kit included additional resin parts (fully made cockpit tub and engine cowlings) and a Propagteam marking collection with decals for a number of different Beaufighter examples. So naturally, while reading this review you need to bear in mind that these two components are essentially aftermarket sets and not included as such in the original kit.
Instructions & Box:
Two double sided A4 sheets of paper that (although not yellowed) seem
pretty aged. The first page discusses brief history plus advice on how to
build the kit in several different languages. These instruction sheets
that have been translated into English from another language always
presents a light hearted read at times! A couple of
anecdotes:- "hold parts in place with scorch tape" - would that be
very hot, or very black tape? "Beafighter" - well it could have
been "Bee fighter"! :) "not appropriate for children
under 36 months due to presents of small parts" - but sir, the kit IS a
present! and so on. A dozen assembly steps follow that are
in the main quite straight forward to follow. Unfortunately there is no
painting guide for individual components nor is there a marking's/decal sketch
for any versions on the back of the sheet.
Bottom of the Korpac Box, showing the version that
the kit can produce plus Humbrol paint call outs - note it is up to the modeller
to match the colours against the shades on the artwork
The box itself provides a bit more assistance in this regard, the box sides contain four close up pics of the completed model and the bottom of the box includes a four-view diagram for markings of the only version produced by the kit, being A8-50, a 22 SQN RAAF Mk.21, Philippines 1944 in overall Humbrol 163 dark green (although the model pics look nothing like that colour!). Humbrol paint codes are quoted but no shades are given, so it up to the modeller to translate the colours stated to what is shown on the box. One glaring error is that it actually says "RAF" as you can see in the version description.
Construction:
The resin cockpit does not come with the kit and is an aftermarket extra
from Ron's Resin, for the Frog/Novo kit (assuming now that this reveals the
origins of this particular boxing!), and this was picked up as a special bonus
with the kit. The cockpit tub is of course very nice with molded
instrument panel and side console. I also added in the pilot figure and seat
(which was placed on a small bit of sprue to keep it off the floor!) that are
supplied in the kit. The interior of this Beaufighter should be a lighter
shade than Interior Green but nevertheless with a closed cockpit I decided to do
the easy thing and paint it interior green. The alignment rails for the floor
supplied in the kit plus ejector pin stubs need removal from the fuselage halves
in order to fit the cockpit tub. It is then a
matter of continual dry-test fitting the fuselage halves around the resin cockpit to position it correctly and even then some trimming was required (and
the tub was not in the perfect position). I finally coaxed it into an
acceptable position with superglue, and lots of fiddling around. The
console detail was picked out with dry-brushing techniques using a black wash and then
the knobs etc were highlighted with yellow, green, red, etc. as
appropriate.
For those interested, the kit supplies two figures (Pilot and rear gunner) and for the cockpit fit out, only a floor (stretching through the whole cabin), rear cabin wall, a bucket seat for each figure and a non-descript gun for the rear gunner (no sticks, instrument panels or anything else!) are provided. They might as well have not even bothered! Even the seats are essentially butt joined to the floor so the legs of the pilot and gunner hang over the edge of the floor. A small piece of stretched sprue just to elevate the seat (particularly in the resin cockpit) improves it a tad. Given that the resin cockpit tub was used, the floor supplied in the kit had to be cut just behind where it meets the cockpit. Precise measurements were used to cut carefully and trim with an excel blade and then delicate filing - so that I could still glue it to the back of the cockpit tub in addition to the side of the fuselage.
The fuselage halves needed cleaning of flash and ejector pin stubs before affixing together and even then some well placed rubber bands and bulldog clips were required during drying. It affixed okay but I was not overly impressed with the position of the cockpit being a touch too far back, but I will have to live with it I guess. Sanding was then required to smooth out all the join lines as well as each end of the big gap in the belly where one of the parts will go later, because the joins were not quite exactly matching.
The wings came next and the frustrating part again is cleaning flash, not because it is difficult but rather there is a fair bit of it and takes up time you could be spending elsewhere. The wings are upper and lower halves and mine were slightly warped so required bulldog clips together while they dried. More flash had to be removed with the excel blade from the underwing pylon attachment points as well as the locating hole in the fuselage where the wing locating lugs are placed into. So, best to dry fit test before the wing subassembly to ensure they will fit. The wing joins needed filler and then sanding to smooth them out while the holes in the underwing where the rocket rail pylons are attached had to be enlarged in order for the locating pins to fit.
Ejector pin stubs need to be removed from the insides of the tailplane halves otherwise of course they will not affix flush together. They are then added into the fuselage with dihedral effect which was a characteristic of Mk.21 Beaufighters. The instructions were not very helpful here because the unwary modeller will probably follow that the instructions appear to suggest they should be attached straight and level. Thankfully the parts are geared toward a dihedral placement so this should be spotted (just make sure you get them on the right side so they don't slant downward!). At the same time I added in the cockpit windows which fitted quite well in spite of a small gap at the front and then the gun was added to the rear gunner before the glazing was placed over him.
I painted the rocket railings aluminium and the rockets themselves black and then added this to the wings - but as already mentioned above, the locating holes needed enlargement. I also decided to add the small 500-lb bombs to the underwing, beside the rockets as depicted in the instructions. I am not fully sure whether this is accurate because I have yet to find a picture of the Mk.21 (and I have a few!) that depicts both bomb and rocket armament under the wing, I have only turned up rockets underwing and then these bombs side by side under the ventral belly section (where the torpedo would be carried). Anyhow, the small "V" pylons were encrusted with flash and removal was a bit difficult because they are small parts. Nevertheless, success was achieved and I actually superglued them both to the bombs and underwing to ensure they affixed well.
A ventral torpedo is included in the kit and attached to the belly section of the aircraft - but if you want to depict an accurate Mk.21 Beaufighter then leave the torpedo off as the torpedo carrying gear was deleted from this variant, and I did not include it with mine. However, if you do include it, you will need to drill a small hole in the top of the torpedo in order to attach the rear pylon and cut out the sections in the clear belly piece (or manipulate attachment with superglue in place of drilling holes). I decided to leave it off my example, there were no pictures in my reference library that matched the carrying of this particular torpedo. One thing I should point out though is that the Mk.21 did carry a 2,000-lb bomb on the ventral centreline pylon, which does not look much unlike a torpedo - perhaps the kit researchers got mixed up?!
The engine cowlings I used were also from the resin set and a vast improvement on the ones included in the kit. I don't think it would have mattered if they weren't, because there was so much flash on the kit's cowling that it would have been the biggest chore in removing it than from any of the other parts in the kit, especially around the collar! So in the end I couldn't even tell how inaccurate the kit cowling was, but I gather it must have been for resin parts to be made and offered. These were super glued and fit nicely. Unfortunately the resin parts do not have any scope for a moveable propeller blade (unless you drill out the shaft hole yourself) so I fixed the propellers on with superglue - just sanding the mating points for an optimum attachment. Of course also with the resin cowlings, the kit's exhaust stacks would not attach to the side so these were cut just where the actual exhaust stack itself started and then sanded at the mating point, and delicately super glued to the resin exhaust trunk accordingly.
The distinctive air scoops on top of the engines were crude and a very poor fit to the resin cowling. These had to be trimmed and sliced in order to somehow get it to at least mate to the top of the engine cowling in some form, and then filler was put around the gaps underneath to blend it into the cowling and upper wing surface, before sanding smooth. This expended the most effort in corrective action during the construction phase. Another point of note is that the pitot tube added underneath the port wing has no locating hole, so after consulting reference photos for correct placement it was simply affixed with superglue, again getting a sanding at the top so it mated nicely to the underwing surface.
The large belly section is actually a clear part (and thus clear of any flash!) and both the edges of the fuselage and the part itself benefited from sanding to mate them well. The rear end of the clear part has an overlapping locating tab which was removed before fitting the part into the belly. Now, if you were going to carry a ventral torpedo, then you will actually need to cut out the locating holes for the pylons before you attach it to the aircraft.
There is of course no wheel well detail. Again flash encumbers the undercarriage parts and would need removal before affixing to the aircraft. With a wheels up model I normally give the undercarriage a dry fit test but I had had enough of cleaning flash that I decided against it on this occasion and simply fitted the gear doors over the well, which surprisingly were a good fit and only needed a little bit of glue to fill in the joins. The tailwheel was added and again this fitted quite well, although the hole needed a slight enlargement and then I used superglue and let it dry before finishing off construction. Another small point to note is that the tailwheel for a wheels-up model is actually retracted into the rear of the fuselage, although I decided not to perform surgery on my example.
The final bits added were the upper aerial mast and the small glazing which is placed just behind the cockpit. Unfortunately the kit omits the round loop-like antennae that should in fact be placed inside this glazing, and you need to be wary about the attachment of the mast because it should slant backward - the instructions indicate it should be straight up, which is incorrect.
Construction was finally completed, and all in all I must say that the fit of the components was not necessarily that bad - it ranged from good to poor, the worst was the intake coolers above the resin cowlings. You just had to have your wits about you to ensure you dry fit tested everything first and make any corrective adjustments accordingly - by far the worst part about the construction was the general tedium of removing flash!
Versions & Painting:
The kit only produces a Mk.21 Beaufighter, mainly attributed to the fact
that the nose fairing is included and not a separate piece. Since the
decals in the kit were too aged and I had picked up the Propagteam marking
collection with the kit, I was going to depict a separate Mk.21 Beaufighter of
93 Sqn. The decal sheet provides for A8-124 Mk.21 wearing "Marge" nose script and a
Donald Duck on a skyrocket artwork on the
tailfin. This aircraft was used in the last operations of the War at
Labuan. The squadron was formed very late in the war and
dubbed the "Green Ghosts" mainly due to the fact that most of the
aircraft were simply foilage green in colour. This particular aircraft
suffered a landing accident in August 1945 at Labuan and was subsequently
converted for parts.
A8-124 "Marge" wears a simple overall Foilage Green which according to the kit is Humbrol 163 Dark Green, or according to the Propagteam sheet is FS 34108. This colour has been open to debate for ages about what is the closest match, I know some modelers will paint their kits Humbrol 30 Dark Green as a match. While my view is not to be classified as definitive, I do believe that Foilage Green is a slightly darker green than H30 and not quite as 'olive' as H163. I am not sure if the FS match equivalent is correct, and in other circles I have seen FS 34092 as being quoted, which works out to Humbrol 149 Dark Green, and this is what I believe is the closest approximation without any mixing. I suspect it really is somewhere between H30 and H149. All I can really suggest is to research and see what other opinions turn up.
Front/back pages of the Marking collection Profile
booklet I purchased with the kit
Painting the model was a little tedious. Because of the age of the plastic, kit, etc I first gave it a coat of Primer and then performed a few minor corrections to my construction, as a couple of imperfections came out. It still needed two coats of Humbrol 149 Dark Green before it looked right and the effect is quite good after adding a Gloss Cote for decal preparation. Rust was then applied to the exhaust stacks, black rockets on aluminium railings, olive coloured bombs and aluminium cowling rims and exhaust trunk.
For other Mk.21 Beaufighters an alternative scheme could be the target-tow markings used just after the war when many Mk.21's were converted to this role, and wore an overall Trainer Yellow scheme with two thick Black wraparound diagonal stripes along the fuselage and black nose fairing. Best to check reference material for this.
Decals:
For this aspect the kit decals were discarded and I used the Propagteam
Marking collection for the Frog Beaufighter kit. For the record the kit
decals provide only roundels, serial and fuselage code "DU-H" - did
Homer Simpson fly this plane??
The Propagteam Bristol Beaufighter marking collection decal sheet and accompanying profile sheet is excellent, with very good colour register and well informed information in the profile sheet. The front "artwork" shows the very RAAF example I produced diving and firing a rocket (see image above) and this was what I followed in my painting decisions above. The sheet shows that it includes markings for Mk.VIF USAAF, Mk.IC Pegasus (RAF), TF.X SEAC, Mk.VIF (RAF), TT.Mk 10 (Target-tug) RAF and a TF.X RAAF. The inside of the profile sheet provides three view marking/decal placement guidelines for each version. Colour names and FS numbers where possible, are the only source of knowing what colour to use. The back page provides colour artwork of sideview profiles of the other four versions (ie: minus the RAAF "Marge" on the front) for reference (again, see image above).
Now, you might have noticed above I referred to A8-124 "Marge" as a Beaufighter Mk.21, yet in the above paragraph when listing the decal inclusions it says "TF.X RAAF". This is obviously an error because the Mk.21 and TF.X aircraft are very different (even though the Mk.21 is based loosely on the TF.X version from the Mk.X). For a start RAAF TF.X aircraft had a thimble nose and a large dorsal spine, with a slightly smaller dorsal fin on some models. The short spiel inside the profile sheet on the aircraft does not mention it's actual variant type but does mention that it came from No.93 Sqn and wearing the unique "A8" preceding the serial number which differed from all other Beaufighters. This is not fully correct as other Beaufighter Sqns (no.31 and 92 for instance plus a couple of others) did have aircraft beginning with A8 which was applied to all Beaufighters delivered from June 1944. So, remember this is a Mk.21 version not a T.FX Beaufighter!
The superb looking Propagteam decal sheet purchased
with the kit
The decals for the "Marge" version I replicated is located at
4.
You will see from the decal sheet that you also get spares, for instance there are three A8-124 serial numbers, whereas you only require two - but believe it or not, you may very well need them! These were the classic "infamous" Propagteam decal type: very thin, very easy to destruct/break/ruin and very hard to move around on the model once you placed it on, so exact placement was a must and I found them very difficult to work with. My Donald Duck emblem ended up being aimed too high and there was just no way to move it once it was on the kit, lest it be torn. It wasn't too bad, so I simply put the one on the otherside to match. The decals look excellent on the finished model with no silvering once the extra gloss cote and a subsequent matt cote were applied, but I thought the blue should have been a touch darker. There were very small white edges bleeding through on the fin flashes and two of the large roundels that of course brought its quality down.
In short, the decals are best placed by an experienced Propagteam campaigner, as they were difficult to work with and I needed all the serial numbers (one of them on the model was still torn) and a couple of the various small stencil spares were needed too - and I generally have a lot of success with their decals given my vast experience in using them over the past few years.
Accuracy:
For a Mk.21 kit it is not too bad overall, with a number of minor
anomalies, probably best put down to the age and engineering of the kit, and
definitely not the definitive kit on
the market! The profile is quite convincing and it looks like a
Beaufighter Mk.21, which is the most important thing, but here is a quick run
down on the omissions and glitches of the kit that I noticed.
There is the omission of the 'loop-like antennae' which should be in the forward upper fuselage clear bubble and the main mast should be leaning aft, which is not really shown this in the instructions. The torpedo was not carried on the Mk.21's so should be left off and I raise the question on whether underwing 500-lb bombs were carried beside the rocket pods as depicted, although they were fitted to the centreline, side by side, in place of the torpedo (as was a 2,000-lb bomb which must have confused the kit researchers). There is also a dorsal 0.303" machine gun on the Mk.21 and there is no detail on the kit to show this, and the wing 0.50" cannons don't have the right accentuation to show they are there. The representation of the air scoops on top of the cowling are also crude. I used the resin engine cowlings and not the ones supplied in the kit, so by virtue of them being replacements one can assume the kit supplied cowlings are incorrect. The tailplanes are reasonable, but they omit the small finlet-like attachment at the rear - remember also that the the Mk.21 has a dihedral angle on the tailplanes whereas the instruction sheet suggests they should be level and straight, and that is wrong (of course, it is easy enough to correct this because the kit parts actually promote a dihedral attachment). The oil cooler vents in the wing are just crude little holes, and are not represented very well, including the omission of the "grill" plate. The ventral antenna mast is omitted from the kit. The tailwheel is fixed, so if you are representing a wheels-up model, it should actually be retracted. Finally, you could also argue that the representation of the Sperry Autopilot bulge in front of the cockpit on the nose is perhaps not exactly replicated accurately either.
For the dimensions, the Mk.21 is quoted from the official formerly classified RAAF Detail transcript of the first Mk.21 to be delivered as being 57'10" (17.63m) span and 41'4" (12.6m) length, which is the same dimensions as the Beaufighter I. In 1/72 this should measure down to 24.49cm and 17.5 cm respectively. The model measures out at approximately 24.7 and 17.8 respectively so it is pretty acceptable to scale but about half a foot out when converted to full scale.
Overall:
There are much better kits on the market (eg: Hasegawa) so it is
difficult to say that this kit should be given the recommended stamp of
approval. The most frustrating aspect of the project was working with all
the flash. The resin components are a must, if not for accuracy, then at
least to save you from the painstaking task of cutting out the flash from the
individual cowling collars on the engine! You get a fairly decent replication of the Mk.21
providing you put in a bit of effort and keep your reference material handy, and
is also enhanced by the resin components and better decals, and if you were
able to pick this kit up cheaply it would not be a bad thing! Given there
are better kits on the market and this suffers in that it is an old kit with old
engineering and little in the way of detailing, it would be best to say to look
elsewhere first before going for this kit. The fit overall wasn't too bad
(in spite of the lengthy construction notes above!) and typical of the older Frog kits, and only recommended in any form for the
intermediate modeller up. Personally, I was very pleased with the result and it went together better than expected
but did need the effort put in and so a Hasegawa version or similar will be what
I would be opting for next time.
Reference:
The primary reference material used in my project was Stuart
Wilson's excellent work in his Australian Airpower series; in this case
"Beaufort, Beaufighter and Mosquito in Australian Service" with around
70 pages of information devoted to the Beaufighter, including sketches, transcript
copies, photos and other general reference work following the
Beaufighter's history from Britain into RAAF service.
An RAAF Mk.21 Beaufighter in overall Foilage Green markings - note the
distinctive Sperry bulge on the nose
This actual aircraft was delivered to the RAAF in November 1944 and went MIA in Sarawak
area 1945
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